Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Will England Football Face More Home-Grown Failure?

If the March 22 game against Germany was anything to go by then the future for England’s football team promises to be… much the same as the past. England can batter a team of farmers , as they did against Lithuania four days after the Germany match, but against the top sides they remain a bunch of hopeful, intelligent footballers burdened with a single star above the team crest denoting just one World Cup success.

englandThe loss to Germany saw Lukas Podolski given a great send-off by his country. You would never see that from England fans, as Wayne Rooney would not get a grateful farewell from fans, commentators or pundits. We would rather spend the time discussing why he never turned up at a World Cup or Euro tournament.

For England fans, the future is doomed to be the same as the past because our roots are still founded in big names and big brands. The English FA does not really care about grassroots football in the UK. Every so often there is a bit of noise in the media about the promising development of a young player, which is quickly quashed by pundits who pile pressure on any young England hopeful (take Sterling, Rashford and Alli as examples). Meanwhile Gareth Southgate spends his time praising the return of 34-year-old Jermain Defoe. Am I the only one who thinks we’re going backwards instead of forwards at this point?

The Germany and Lithuania games were evidence that things will not be changing any time soon. Both matches were poor. The formation was poor. Nobody really looked like they wanted to play in the middle of the week, in the middle of a great league season finale but why would they? Many of England’s youngest players are being paid more than £25k a week, so why bother turning up to midweek friendlies?

Take a look at Dele Alli. He had one strong season and suddenly Spurs were offering him £60k a week at the age of 20. (Bear in mind that he was part of the Spurs squad that bottled it last year.)

Raheem Sterling is another example: one wonderful season in a losing team and the following season he is signed for £50 million by Manchester City. It’s too much too soon.

In Germany, Spain or Italy, if you’re going to be a top player, you have to prove it at club level, win trophies, dominate games, show discipline in your game and then maybe one of the elite clubs will come for you.

English players are not good enough. That has been a fact since 1966. We had the golden boys of the 1990’s in Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, David Beckham, Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand and so on.

That didn’t work either. Were some members of the golden era overrated too? Absolutely. Right now, the England squad doesn’t have that star power or a frightening big name and the scary reality is that if we didn’t win anything back then how could we win anything now?

England’s players, clubs and national team are all massively overrated.

Young players who don’t win trophies are treated like champions who have been winning trophies for a decade. The development of home-grown talent will continue to be slow or non-existent until that is fixed.

by Nubaid Haroon Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCtMg-fWm7awR41vM1GhVOkA  Twitter: twitter.com/rambofyi

The post Will England Football Face More Home-Grown Failure? appeared first on Felix Magazine.

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