England- The Future

This  week I eagerly anticipated watching England U-19's taking on their Spanish counterparts in the Semi Final of this years Uefa European Championships (above), held in France. Ive been fortunate enough to of watched the majority of their matches during the tournament courtesy of Eurosport & to be totally honest ive been pretty impressed with whats been on show. The assumption that our nations young footballers are a million miles behind is simply not true. After a comfortable win against Austria & the narrowest of defeats against Holland, England worked tirelessly to produce a draw with host nation France to seal passage to the last 4.



Now I know the result, a demoralizing 3-1 loss to Spain & at times a lesson in the art of possession & movement off the ball is hard to take & after the 3 weeks we were subjected to in South Africa & somewhat predictably the vulchers are out. "We're just not technically good enough" will be said a million times & critics all over the country will be demanding we become more like the Dutch, Germans & every other European nation in the way we do things in teaching young children right the way to 19-21 year olds.

For me the problem why the majority of our national players & therfore our national team seem to hit the buffer at the ages between 19-21 is not so much an easy one to solve but definitely an obvious one. Our players simply see a rapid decline in game time at the top level once they hit these years & alarmingly the stats show not just this, but also how this is massively effecting the numbers coming through to our senior side compared with the other elite European nations.


Lets start from the bottom (well almost) & work our way up. In May of this year John Peacocks U-17's competed in the European championships & after remaining unbeaten throughout the group stages beat France to setup a Final with everybodys 2nd favourite footballing nation Spain. In a tightly contested game England came out victorious with a 2-1 win, (seen above celebrating). Now this is the first time England have won a major European or world tournament since 1993 (with the likes of Paul Scholes, Gary Neville, Robbie Fowler & Sol Campbell) but in no less than 5 of the last 10 tournaments at either U-17 or U-19 level, England have finished in the top 3. May I also add that getting this far is made all the tougher with teams having to come through qualifying to reach the finals, (only 8 teams) & then they are put into 'elite' groups that are much tougher than at senior level (Englands group in France this month consisted of France, Holland & Austria). In fact only 2 countries have done better than England in these age groups in the last 10 years, Spain & France.



No its what happens from 19 onwards that is the major problem & if it doesnt get addressed, it'll be easily another 40+ years untill we reach another senior final, let alone win one! As I said earlier the numbers from this point make pretty shocking reading. Since its inception in 1977  England have finished inside the top 3 teams at the world u 20 championships all of 1 time, this being in 1993 with the likes of Nicky Butt, Nick Barmby & David Unsworth involved. At u 21 level we've performed slightly better, having reached the final last year & winning it consecutivley way back in '82 & '84. Again though unfortunatley it gets worse. Looking at senior level we all know its been 44 long yeras since our '66 triumph at Wembley. Since then we have 1 semi final appearence to our name, terrible eh. Compare that with the 3 European semi finalists at this years World Cup. Spain, like us have a poor tournament pedigree having reached only 1 semi final in their history before this year  but somehow I think they may have turned that corner now! Holland have reached the semis on no less than 4 occasions, which include 3 final appearences & Germany have an incredible record when it comes to World Cup finals. With 10 appearences in the semi finals & 3 time winners, only the great Brazilians have a more impressive World Cup Cv.

So how does all this link in with our Youth structure compared to that of our European rivals. At this years tournament in South Africa, England had a total of just 6 players 26 or under. 2 of those, Tottenhams Michael Dawson & Man Citys Joe Hart, never played a single minute. Englands victors, Germany had no less than 18 players in the same age bracket out of a squad of 23. Eventual winners Spain weighed in with 13 & runners up Holland still had almost double our quota at 11. People may blame Fabio Capello for this & point to the likes of Tom Huddlestone, Adam Johnson, &Theo Walcott as potential internationals but other than that there are very few young English players playing regularly in the premier league. Of the current crop of English u 21's (squad picked by Stuart Pearce in March 2010) the total number of senior appearences at premier league clubs added up to 609. Of that, over half this number was covered by just 3 players, (Micah Richards, Boltons Fabrice Muamba & Sunderlands Lee Cattermole). Compare that to Spains u 21's & the total number is a third higher at 811. Here lies the problem.


So whats the solution? For starters the very fact that both our top division & our national game organisation are 2 different bodies surely doesnt help to enhance the chances given to our younger players. None of the other of the elite European countries have this setup therefore it is seen as vital that the national team has every chance to be successful. The biggest & by far most influential factor though is surely the lack of game time at club level due to the huge influx of foreign players flooding our leagues. Once upon a time only the worlds best foreign stars, you're Zola's, Bergkamp's & Cantona's would be prized to our shores & without doubt this not only made our league the best in the business, the young english talent at these clubs would benefit from these guys attitude, talent & experience (just ask David Beckham & he credits Cantona with much of the reason behind his desire to improve on his own delivery of the ball by staying back for extra training). Now this is simply not the case. Squads are being saturated with mediocre foreigners, players that are not as good in many cases as our own. What makes it worse is that even the lower football league clubs are doing the same, so once upon a time the championship & leagues 1 & 2 were perfect places to send you're youngsters out to gain experience,( Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard & David Beckham will lay testament to this) it isn't the case anymore. 

One final stat that for me is the most alarming of all is this, so far this summer the signings premier league clubs have made are an astonishing 79% foreign, incredible! To be fair the premier league are trying in introducing this season the 8 homegrown player rule for each 25 man squad but only time will tell if this has a major positive effect. One things for sure, both the premier league, the Fa & the premier league clubs have a huge, equal responsibility to ensure that not just in the next 10 years we have an England team to be proud of but more importantly its not another 44 years untill our next trophy. At this rate who knows!