17 Jul 2010

Where does English Football go from here

Where does English Football go from here?

England’s poor performance at the World Cup, compared with Spain and Germany’s performances have posed a whole host of serious questions for the game in England.

How can it be that we were so poor and Germany and Spain, countries of similar size and football background were so good?

Who actually runs the game in England? Who makes the key decisions about the future of our game. What is the strategic thinking.  Where is the funding?

The simple , yet stunningly effective style of Spain, to coach and encourage players to pass the ball through the thirds of the pitch, with quality passing, great support and patience, allied with a great team and work ethic defensively is surely something that we should look to embrace. It runs like a steel rod through all of Spanish football. Because the Spanish Football Association defined, encouraged and supported this style and evolvement of football many years ago. All the Spanish National Teams play this way. All young Spanish players are taught this way. Spain have over 20,000 UEFA “B” qualified coaches, all working at Grassroots level and all singing off the same song sheet.

For many years the traditional qualities of English Football, of hard work, competitiveness and desire have been respected, but not feared by the opposition. England have just over 500 UEFA “B” qualified coaches and a National Association that can pay the Head Coach over £6million per year, but struggle to decide whether to serve tea, coffee or both at their committee meetings!