The England Football Team Thread

[Reivax ™]

Good article from the daily mail

England departed the World Cup beaten by the oldest trick in the book. That is the truth we have yet to face in all this big talk of winter breaks and quotas of foreign players.

The default position is to advocate grandiose reform of the professional game because it stops us confronting a significant failing that is harder to correct: when it comes to football, English players are not very bright.

Good, yes; clever, no. Talented, yes; insightful, no. Skilful, yes; ruminative, no. Whenever England exit a major tournament there is always the false allegation that the players are overrated: it is not true. They are, however, easily out-thought. That is what happened at Bloemfontein on Sunday. Germany thought about the game and England did not. Miroslav Klose said he knew his team-mates had the beating of England within six minutes.

oachim Low, Germany's manager, explained after the game that the plan was to drag John Terry out of position. He did not spell out that he had identified Terry as England's best defender and therefore the man that had to be distracted if the trick was to work, but that was plainly his scheme. If he could get Terry out of the way that would leave his striker one on one against Matthew Upson.

If this sounds simplistic in concept, don't worry, it is. Low's gambit was to install Mesut Ozil as a deep forward, operating between the banks of four in England's midfield and defence. This then gave Terry a choice, Should he remain in place at the back and leave Ozil free, or step in to mark him, leaving Upson alone with Klose?

Fiendish, eh? Real moustache-twirling mayhem. Hardly. Smart coaches have been baiting opposition central defenders to make this judgement since Nandor Hidegkuti operated as a deeplying centre forward for the great Hungary team of the 1950s.

It is a ticklish problem, yes, but not without its solution. The deep striker is swept up by the holding midfielder and the central defenders remain intact behind him, two against one.

The very best in this position, such as Zinedine Zidane or Lionel Messi, are still adept at finding space and can be devastating unless closely guarded, but Ozil is not at that level. Not yet.

The problem for England was that nobody thought to do the basics. Gareth Barry left Ozil for Terry to mark and the rest is history, as were England. Germany's first goal came straight out of a tactical manual entitled Suicidal Defensive Strategies Vol 1 (aka How to Get Stuffed).

England did not lose to Germany because they couldn't play; they lost because they couldn't think straight. They went chasing a single goal deficit in the second half as if they needed to score eight, and were left exposed; but the biggest gap was an intellectual one.

This is not about being exam smart, by the way; it is no treatise on our education system. Yes, it is very impressive to visit the German training camp and hear Philipp Lahm take questions in English with no quibble over translation, but there are plenty of bright guys knocking about the England dressing-room, too, and plenty of GCSE qualifications.

Everybody knows that Lampard got Latin. Big deal. England did not fail against Germany because there are not enough linguists in the squad, nobody knew the timeline of the Protestant Reformation or could get to grips with calculus.

They do not think about football enough, that is the issue here. They are game stupid, match stupid, pitch stupid. They become confused by the simplest concepts; a counter-attack or a deep-lying forward. Simultaneous equations, this ain't.

The familiar cry can now be heard. We put these players on a pedestal in the Premier League, but when it comes to playing against the very best, they just aren't good enough.

Not true. The talent in the Premier League makes it a world class competition, in its biggest games as ferociously challenging as the World Cup. Play Liverpool and you will face, among others, Spain striker Fernando Torres, Argentina captain Javier Mascherano, and Holland wide forward Dirk Kuyt.

There are 736 players at this World Cup and 106 play in the Premier League, a greater percentage than any other domestic league. There were only six countries in South Africa - Italy Japan, Slovenia, North Korea, Uruguay and Germany - without at least one Premier League player, although Chelsea would have laid claim to Michael Ballack, the Germany captain, had he not been injured, and Robert Koren, captain of Slovenia, spent the last season winning promotion to the Premier League with West Bromwich, but was released in the summer.

Only a single Premier League club, newly promoted Blackpool, are not represented. Chelsea have 14 players here, Liverpool 12, Arsenal 11, Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham and Everton have nine.

So the achievements of English players are significant, the challenges real and their talent acknowledged deservedly.

Lampard does consistently score more than 20 goals each season for Chelsea. He did make more goals than any other Premier League player in the last campaign (James Milner was third in the assists table, behind Cesc Fabregas, Aaron Lennon was sixth).

Wayne Rooney was on course to outscore Cristiano Ronaldo's 42 goals in one season for Manchester United until injury intervened. Steven Gerrard did have more influence on Liverpool's Champions League victory in 2005 and FA Cup final win in 2006 than any other player on the pitch. Take him away and they would have lost both matches. Nobody is making this stuff up.

What goes wrong, when these players stride out into the international arena, is that the brain of the operation is absent. Lampard remains Lampard, but he no longer has the guy from France, Ghana or Nigeria to make his talent shine.

Claude Makelele would have known what to do with Ozil on Sunday, so too Michael Essien. These players have the selflessness and the football intellect to stick to a job that, done well, nobody notices.

When Chelsea played Barcelona at Stamford Bridge in 2006, I had a seat at pitch level, where the speed and intensity of the play was frightening. Every midfield player had trouble that night, bar two.

For Barcelona, Deco was exceptional, making time when there was none; and for Chelsea, Makelele had the quickest feet. No sooner had the ball arrived, it had been moved on; if he was a boxer no opponent would have laid a glove on him.

Players say the same of Xavi now. Yet Makelele, this diamond of a footballer, spent most weeks on sentry duty, while Lampard racked up the goals and the glory. Mascherano performs the same duty for Gerrard at Liverpool. His worth to his country is so great that his manager, Diego Maradona, has described Argentina as 'Mascherano and 10 others', no faint praise when Messi is casually bundled with the rest.

Yet what is England's greatest problem? Discipline: persuading a player, specifically Barry against Germany, to think about the collective good rather than his individual desire.

Barry is not a holding midfield player with Manchester City because another little foreign brain box, Nigel de Jong, plays that role. Barry gets up and back, as Lampard and Gerrard do for their clubs, although with considerably less impact as a single goal for City since September indicates.

So when it comes to the national team, Capello does not need a lite version of his two attacking midfielders, he needs one with passing ability and the defensive instinct to mind the shop. Yet what did Low say when reviewing Germany's win? 'We knew all the English midfield go up to support the forwards and there would be space behind.'

In other words, he knew Barry would not think hard enough about where Ozil was playing, and he could then drag Terry out of position. It would not have happened the other way around. Why do you think Rooney found space so hard to come by?

As a group, England's players are not football literate. Is it a lack of interest in the game, is it laziness, is it arrogance? Gerrard, for instance, has spent most of his career coveting a role in central midfield that managers will not give him because he deserts the position. Why, then, will he not make the adjustments to his play so that both sides get what they want?

It reminds of the old Jewish joke about the man who goes to the synagogue each morning and prays to win the lottery. This goes on for weeks, his pleas to the Almighty growing ever more desperate. Finally, one day, the clouds part and a voice from above booms: 'Manny, meet me halfway. Buy a ticket.'

We should not be surprised. Think back to October 2006 when England lost to Croatia in Zagreb. Steve McClaren, England's manager, never recovered from asking his team to play three at the back, even though neither goal had much to do with the defensive formation. English players cannot adapt to such alien tactical changes, we are told, and the system is challenging for central defenders.

What about the rest of them, though. Is it really so baffling to Gary Neville and Ashley Cole to do everything they would traditionally do as a full back, but to do it 15 yards farther up the field? Do you think this task would be beyond Lahm, who plays at left or right back for Germany as it is, if Low requested it?

Take Maicon, of Brazil, who plays in an entirely different way for his club side, Inter Milan, to his country. Jose Mourinho, his former club coach, is devoted to a flat back four, but Brazil's methods have long been a variation of 3-5-2.

Brazil start with a back four and two guarding midfield players, but when they attack, one of the holding players steps backward into the middle of defence, making three, while the full backs operate like wingers. One imagines an English mind would explode; Maicon - and every Brazilian full back - just gets on with it.

There is no easy answer to this. England may soon possess a thinking holding midfield player if Jack Rodwell's progress at Everton continues, but Fabio Capello, the England manager, did not even mention Rodwell on Monday in his list of players for the immediate future.

Instead we continue to marvel at Germany's ability to play between England's straight lines and never realise that their ability is intellectual, not technical.

Watch Messi in action for Argentina, and see those moments when he just stops and works out where he needs to be next. With the ball at his feet he is inspired, entirely natural. The rest of the time he is calculating, plotting, working it out.

It is one of football's great red herrings that the best players perform without even having to think about it. You do have to think about it. You always have to think about it. Otherwise you end up like England.

http://www.dailymail...-dangerous.html

[Young £]

coaches stat is due to how stupidly expensive it is over here

[Black Ant]

Hart

Dawson

Wilshere

Rodwell

A.Johnson

Bent

i can get behind these lot.

not sure about Richards.

[Michel Kane]

coaches stat is due to how stupidly expensove it is over here

UEFA B License's only cost £500.

UEFA A license must not cost that much IMO.

UEFA Pro probably a whole different ting. But I doubt cost is that much of a deterrent the way you're making it out.

[Reivax ™]

I think England should have two holding players one to win the ball and the other to keep it then have 3 attacking midfielders with one striker upfront.

i think cattermole should be brought in as back up to hargreaves for the ball winning role.

i hope whatever happens with the manager there is a major clear out.

[Young £]

coaches stat is due to how stupidly expensove it is over here

UEFA B License's only cost £500.

UEFA A license must not cost that much IMO.

UEFA Pro probably a whole different ting. But I doubt cost is that much of a deterrent the way you're making it out.

no

compared to the other countries, it is a big difference

i'll get the figures when i get in

[Michel Kane]

Cool

[Agony]

Gary Neville has hit out at the English Football Association for taking two weeks to assess the future of manager Fabio Capello. Neville writes in his Times column: "England are out of the World Cup and, surprise, surprise, we are talking about sacking the manager. Again. But if that was a reaction I expected from some fans and pundits, I was disappointed — although not exactly shocked — to hear wavering coming out of the FA. One minute these guys are talking about Capello as world class, now they need a fortnight to decide if he is the man for them after all. What are they waiting for — to see what’s in the newspapers? Where is the backbone?"

[Wavant]

LOL

Management is him.

Keane Mk2

[Mr Q]

Problem solved, all we have to do to go far in the World Cup is be nicer to Iran..

http://fourfourtwo.com/news/worldcup2010/58949/default.aspx

TEHRAN - The elimination of England, France and the United States in the early stages of the World Cup was a just reward for their ill-treatment of Iran, its foreign minister said on Tuesday.

Iran did not qualify for the tournament in South Africa but fans have been glued to their televisions nonetheless in a country where football is the number one sport.

While the United States - often referred to by Iran's leaders as "the great Satan" - were never a favourite at the tournament, the elimination of England and France before the quarter-finals was a crushing blow to their fans back home.

England and the U.S. both lost in second round matches while France and world champions Italy fell in the opening group stage.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said they had all got what they deserved after they backed a new round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme which the West fears may be aimed at making a bomb, something Tehran denies.

"Whatever we witness today in the international political arena has been identically manifested in the 19th tournament of the World Cup," Mottaki was quoted as saying by Iran's official news agency IRNA.

"Those countries which played a key role in imposing new sanctions against Iran - like England, America and France - were all eliminated in the preliminary phases," he said.

Brazil, which voted against the sanctions, is one of the favourites to win having impressively reached the last eight with a crushing 3-0 victory over Chile on Monday.

Iran played at the last World Cup finals in Germany four years ago but finished bottom of their qualifying group.

In 1998, they famously beat the United States 2-1 although neither side went through to the next round.

[Gunner]

Germany ace Thomas Muller believes England had too many alpha males in their failed World Cup bid.

Fabio Capello's side went into Sunday's Bloemfontein clash as favourites but were outplayed in their 4-1 defeat to Joachim Low's team.

Muller scored the decisive third and fourth goals against the Three Lions and believes a number of failings contributed to their defeat.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of Saturday's quarter-final clash with Argentina,Muller said: "England have so many top stars in their squad, they'll always be a part and parcel of the international football scene.

"There are so many alpha males in the squad and it is difficult to have so many alpha males and roll in the same direction but you don't only need chiefs, you also need Indians, those willing to do hard work - that maybe a problem with England that players aren't mentally prepared to go that extra mile for their team."

Raise standard

As regards Capello's hint that he will be

bringing in some of the youngsters in future, Muller added: "I don't know how many youngsters England have got to put through but if there are any they will certainly raise the standard of the team.

"You need to have a team that plays as a team and maybe younger players are more subservient and they do what they are required to do."

Meanwhile, Germany boss Low has revealed how they decided to target John Terryamong others before the game as they worked tactically on how best to beat England.

His side have also seen weaknesses in the Argentinean team as well ahead of Saturday's clash with Diego Maradona's outfit.

Low said: "It is difficult to find weaknesses in Argentina - they have so many great players. They are one of my favourites to win the World Cup and have comfortably won four matches.

Outstanding

"They have loads of experience, outstanding attacking players, not just (Lionel) Messi but a string of other players always able to score a goal.

"Having said that, we have found vulnerabilities but this isn't the place or time to address them.

"Against England we managed to put into practice a number of things we had hoped to implement - for example in the way we drew John Terry out from defence.

"There are similar vulnerabilities with Argentina and we will work on how we draw them out in training."

[Captain Planet]

Sending

[MrJibbles]

Fabio Capello looks set to survive as England head coach despite the team's World Cup failure with Football Association chiefs instead being urged to invest in a long-term plan for success.

Sir Dave Richards, the Premier League chairman who also heads the new 'Club England', will spend the next couple of weeks taking stock of the situation before making a recommendation to the FA board.

The chances of Capello being sacked look to be receding by the day however. It is understood that Sir Trevor Brooking, the FA's director of football development and a key figure in the process, will recommend that Capello is kept on for the rest of his contract until 2012.

Brooking's view is that replacing him with another manager will not solve the underlying problem with English football, and a number of FA board and international committee members are also of the same opinion.

At the FA's post mortem of the World Cup fiasco, Brooking will argue for a properly-funded long-term masterplan to bring through young players, starting by increasing the number of coaches at youth level.

Capello's 10 years' experience working at AC Milan's academy during the 1980s also adds weight to the argument for him to stay as he could have a major input into the future development of young players.

Some FA figures believe the £9million that would be saved by not firing Capello and employing a replacement on a similar salary level would be a good start in terms of funding youth development.

The remaining two years on Capello's contract would also give Stuart Pearce more experience both at under-21 level and as the Italian's assistant, and grooming him to be a ready-made replacement in 2012.

The FA's post mortem will also include a big debate on the future of youth football.

The Professional Game Youth Development Group, set up in 2008 following a review by Richard Lewis and headed by Howard Wilkinson, was disbanded after just one year by the Football League and Premier League.

Amazingly, since then there has been no decision-making body in control of youth development in English football.

It would be almost impossible to impose the much-touted Bundesliga model on Premier League clubs, but it will be made clear to FA chiefs how Germany reacted to their failure at Euro 2000 by completely shaking up their youth development system, and how they have reaped the rewards with their young team at this World Cup.

Richard Caborn, the former sports minister who forced through the Burns review of the FA, said sacking Capello would solve nothing.

Caborn told Press Association Sport: "We can't just deal with the symptoms, we have to get to the root of the problem.

"English football and the Premier League have to come together to develop young English players.

"Fabio Capello is one of the best coaches in the world and if the FA replace him then it is just papering over the cracks and the same problem will come up again."

[djbmc]

From my facebook:

Courts held a further 2 week gagging order on steve gerrards privatelife,turns out he got his wifes sister pregnant (not a 16 year old )Will hit the newspaper in 14 days, the judge held the gagging order toprotect FA while they decide on capello, and the future of Englishfooty..

John terry and the england boys all know about it and JT had a argumentwith capello because gerrard got to keep the captains armband. the tension inthe camp was down to JT and half the team saying gerrard was a disgrace andthe other half of the squad backing gerrard..The press conference wasrelated to the tension and JT wanted Gerrard exposed - they hate each other..

[HangTheDJ]

Capello's been very cute IMO. Blatantly used the interest from Inter to get that clause removed.

Hype and speculation aside, lets be real, there is quite clearly something fundamentally wrong with the England squad. They're not bonding, be it too many egos or just generally not getting on.

We showed in qualification we're a very good side. Just when they've spent prolonged periods together they've been shite.

Someone, probably Capello, needs to identify what the problem is and neutralise it. If that means dropping a Terry, Gerrard or even a Rooney then so be it.

[TF S4DK]

Haven't read this topic, nor was I online during the game.

I thought Barry was decent, but Barry is worse than Denilson.

Defoe is going to struggle in the Champions League next season.

Said before England would not be able to handle Germany's running and movement (nor would they have Ghana's thats the joke) and before the tournament that Rooney would get marked out of games and Engand would be no threat without Walcott/Lennon's pace. Told you Capello taking a old squad was going to f*ck his life up too. Ha!

[nem kid]

aint rooney been banging prostitutes and coleen found out, he was on the phone begging her not 2 leave him

[Gunner]

This thread should be sent to the FA, newspapers etc, anyone who believe they are having an intellectual discussion on the state of English football.

[Michel Kane]

It's mad.

There's been no decision-making body on youth development in English football in 2 years?

Says something about priorities.

[TF S4DK]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3035277/England-teams-booze-up-after-World-Cup-thrashing.html

The pic is too greazy

Lennon >>>>>>>>>>>>>

These man fully dont give a f*ck.

/

[The Somalian]

them man r nang making enough peas and takig the natinal team as nething

[n/a]

lennon is a prick, end of

[TF S4DK]

[MrJibbles]

That picture kicked up a huge up roar on certain radio stations this morning.

You'd think after what happened in the World Cup they would want some good PR but no chance, isn't Ledley a bit silly taking the picture and sending it around?