The Football.....

[RedRider]

Btw,

Zidane said the best player he has played against is Paul Scholes.

The quote I found was reported as: ' He was an extremely tough opponent to play against'...'You rarely come across the complete footballer, but Scholes is as close to it as you can get.'
Sadly, I don't think Zidane got the chance to play against Gerrard* but he did say: '"Is he the best in the world? He might not get the attention of Messi and Ronaldo but I think he just might be."
Not a donkey then, according to Zizou.
*EDIT I was wrong, he did at Euro 2004.

 

[User482]

Still doesnt change the fact that almost anywhere you go in Europe if the schooling is done for the day you will see kids kicking a ball about. Wherever I've been it's a sure bet that if you stray from the tourist traps you will see kids and a football.
Our philosophy is wrong, we dont mind other peoples kids as long as we cant hear them playing.. hence the " no ball games " signs put up largely through the intolerance of neighbours. What do the kids do instead ? we reap what we sew. In mainland Europe its so different.

I disagree completely. There's no shortage of kids playing football after school here, and I can't say I've noticed and great contrast with the rest of Europe. No, the problem, as GregCollins notes, is much more to do with culture, poor quality training and tactics, which starts at youth level.

 

[swee'pea99]

At a rough calculation, Spain has 20 times more coaches per head of the population. Then again, Italy has barely double, and they still make us look like headless chickens...

 

[GrumpyGregry]

I disagree completely. There's no shortage of kids playing football after school here, and I can't say I've noticed and great contrast with the rest of Europe. No, the problem, as GregCollins notes, is much more to do with culture, poor quality training and tactics, which starts at youth level.

I would urge anyone who wants to understand the malaise at the heart of English International football to study the comments of Messrs Gerrard and Hodgson made to the press after our exit. They don't want to address quality only emotion.

My analysis? Our players cannot execute, or even remember, their game plan, overweight their passes, cannot control the ball immediately when they receive it, taking 1.5 - 2 touches to do so, cannot retain possession, and cannot dispossess the opposition who, at this level, (1/4's onwards) are technically superior as individuals and as a team. Too many England players fail the basic test of "would he get picked by them if he was an (insert nationality of choice here)"

The only satisfaction I take from the tournament is that the English media knew all this as the lads set off and so didn't hype the **** out of them beforehand. For once.

 

[marinyork]

A possible explanation as to why England are not as good as they think they ought to be, which has nothing to do with sofa's and health and safety....

UEFA A & PRO COACHES
SPAIN -------------------- 14,860
GERMANY ---------------- 6,570
FRANCE ------------------- 2,588
ITALY ----------------------- 1,810
NETH'NDS ----------------- 1,137
ENGLAND ----------------- 1,010
In England football is all about spirit and heart and 'wanting it' whilst in Europe it appears to be about science, tactics and skills coaching.

( Source here )

Interesting article, but true of other sports surely? One of the problems we have in this country is we often have small pockets of excellent facilities that tends to lead people to exaggerate how widespread they are (like round here - Institute of Sport etc). By coincidence someone at work has trained as a coach, but decided that despite being supposedly well placed geographically to take advantage of it that he's offski to do good in the world in a very different sphere.

 

[Inertia]

Our players cannot execute, or even remember, their game plan, overweight their passes, cannot control the ball immediately when they receive it, taking 1.5 - 2 touches to do so.

This is my bugbear, our players at the highest level cant even pass a ball and control it consistently. Not just over hitting, under hitting them also which allows opposition players to just step up and take the ball. You have to make the opposition work to get the ball, to just give it away is criminal.

 

[marinyork]

I would urge anyone who wants to understand the malaise at the heart of English International football to study the comments of Messrs Gerrard and Hodgson made to the press after our exit. They don't want to address quality only emotion.

My analysis? Our players cannot execute, or even remember, their game plan, overweight their passes, cannot control the ball immediately when they receive it, taking 1.5 - 2 touches to do so, cannot retain possession, and cannot dispossess the opposition who, at this level, (1/4's onwards) are technically superior as individuals and as a team. Too many England players fail the basic test of "would he get picked by them if he was an (insert nationality of choice here)"

The only satisfaction I take from the tournament is that the English media knew all this as the lads set off and so didn't hype the **** out of them beforehand. For once.

They did remember the game plan against Italy and pass reasonably well, unfortunately it was for roughly about 20 minutes ... of over 2 hours of play. Despite still very low possession and passess/successful passes, but doing more with the ball as opposed to quasi-identical stats where nothing was happening. This period of play didn't seem to make it into many analyses as it was pretty small. I actually think it reinforces your comments as the remembering the game plan and executing play did go out of the window after that. I did think this period was a positive and rare glimpse of what could be (within the severe limitations others have said above). I think this is a glimpse - we've all seen the other kind of play from England in tournament qualifiers where they have bumbled along with exactly this sort of play playing very deep, unable to pass, looking tired for pretty much 90 minutes against some minnow side and it hasn't 'mattered' as we'll play better in the tournament (we haven't of course) and then got beaten (last world cup classic example).

I'm really looking forward to the next euros when there will be 24 instead of 16 teams. This has been a good tournament and the only 0-0 draw so far was that match. I was underwhelmed with the 2010 world cup (some other people on here seemed to think this was simply because I was writing about England - a bit of a bizarre comment when I worked out based on what they said in the past I actually may have watched more games than them to be able to venture an opinion). It will enrich the tournament a lot and give experience to a lot of smaller teams and raise the bar. This will may make it more difficult overall for England/Scotland/Wales/Northern Ireland/ROI because although they may qualify more often, they will also get their arses cained by smaller sides more often.

 

[Ajay]

The only satisfaction I take from the tournament is that the English media knew all this as the lads set off and so didn't hype the **** out of them beforehand. For once.

The reason why there wasn't so much hype and expectation this time around was that marketing budgets have been spent on the "Jub-a-lympics".
It'll be as bad as ever for Brazil 2014.

 

[rollinstok]

I disagree completely. There's no shortage of kids playing football after school here, and I can't say I've noticed and great contrast with the rest of Europe. No, the problem, as GregCollins notes, is much more to do with culture, poor quality training and tactics, which starts at youth level.

There is a desperate shortage of kids playing football after school because of a shortage of facilities and staff combined with the lack of community spirit that prevents kids playing in built up areas.
Long gone are the days when every street would have a kids unofficial team that played almost every night and arranged matches with other sides. I grew up with this format and it was commonplace almost everywhere.
There was a documentary recently which argued whether talented children were gifted their skills through nature or had earned their skills through nurture. In every example the results showed that it was sheer dedication to their art that set them above their contemparies. Thousands of hours had been devoted to their chosen pursuit.
The common trait amongst the true great players is that they put the time into football during their formative years, it was almost an obsession with some.
You cant teach kids in an organised scenario for just an hour or two a week, they should be out learning the basic skills of touch, control and passing for 10-20 hours a week with their peers.

 

[User482]

There is a desperate shortage of kids playing football after school because of a shortage of facilities and staff combined with the lack of community spirit that prevents kids playing in built up areas.
Long gone are the days when every street would have a kids unofficial team that played almost every night and arranged matches with other sides. I grew up with this format and it was commonplace almost everywhere.
There was a documentary recently which argued whether talented children were gifted their skills through nature or had earned their skills through nurture. In every example the results showed that it was sheer dedication to their art that set them above their contemparies. Thousands of hours had been devoted to their chosen pursuit.
The common trait amongst the true great players is that they put the time into football during their formative years, it was almost an obsession with some.
You cant teach kids in an organised scenario for just an hour or two a week, they should be out learning the basic skills of touch, control and passing for 10-20 hours a week with their peers.

You were talking about kids kicking a ball about after school - which is a completely different issue to playing using organised facilities.

Regarding playing football in the street every night - it's how I grew up too, and in view of the fact that I'm only a little older than the current England side, I'd say it's not doing very much for us. In any case, we spent the 1970s not qualifying for a single major tournament.

No, the main problem is the lack of proper coaching.

 

[on the road]

I would urge anyone who wants to understand the malaise at the heart of English International football to study the comments of Messrs Gerrard and Hodgson made to the press after our exit. They don't want to address quality only emotion.

My analysis? Our players cannot execute, or even remember, their game plan, overweight their passes, cannot control the ball immediately when they receive it, taking 1.5 - 2 touches to do so, cannot retain possession, and cannot dispossess the opposition who, at this level, (1/4's onwards) are technically superior as individuals and as a team. Too many England players fail the basic test of "would he get picked by them if he was an (insert nationality of choice here)"

The only satisfaction I take from the tournament is that the English media knew all this as the lads set off and so didn't hype the **** out of them beforehand. For once.

The only reason the media didn't over hype the England team was because Hodgson wasn't their choice as manager, they wanted redknapp, so they decided to dumb down the England team hoping they fail to get through the group stage and then they could say "told you so". When they won the group and got through to the QF's they suddenly had a change of heart, it would had looked bad on them if they continued to be negative, so save face and big them up for the next round.

 

[Vapin' Joe]

Spain have amazing energy levels, they don't seem to tire even after 120 minutes.

I wonder where they get it?

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

But before the shoot out, all credit to Portugal. I'm not old enough to remember Eusabio but I've seen a lot of Portugal sides that didn't work as teams. That's changed!

Still...when it's comes down to a shoot out it's a game of two Alves....

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Spain have amazing energy levels, they don't seem to tire even after 120 minutes.

I wonder where they get it?

From a spanish doctor probably.

 

[GBC]

From a spanish doctor probably.

Or butcher!