[Archived] Are English Players Over Coached

[wandel77]

France. Germany and other countrys have changed the way they were traning the kids over the last 10-15 years.

Here in Denmark the danish FA ( DBU ) changed the way we did train kids 10years ago. And now we are having young players comming thrue the system, in the likes of Eriksen, Boilesen and Victor Fischer all 3 plays in Ajax today.

There are many others comming up, and i see a good future for our national team in the years to come.

[bradeagle]

Our grass root scouts mark youngsters on attributes like pace, power, balance endurance etc, these points are seen as more important than passing and technical ability. Thats probable why we end up with a team at the elite like we do.

[Guest Rovers4Good]

No way Jose

Our kids are very very blessed when it comes to grass roots and all the way up to senior level. The levels of coaching are far different to the ones on the continent.

Foreign teams are taught how to keep hold of the ball in tight spot and the same can't be said for the English, we'd just rather hoof it up top and play of the front man.

Look where the likes of Messi are brought up in the slums of Argentina and you'll quickly realise that players like him are blessed to play on flet pitches with grass on them. Unlike the English who complain if there's a slight bobble on a pitch.

[Kelbo]

No way Jose

Our kids are very very blessed when it comes to grass roots and all the way up to senior level. The levels of coaching are far different to the ones on the continent.

Foreign teams are taught how to keep hold of the ball in tight spot and the same can't be said for the English, we'd just rather hoof it up top and play of the front man.

Look where the likes of Messi are brought up in the slums of Argentina and you'll quickly realise that players like him are blessed to play on flet pitches with grass on them. Unlike the English who complain if there's a slight bobble on a pitch.

Alex Fergusen once said, 'Practice makes Player'

Kevin Hird told me once that 'Poverty' creates better sportsmen because they had to make do with playing on cobbles or gravel, dirt tracks etc, no money for computers, hand held games etc so they develop skills, indeed, Kevin and I would play football from getting home from scholl to virtually pitch black, then He went home to bed and took a football with him, rolling the ball with the ball of both feet, he says it gave him a great feel of the ball.

On the Poverty issue, my eldest Son when he did his degree had an assignment on that fact, he focused on Brazil years ago and now the African nations, he got a 2/1 degree so he must have got it correct!

[MarkBRFC71]

Difficult to argue with anything in this article. http://www.guardian....land?intcmp=239

Particularly damning is that stat that 70% of the players in La Liga are eligible for the national team and only slightly less in Germany; while in the Premier League it's only 30%. Also makes a good point using Josh McEchrean as an example - he's long been touted as a bright young star, yet Chelsea can (because of the silly money in the Prem) and would (because they want instant success) rather spend big on Eden Hazard and Marin than nurture a future England player. He'll end up moving to a lesser Prem team where he'll be overlooked because the general rule of thumb in England appears to be if you don't play for Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs or Arsenal then you're not good enough for the national side (the same way of thinking that also allows dross like Wes Brown, Downing and Phil Neville to amass so many caps).

[Silencio]

Chelsea don't owe McEchrean a place in the side though, do they? If he is good enough to play for them he should be able to get in the side. By all account he wasn't good enough at Swansea last season. If he doesn't push on at Chelsea or on loan next season then that's probably more down to him.

[Guest Rovers4Good]

Alex Fergusen once said, 'Practice makes Player'

Kevin Hird told me once that 'Poverty' creates better sportsmen because they had to make do with playing on cobbles or gravel, dirt tracks etc, no money for computers, hand held games etc so they develop skills, indeed, Kevin and I would play football from getting home from scholl to virtually pitch black, then He went home to bed and took a football with him, rolling the ball with the ball of both feet, he says it gave him a great feel of the ball.

On the Poverty issue, my eldest Son when he did his degree had an assignment on that fact, he focused on Brazil years ago and now the African nations, he got a 2/1 degree so he must have got it correct!

Practise makes Player?

Come on if someone doesn't have the natural ability to kick a football then yes he may get better in time but not to the standard of a professional. You look at the likes of Kevin Herd and then yes that's all he probably had to do with his spare time and i've played against him a few times and although he lost his pace he never lost his footballing brain but again he had a natural ability to start off with.

Take the young lads at Brockhall and i mean schoolboys here, one of my best friends sons used to go down on a Tues and Thurs after school and on most occasions his lad would be standing around twiddling his thumbs as the coach went through his drills and they probably got around 5 minutes out of an hour with a football which tells me they're trying to drill it into them at a young age about what to do and when but kids these days need a bloody football at their feet rather than listening to someone harp up how he thinks it's best to teach them.

Going on now to senior level and it showed for the world to see that we're miles away for the technical ability of let's say the Italians and Spanish as Pirlo who is 34 ish and he bossed the midfield without breaking a sweat. Part of the problem could be the fact that we have an overload of foreigners playing over here but you've got to ask yourself, why are England not breading the likes of these players as if we would then we might be able to compete at the highest level of international football.

[Kelbo]

Practise makes Player?

Come on if someone doesn't have the natural ability to kick a football then yes he may get better in time but not to the standard of a professional. You look at the likes of Kevin Herd and then yes that's all he probably had to do with his spare time and i've played against him a few times and although he lost his pace he never lost his footballing brain but again he had a natural ability to start off with.

Take the young lads at Brockhall and i mean schoolboys here, one of my best friends sons used to go down on a Tues and Thurs after school and on most occasions his lad would be standing around twiddling his thumbs as the coach went through his drills and they probably got around 5 minutes out of an hour with a football which tells me they're trying to drill it into them at a young age about what to do and when but kids these days need a bloody football at their feet rather than listening to someone harp up how he thinks it's best to teach them.

Going on now to senior level and it showed for the world to see that we're miles away for the technical ability of let's say the Italians and Spanish as Pirlo who is 34 ish and he bossed the midfield without breaking a sweat. Part of the problem could be the fact that we have an overload of foreigners playing over here but you've got to ask yourself, why are England not breading the likes of these players as if we would then we might be able to compete at the highest level of international football.

Of course you have to have natural ability, but as for Practicing, why when we have supposedly good players, are they unable to deliver a ball into the box, Beckham and Gerrard practiced to reach that level, thay had a football at their feet, both my sons when at Kevin Hirds footballing schools when they were very young, he didnt coach as such but allowed them to express themselves and helped with technique of control, pass, shoot and dribble but mainly, they played games and enjoyed, as such, any natural skills would come through.

The reason we are not producing players such as Pirlo is quite simple, even at Rovers, strength, Physique and height are attributes they look for (or they were) and the smaller lads were on the scrapheap, this is consistant with most Professional Football Clubs in the UK!

[Salgado Is A Hero]

Also makes a good point using Josh McEchrean as an example - he's long been touted as a bright young star, yet Chelsea can (because of the silly money in the Prem) and would (because they want instant success) rather spend big on Eden Hazard and Marin than nurture a future England player. He'll end up moving to a lesser Prem team where he'll be overlooked because the general rule of thumb in England appears to be if you don't play for Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs or Arsenal then you're not good enough for the national side (the same way of thinking that also allows dross like Wes Brown, Downing and Phil Neville to amass so many caps).

Yea that's probably my worst thing about England. It's not often you pick your 23 best players in the right positions. If Welbeck was playing for a mid table side he wouldn't be in the squad. The same could probably be said for the likes of Henderson and Downing. Phil Jones could still be playing for us at the level he used to and I doubt he would have been picked. Then gets called up before he has even kicked a ball for Utd. How long did Bentley play amazing for us before getting called up? 2/3 seasons at a higher level than any other right winger? I can't remember but it was something like that.

Chelsea don't owe McEchrean a place in the side though, do they? If he is good enough to play for them he should be able to get in the side. By all account he wasn't good enough at Swansea last season. If he doesn't push on at Chelsea or on loan next season then that's probably more down to him.

He was good enough for Chelsea in the Champions League when he controls the game. My Chelsea mate rates him ridiculously highly and can't see how he doesn't consistently get a game, even though it is not something Chelsea like to do.

[Stuart]

Is commercial sponsorship also to blame? Do certain players get picked because of their marketability - perhaps even as a result of playing for a "top club"?

[thenodrog]

Exactly. There should be no competive games until they're at least 11 -

Garbage. In fact trendy modern garbage. Football by nature is competative.

In a nutshell as a nation we do not do enough work OFF the ball. This is why other nations appear to have an extra man and more passing options available. Shanks and Paisley' methods were exemplary ...'unless you are in your opponents penalty area always try to play the way you are facing, there should always be at least 3 teammates as passing options, do not stand and admire but move into space to provide a passing option for your teammate'. It's not difficult and it served LFC so well untill Paisley retired. I see it in other national teams play but not our own.

[thenodrog]

Over coached? The opposite more like. They are not equipped with the basics and are found wanting every time against decent opposition. As I see it we are getting steadily worse in comparison and there are no grounds at all for optimism no matter what Roy says. We can"t keep hold of the ball, we can"t follow simple tactical plans and always seem to be knackered later on in games. I think it"ll be a long time till we are challenging again as our players aren"t even playing regularly gainst top opposition with their clubs as their managers don"t rate them. The likes of Wellbeck, Milner and Young turn out against the likes of us but are on the bench for the high pressure games where discipline is needed. Classic example last night where no one could pick Pirlo up, why not. He was stood in space every time you saw him and no one had the basic intelligence to go and put him under pressure. Really poor!

Correct. Ill disciplined, head down play. Reactive rather than pro active from a team who many players did not seen fit enough. As for Pirlo... Hodgson should have set up the team to stop him and failing that altered tactics during the game. He didn't. In fact I hardly saw him get off his arse.

[jim mk2]

The back streets of England's (and Scotland's) towns and cities used to mass-produce footballers but because of social changes in the workplace and at home most of those streets do not exist any more and the few that do do not contain working-class kids kicking a football around from dawn until dusk. Rooney is an old-fashioned street footballer and before him the likes of Gascoigne and Beardsley were too but the days when Blackburn's streets for instance produced brilliant players like Bryan Douglas are long gone.

In the absence of that supply chain of naturally gifted young players with all the ball skills ready to go straight into professional football at 18 or younger clubs such as Rovers have to work much harder to nurture and develop talent. The fact that so few top-class players come through the academies is an indictment of the coaching system which should be overhauled to replicate the successful systems in countries such as Holland. The Netherlands has a much small population than England yet continues to produce world-class players in numbers - it is a scandal that England does not do the same.

[RoyRover]

As many people have stated it's not that they are over coached, they are just coached poorly. And that goes for the rest of the youngsters in the British Isles and Ireland. From a young age children are playing 11 a side games on full size pitches, with the big fellas stuck in defence or up top as a target man and the smaller ones are used to make up the numbers. The only way these youngsters are able to get the ball up the field is by kicking it has hard as they can and chasing after it. This is all usually done in a hyper competitive environment, with coaches yelling at them to 'get rid' and parents screaming at them to get 'stuck in.' It's complete madness and it's so easy to see why these nations play the way they do and why they have fallen so far behind the rest of Europe and the world.

I remember reading a piece in the Guardian I think and it was talking about the youth set ups in countries like Germany, Spain, Holland and France the astonishing difference between their coaching approaches. The coaches in these countries say that children between the ages of 6 and 10, whenever you start to learn the skills of football, should be getting around a couple of thousand touches of a football a week in training and their own personal practice. It's reckoned that the children in the UK and Ireland get a fraction of that. The young children in Europe learn how to control a ball in tight spaces, trap it, pass it, play one or two touch football, create angles and keep possession by playing small sided games in an uncompetitive environment where mistakes aren't greeted by a chorus of angry voices, but are encouraged to develop these difficult skills which will ber perfected over time. All the other stuff like fitness, strength, physical development, winning, tactics and full sided games doesn't come for years, when the basic skills have been mastered.

I've spent quite a bit of time in France during my life and the one thing that I've noticed there as well as other places around Europe, especially Holland, was the amount of football pitches of all descriptions; grass, tarmac, gravel, astro turf, 3G, that these countries have. Everywhere you go they have them. In France, nearly every town, no matter how small, has a local football pitch which is owned and well cared for by the council, with most of them having good changing and meeting room facilities. The small town that my family had a holiday home is in a small, rural, farming town called Camors in Brittany (between Vannes and Rennes) which is no more than a dot on the map, but the footballing facilities are incredible. A few years ago I visited a friend of mine who lives in the east of Holland in a tiny town called Borculo, very near the German border, where the nearest biggest town is Arnheim. The footballing facilities that the local club had would put most professional clubs to shame, with multiple beautifully manicured pitches, great changing facilities and a nice little ground that I was lucky enough to see Feyenord play a friendly game againt the town team in. The point that I'm making is that football is so accessible in these countries. There are so many places that you can go and get proper training, in a safe and clean environment, that encourages people to keep coming back.

Obviously these sorts of facilities aren't available to everyone, especially those in inner cities. But even last week when I was in Barcelona, there were out door football / handball courts everywhere, that where well maintained and looked after. I realise that this is a bit of a generalisation to some degree, but I do think that it makes a difference. As people have acknowledged, the days of young people kicking the ball about the street and honing their skills in that sort of environment are nearly non-existant. Children and parents want to train in these sorts of environments now - on good pitches which are very safe. I know that in Belfast that there are new footballing facilities going up over the city all the time. It used to be that any council football pitch was a prime target for local joyriders to do wheel spins on, to leave broken bottles on from the previous nights under age boozing session, to burn the nets and bend the goal posts. In other words there was total lack of respect for these facilities, which I tended not to find (of course it happens though) in other parts of Europe. I know for a fact that the same is happening in England in terms of new facilities being made available to the public. This all great, but we are all just behind what they've been doing for years in places like Holland, Germany, France and Spain.

We all know about the acadamies that teams like Ajax, Barcelona, Rennes, Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich have. They produce their own players, who because of the footballing rules of their respective federations will get a chance to play in the first team and thus develop their skills. If you look at the likes of Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund, who played in the Champions League this season, they had multiple German players playing against the top teams in Europe and have been from early age. Dortmund have the likes of Mario Gotze, Matt Hummels, Sebastian Kehl,Marcel Schmelzer and Kevin Großkreutz who are all German, all play regularly for their club at the top level and have all represented Germany. Bayern Munich have Holger Badstuber, Philip Lahm, Toni Kroos, Bastin Schweinsteiger and Thomas Muller who have all been playing at the top level of European football for years. Barcelona are totally dominated by Spanish players, the majority of whom make up the Spanish team, with another couple from a team called Real Madrid - who also supply the Germans with two of their most important players, Mesut Ozil and Sami Kheidera.

As a result, these players, who continually play at the highest level and are exposed to the best players in the world, are able to bring the skills, habits and experience that they have gained to the national team and thus compete at the highest level. Now compare that to the England team, or the Irish, Scots or Welsh. Take Terry, Cole, Gerrard and Rooney out of the England team and there are very few players left in the starting 11, let alone the subs, who have consistently experienced playing at the highest levels of club football. The same can't be said for the other leading nations, whose benches are laiden with top class players who grace most other national teams.

There is no point in hoping that the current crop of England players can start to keep hold of the ball like the Spanish, be as creative and tactically astute as the Germans or technically proficent as the Dutch. It's too late for these players to develop these skills and it may even be too late for the next batch of young players like Jones, Rodwell and Welbeck. It's the 6 to 10 year olds that need to be targeted and hope that in 10 - 15 years, that they start to develop the skills that children on the continent have had down as second nature and bring these to the national team and then hope for progression. Believing that all will be alright in Brazil in 2014 or even France in 2016 if Jack Wilshire is fit just isn't realistic.

[MarkBRFC71]

Garbage. In fact trendy modern garbage. Football by nature is competative.

In a nutshell as a nation we do not do enough work OFF the ball. This is why other nations appear to have an extra man and more passing options available. Shanks and Paisley' methods were exemplary ...'unless you are in your opponents penalty area always try to play the way you are facing, there should always be at least 3 teammates as passing options, do not stand and admire but move into space to provide a passing option for your teammate'. It's not difficult and it served LFC so well untill Paisley retired. I see it in other national teams play but not our own.

That 'trendy, modern garbage' is one of the reasons why Spain and Germany are streets ahead of us. They've largely removed the competitive element for younger players because rightly they see it's better to coach technique, ball control, perception etc first before applying it to a competitive scenario.

Passing and moving means nothing if you lack the technique to instantly control it and move it on - a basic skill which our players appear to lack, or at least don't possess to anywhere the same level as the top nations.

[Guest Rovers4Good]

Of course you have to have natural ability, but as for Practicing, why when we have supposedly good players, are they unable to deliver a ball into the box, Beckham and Gerrard practiced to reach that level, thay had a football at their feet, both my sons when at Kevin Hirds footballing schools when they were very young, he didnt coach as such but allowed them to express themselves and helped with technique of control, pass, shoot and dribble but mainly, they played games and enjoyed, as such, any natural skills would come through.

The reason we are not producing players such as Pirlo is quite simple, even at Rovers, strength, Physique and height are attributes they look for (or they were) and the smaller lads were on the scrapheap, this is consistant with most Professional Football Clubs in the UK!

Whilst i agree with most of this i don't think the likes of Blackburn or any club for that matter would turn down a small kid with great ability. You see when there are such academies with money to burn such as your Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City etc then they're even willing to pay the families so that thier son can join the respected club. Also, you've got to add that as the Premiership has massive funding then most foreign players would love to join an English club due to the fact that they could probably earn double the wages over here so you've also got to look at the amount of money that is being pumped into the prem and join that with the pressures that managers are under to keep teams in the top league then this is a reason for them choosing foreign players over English which is purely down to the FA not stopping the cash flow before it got out of hand.

[Guest Rovers4Good]

One thing i forgot to add, i was walking past a local junior club last week and i saw what must have been 8 or 9 year olds running around the outside of a football pitch (warm up maybe) and i just thought OMG why the flip would an 8 or 9 year old want to go to football training to learn how to run around the outside of a pitch. LOL

[Kelbo]

Whilst i agree with most of this i don't think the likes of Blackburn or any club for that matter would turn down a small kid with great ability. You see when there are such academies with money to burn such as your Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City etc then they're even willing to pay the families so that thier son can join the respected club. Also, you've got to add that as the Premiership has massive funding then most foreign players would love to join an English club due to the fact that they could probably earn double the wages over here so you've also got to look at the amount of money that is being pumped into the prem and join that with the pressures that managers are under to keep teams in the top league then this is a reason for them choosing foreign players over English which is purely down to the FA not stopping the cash flow before it got out of hand.

You should ask Majiball, indeed, Everton are another club who seem to follow these patterns!

[thenodrog]

There is no point in hoping that the current crop of England players can start to keep hold of the ball like the Spanish, be as creative and tactically astute as the Germans or technically proficent as the Dutch. It's too late for these players to develop these skills and it may even be too late for the next batch of young players like Jones, Rodwell and Welbeck. It's the 6 to 10 year olds that need to be targeted and hope that in 10 - 15 years, that they start to develop the skills that children on the continent have had down as second nature and bring these to the national team and then hope for progression. Believing that all will be alright in Brazil in 2014 or even France in 2016 if Jack Wilshire is fit just isn't realistic.

I don't go with that at all. From my days at Grammar school in our year just 3 players represented the school at every level. It was like wacky races with good kids at 11 disappearing from the radar within a few years and being replaced by others who never 'showed' earlier. I rem two exceptional players who both played semi pro after leaving school (one of whom turned down BRFC) who never even turned out for the school until the 6th form!

My opinion is that we will never (thank God) play football like the Italians, Portugese and Spaniards or the Brazillians for that matter. We can however aim to emulate the Dutch and the Germans. To do that is not an issue about pace, skill etc it's an issue about attitude. imo our players in the main seem far too immature, they act like adolescents. Maybe it's the press building them up to Little Tin God status only to knock them down when they get a chance, maybe it's the fault of our (soft) education system which appears to downgrade hunger, ambition, ruthlessness, pride and competition in kids, maybe it's our society which accepts under achievement so readily these days and turns a blind eye to the mindless yob booze culture we all see and accept within these shores far too often.

Maybe even it's a soppy couple of hours single session training for 4 days (which most appear to resent. We know our lot resented it so much when Hodgson introduced the 'continental way' that Sherwood led a revolution against him.) instead of two proper sessions per day. Fitness AM with PM sessions for skill sessions (free kick routines, penalty comps etc) and tactical discussion sessions, sports psychology, nutrition, studying opponents players and tactics etc is hardly too much to ask from such richly rewarded people is it?

More likely it's a combination. Just an opinion but I've opined already that the Germans look fit whilst half our lot look fat. Does Lam or Gomes or Schweinsteiger and their mates need SAF or equivalent breathing down his necks 24/7 to stay fit and in condition for a month like Rooney (and Gazza before him) does? I seriously doubt it. Our lot call themselves professional but in reallity compared to others they act like amateurs...... maybe it's cos we've treat them as errant schoolboys instead of mature men all their lives. Is it my imagination but when top international players are interviewed on TV most sound intelligent, composed, thoughful and mature whilst our top players (and successive England Captains for decades) shuffle their feet, look away from the interviewer, scratch their heads say um and y'know every other word, miss out the letter 'T' from all sorts of words and replace 'th' with 'f'.

It's not about the pie in the sky dream of teaching ball control and passing skills to infants and juniors, thats just oft repeated empty sound bites from wise old sages to the accompanyment of much nodding heads and positive noises. In reallity it's just silly silk purse pig's ear thinking. The entire issue is about turning adolescents with football skills, pace and all round ability into responsible and mature adults with a burning desire to achieve. I'm sure we can cos we used to do just a couple of generations ago.

[thenodrog]

That 'trendy, modern garbage' is one of the reasons why Spain and Germany are streets ahead of us. They've largely removed the competitive element for younger players because rightly they see it's better to coach technique, ball control, perception etc first before applying it to a competitive scenario.

Passing and moving means nothing if you lack the technique to instantly control it and move it on - a basic skill which our players appear to lack, or at least don't possess to anywhere the same level as the top nations.

No one can coach technique and ball control etc etc into a kid. No one can coach pace or balance either. If they could we'd have hundreds of thousands of Tugay's. Footballers of all ages can only practice it and hone it.

Everyone needs to look away from teaching application and look more toward developing attitude.

One thing i forgot to add, i was walking past a local junior club last week and i saw what must have been 8 or 9 year olds running around the outside of a football pitch (warm up maybe) and i just thought OMG why the flip would an 8 or 9 year old want to go to football training to learn how to run around the outside of a pitch. LOL

Again it's attitude. Introducing disciplines is about improving attitudes. A warm up is good practice before any strenuous excrcise. Obviously too much physical training in an hour long session is ludicrous but getting to a training pitch 10 mins early before the session starts and warming up is good and helps team spirit.

[greco]

i dont know what is being taught to young british footballers, but by looking at the nationalt team and at the players in the premier league, it seems as if its all pace, power and stamina.

years ago the germans were in a similar position, they lacked quality and they didnt have that many young talented players coming through. With the well known german efficiency , they simply decided it was time for a change and planned how to do it. I cant see why the brits cant do the same.

My hometown club Aab also made a decision to alter the way, that they go about producing players. Players with much better technical skills. These type of players do not only please the crowds, but they are also a valued commodity in pro football. Aab made the decision, that ALL players throughout the entire youth sector, should have a ball at their disposal when training. furthermore they incorporated drills which mostly involved a ball.

One thing though they were keen to talk about, was that the young players played on small pitches, with small goals and iirc max 3 vs 3. That way the game would involve a lot of touches, controlling tbe ball in small areas, dribling and a lot of movement.

simple and easy things that make a difference and can be easely replicated.

[Guest Rovers4Good]

No one can coach technique and ball control etc etc into a kid. No one can coach pace or balance either. If they could we'd have hundreds of thousands of Tugay's. Footballers of all ages can only practice it and hone it.

Everyone needs to look away from teaching application and look more toward developing attitude.

Again it's attitude. Introducing disciplines is about improving attitudes. A warm up is good practice before any strenuous excrcise. Obviously too much physical training in an hour long session is ludicrous but getting to a training pitch 10 mins early before the session starts and warming up is good and helps team spirit.

I don't think many kids at age 8 or 9 will give 2 hoots about running and there are ways and means of imroving attitudes and running isn't one of them and if they wanted to run then they'd join a running club. I agree that warming up is a part of everyday fitness but surely boys and girls of this age will have so much energy to burn that you could simply give them a football and away they go.

I'm all for training kids in the right way but if you wanted to make them better footballers then making them run goes against the rule right?

[Claytons Left Boot]

A friend of mine is a coach at PNE. I was asking him just why English players are unable to pass the ball, especially when they have to play their way out of trouble at the back when under pressure and what methods they (as coaches) use to try and improve this part of our game.

It didn't appear to bother him too much and said they concentrate on trying to mix a bit of passing with typical English style of play, ie. strength, running, crossing, heading and so on.

All well and good but the problem when England played Italy the other night was the fact that England were unable to maintain their usual game beyond the first half because, thereafter, they were having to chase the game due to Italy's superior ball retention and quickly became tired. I lost count of the number of times that we had to play the ball back to our keeper who then proceeded to punt the ball upfield only to lose possession. Surrender possession at this level and you pay dearly.

My lad played in a local junior league from the age of eight right up to sixteen. They evolved into a very good side and we encouraged them, even from a very early age, to play it out from the back and keep possession wherever possible. Our shout to them was, 'hoof it and lose it.'

A pity our professional and national counterparts don't follow the same philosophy.

[Veevs]

Thats one of the biggest issues in the UK.. every coach is taught how to do it while they get their badges so all English coaches seem to follow the exact same instruction booklet.. yet Germany, Spain and Belgium have introduced new ways of thinking and are looking at further techniques and approaches to enhance and keep up with changing philosophies and boy can you see the results. Even now a new technique is being introduced that educates the players brain to make them think quicker, be more rounded as individuals while coupling it with constant use of the ball so having the ball at their feet is second nature... just the thought of a generation of quick thinkiing, intelligent, ball playing footballers is scary enough never mind that this is not being taken up in the UK.

[thenodrog]

I don't think many kids at age 8 or 9 will give 2 hoots about running and there are ways and means of imroving attitudes and running isn't one of them and if they wanted to run then they'd join a running club. I agree that warming up is a part of everyday fitness but surely boys and girls of this age will have so much energy to burn that you could simply give them a football and away they go.

I'm all for training kids in the right way but if you wanted to make them better footballers then making them run goes against the rule right?

Kids will always imitate their hero's. It's why there is such a hoo hah around the likes of Joey Barton, EHD, Drogba etc. They see their hero's training and warming up and they'll want to imitate them.