Hey corsair, I forgot to follow up with you on this.
England won the World Cup in 1966 and their best performance since was a semi-final appearance in 1990. That's it! Also they've never won the Euros.
From afar, it seems like the UK produces good players. So my question is why can't the national team put it together and make a serious run? What's gone wrong?
They also got to a European Championship semi-final as host nation in 1996.
I feel the trouble we have in producing good national teams is due to varying factors such as,
1.The FA's coaching philosophies are woefully out of date.
Right from grass roots level our coaches tend to favor an honest grafter with a strong physical presence over someone who's better equipped technically.
This was fine 30-40 years ago but the game has moved on since then and if you look at any modern England game one of the biggest weaknesses is the lack of players who're capable of keeping possession and moving it around with pinpoint accuracy in the same way as the better continental teams do.
Retaining possession is a basic requirement of any team if it's going to be successful but this seems lost on the morons within the national coaching setup.
Every so often a technically gifted player will make it through the system and thrive at club level but they get picked for England and either get played completely out of position or have their ability to influence a game neutered because they're surrounded by several players that aren't on the same wavelength.
As good as an individual can be, one player never makes a team and England never have enough technically gifted players at any one time.
Planks like Gareth Barry or Andy Carroll are textbook examples of the FA's ideal player....they should really be aiming to produce more players in the mold of Paul Scholes or Steven Gerrard.
2.The media.
Every time a half decent Engish player emerges they instantly get hyped up as the next "savior" and then they rip them to shreds the first time they falter.
This isn't helped by the FA's penchant for fast tracking players into the national setup long before they've even fully established themselves at club level....Everton's Ross Barkley is the latest to get that treatment.
3.The number of foreign imports in our leagues has lessened the chances for home grown talent to emerge.
The FA only see the money from TV rights that having big names from abroad in the Premier League brings which was fine in the early years but as time as gone on it's obviously contributed to the increasing decline of the national side.
The only way England could ever hope to compete again is by throwing all their present coaching philosophies out and starting again from scratch as well as severely limiting the number of foreign players allowed at each club.
Employing some decent coaches would help as well....the new Under 21 coach is a no hoper called Gareth Southgate who's biggest moment was missing a penalty against Germany in the 1996 semi-final.
He was an average player and a terrible club manager yet the FA think this makes him qualified for the job of running the Under 21's
) so if he can't learn from him and develop into a top class player then he probably hasn't got "it".
