Another world cup is upon us and once again the nation will
have high expectations for England to win football’s top prize. With
qualification to Brazil 2014 in England’s own hands, now would be a good time
to look at why the national team won’t be winning the Jules Rimet trophy
anytime soon.
Since
1966, the holy year in which England did lift the trophy, managers have stated
that they thought they would win the world cup. Only once has that prediction
come true. Sir Alf Ramsey himself, the only manager to win the World Cup with
England. Since then there have been many unsuccessful predictions of world cup
glory, Ramsey himself made two. When knocked out of the tournament in 1970
Ramsey said, “we must now look ahead to the next world cup in Munich where our
chances of winning I would say are very good indeed.” England failed to qualify
for that tournament. Ron Greenwood in 1982 – “I honestly thought we could have
won”. Glenn Hoddle in 1998 – “my innermost thought, which was that England
would win the world cup.”
Starting
with the manager, there is this expectancy that England will win the World Cup,
where does this expectancy come from though? This best quote to sum up this idea that England should be a
dominant force is by Johnny Haynes of the 1958 side, “everyone in England
thinks we have a God-given right to win the world cup.” It is only now that
people are starting to realize that we are not some sort of divine football
team who should automatically be in a final of the World Cup. One simple fact to
this is that English footballers are not good enough to compete at the top
level, technically and tactically.
For
several years now fans have been criticizing that there are not enough English
players in the Premiership. Some have seen that as the demise of the English
national team as so few Englishmen are playing regularly in the top English
teams. On failure to qualify for Euro 2008 Steven Gerrard said, “I think there
is a risk of too many foreign players coming over, which would affect our
national team eventually if it is not already. It is important we keep
producing players.” Several important figures in the game such as Michel
Platini and Sepp Blatter have also commented on the lack of Domestic players in
England’s top football division. But why is there such a lack of quality
English players being produced? After all the academies of the Premiership
clubs are designed to nurture young English footballers and help propel them
into the first team, so that the club need not spend money on a foreign talent.
The
problem itself lies in the English way of recruiting players. England is for
the most part a middle-class country, that is to say the middle classes
dominate the population. Football however is a workingman’s game, or so it
appears to be, and the clash in classes is what is causing to be a problem with
the modern game. Education in England is becoming more and more essential and
the number of people staying on after the age of 16 for higher education has
been on the rise since the late 80’s. Yet football teams recruit their youth
players largely from the working classes, as at 16 players with that are deemed
good enough or show enough potential will be asked to leave education and
become a full time youth scholar. This causes a dilemma for most of the
middle-class boys as there is often pressure from their parents to stay in
education and they themselves even know that the chances of turning
professional are slim. This is not to say that at 16 education stops for the
boys selected to play for the youth teams. Due to EU laws they are required to partake in some sort of
education. This is more often than not run by the LFE (League Football Education)
and composes of a B-TEC National Diploma, or certificate in sport and leisure.
This is by no means to be snubbed at, but it is nothing of the sort of
education the middle classes want.
Football
in today’s society laughs at, and is weary of the educated, therefore the
middle class tend to be disregarded by the football community and the selection
pool for promising talents drops in size, limiting clubs to look at the working
class for their future superstars. Boys from the middles classes switch to
games such as cricket, rugby and hockey, and I think it is fair to say that you
can see an improvement by the national team in all these sports since the late
80’s – the same time the middle class really started to emerge. Often you now
hear ex-players say of the English youngsters “they’re being over coached,” but
that is like saying in a school that the pupils are being over educated.
English footballers leave education at 16 as it is believed that they now have
more time to fully concentrate on football, as education is only a distraction,
but in theory they only train for two to three hours a day, so to say education
would be a distraction is rather unjust. We can look at some players from the
continent that all have had higher education and we can agree that they are world-class
players; Ruud Guillt, Dennis Bergkamp, Andreas Iniesta and Socrates. Yet the football
community in England is weary of educated people.
Graeme
Le Saux is the best example of this. At Chelsea Le Saux, spoke with rather a
“posh” accent, he read broadsheet newspapers and had a passion for going to the
theatre or museum. Because of this he was labeled as “gay” from his fellow
professionals. This attitude taken towards Le Saux is simply because he is
different in terms of education. If you look at the setups at centre of
excellences and academies you will see that the majority of boys playing are
from the working classes, one or two will be from the middle class but they
will be subject to ridicule from the others. They will be made fun of, for the
way they dress, or the taste in music and what they do for entertainment. You
will also listen to a coach give a half time team talk, which will be no more
than a rage. A classic rant from
coaches at half time when their team is losing is to say, “Do you want to play
here? There are hundreds of lads all over the country who would die to have a
chance of playing for a club like this. I could get 11 lads from the local park
who would play with more passion than you lot.” You never see a coach take a
game and look at it with critical thinking, we are losing, and there is clearly
a problem how do we fix it. No, you see a man who believes that playing with
passion and hard work is the answer.
Graeme Le Saux playing for England
For
me this has been the biggest problem with English football, a working class
background installs beliefs that to be good at something you need to have
passion and commitment for the cause. If we were to look at the types of
players England have recently had in their teams such as, John Terry, Jamie
Carragher, Wayne Rooney and even Alan shearer would you honestly say out of all
the players in the world you would pick them off their playing ability. Rooney
may just fall into that category, but as for the rest what they make up for in
passion and commitment they lose in technique and tactical awareness. Barcelona’s
current team is composed of what is without doubt probably the most skilled
team we have ever seen. Yet out of that squad how many of them would you say
play with “their heart on their sleeve,” or would “give blood sweat and tears
for the club.” On face value you would probably say none but technically and
tactically no one else compares.
This
is why teams such as Germany, Holland and Spain do better than the English,
they are educated, and they think abut the game. Johann Cryuff famously said,
“Football is a game you play with your head.” We in this country are medieval
in our thinking on the game. Since Euro ’96 we haven’t come close to winning a
major international competition and at this rate we aren’t getting any closer.
Our arrogance and mindset of battling and “wanting it more” than the other team
is what is letting us down at the top level.
Yes
passion and commitment is nothing to be laughed at, but that alone is not good
enough. Until English football starts looking at the way it plays the game from
outside the box, and starts thinking about it more we are going to be left
behind in the sport that we invented.
