Where Does English Football And The National Team Go From Here?

Tuesday, 29th June 2010 at 13:54pm

After vanquishing virtually all before them in qualifying, the England football team were installed as third favourites to lift the 2010 Fifa World Cup.

Fabio Capello had a good collection of players, a good system and had seemed to have found a winning formula. The weather in South Africa would suit the English players better too, banishing the worries that Sven Goran Eriksson's men faced in Japan and South Korea in 2002.

Come the tournament, England had laboured their way to three wins in their pre-tournament friendlies and struggled to second place in one of the easiest groups of the tournament.

Despite some poor performances in the group fixtures, many expected England to overcome a talented but relatively young German side but in the end Joachim Loew's side that stole the show, inflicting England's heaviest World Cup finals defeat with a stunning 4-1 win.

The Germans moved the ball about with pace, skill and precision whereas the England players laboured about the pitch, physically exhausted and it looked that the Germans could score at will towards the end of the match.

The 23 players that travelled to South Africa represented the best the English game has to offer with the exception of Rio Ferdinand, injured at the beginning of the tournament, and Owen Hargreaves, a player who has endured a torrid time with injuries.

These players failed to overcome the USA and Algeria and realistically never looked at the races.

A lot has been made at the amount of football played in England and it is a problem that needs to be addressed so players don't arrive at major tournaments exhausted.

Hopefully the powers that be will take this into consideration when they cast their critical eye over the campaign, but in reality it is likely that the Premier League season will be extended rather than reduced if the plan to play a 39th match overseas comes to bear.

Hopefully Capello will remain as England coach as he will have learned from his mistakes and that will serve England well at future tournaments under the Italian.

The German squad contained a number of players from the under-21 side that trounced the England under-21s in the European Championship final last year and while several of those players have made the step up to the full national side with ease, their England counterparts are nowhere to be seen as Capello doesn't believe them to be good enough.

The long-term future for German football is very bright, but for England it looks bleak.

After suffering disappointments in 1998 and 2000, the German Football Federation decided a major overhaul of the youth system in Germany was required and, ironically, used the English system as the basis in which to invest millions of Euros in its own country.

The issue seems to lie with the coaching standards in England compared to teams on the continent. The number of coaches holding UEFA B, A and Pro licenses in England is significantly less than in Germany and Spain, two countries producing significantly more technically proficient footballers.

Another problem lies in the belief that 'getting stuck in' is of overwhelming importance in England. An 'if in doubt, boot it out' culture has existed in England for too long and it is imperative for young footballers to be taught to be comfortable on the ball with more emphasis on playing their way out of trouble.

John Terry has long been lauded in England as one of the world's best defenders, and while it's hard to deny that he's not a good footballer, at his peak he has never been able to achieve the same standards as a Fabio Cannavaro or Paulo Maldini.

It was very rare to see either of those two make the last ditch tackles that Terry makes that pleases crowds in England so, simply because they never had to.

Their skill lay in their ability to read the game and to be a step ahead of their opponent, quietly and efficiently going about their business.

The lack of need to throw their bodies in front of balls may also be a key to their longevity, especially Maldini. Terry and Rio Ferdinand are starting to accumulate more and more injuries and it is unlikely that they will be able to play at the highest level at the age of 40 as Maldini did.

Arsene Wenger has long been ahead of the game when it comes to coaching the way that football should be played and has installed a style of football at the club from top to bottom.

Youngsters at Arsenal are taught the importance of technique and control and appreciation of the ball. In the next three to five years we should start to see the first generation of English youngsters that have been coached with Wenger's philosophy since they joined Arsenal at a young age and the results should be there for all to see.

There are some talented young players in England but none that you can foresee being capable of running the show as the likes of Mesut Oezil and Thomas Mueller did against England at this particular point in time.

It might be prudent for Capello, if he is to remain at the helm, to start to use some of England's quicker footballers if England is to challenge, for that is something we do have in the ranks.

Players like Theo Walcott, Gabriel Agbonlahor and Ashley Young all have pace to burn and all seem better alternatives than the likes of Shaun Wright-Phillips, Emile Heskey, Joe Cole and the like.

It's time to bring the curtain down on the careers of David James, David Beckham and other players that realistically aren't going to be heading to the Ukraine and Poland in 2012, let alone Brazil in four year's time.

Joe Hart must be given his chance in the side to make the number one jersey his own, while bringing the likes of Jack Rodwell, Jack Wilshere, Keiran Gibbs and others into the fold can only be good for their international development.

Some might argue that these players aren't ready for international football, but if they are used to the rigours and what is required it will benefit the team in the long-term. England fans may have to suffer in the near future to have a brighter one down the line.

One a positive note, the current batch of England under-17s recently beat their Spanish rivals in the European Championships to seal the first age-group title for England since 1993.

Whether or not these players make the grade at their respective clubs remains to be seen but it is comforting to know that there is emerging talent and that they are good enough to beat the Spanish, a nation which currently boasts some of the most technically proficient footballers on the planet.

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