Re: Euro 2012 Thread

[Brass Monkey]

Winning is of secondary importance, but they do care. Mathias Sammer cares about Germany's age groups winning persistently and regularly. He believes that winning trophies can and should be a habit as much as winning football matches should be. There is an idea in England that foreign teams don't care about winning at youth level. It's not true. It's just that wins are not their primary goal. They probably wouldn't be in England if they didn't lose so often. Winning in itself is a good habit and is a sign that things are, up to that point, going to plan.

Germany won the u21s against England three years ago and were very happy about it. Of the starting line-ups that night, 5* of the Germany u21s have graduated to be starting in the quarter final on Friday. Of the England starting line-up, only two of the players* even made the Euros squad. There's a clear problem there. Admittedly, they got tanked by the German juggernaut in that final*, but still. Where's the graduation?

* - edited for wrongness

Hmmm, I'd say it's all relative... they do care, but it's to a different degree. They care more about how they play, how they've acquitted themselves in a competitive environment, than the end result. I don't think using the U21s as an example is the best, the age representative style of football dissipates quickly after U17s, when some of the players are getting snapped up or even making a foray into first team league football.

[Lara Lara Laughs]

Football has changed. England haven't. There's something that happens between the ages of 16 and 19 in our footballers that means they're sh*tter than their European counterparts. We win at under-17s but struggle the higher we go. Why is that?

It's much earlier than that. England pick and develop the physically strong players. You remember the kid at school, who physically developed before the others and could run the fastest, kick the ball the furthest and tackle the hardest. They tend to be the older boys in each school year who are born just after the start of the school year in September.

While we're picking the brutes and marvelling at how they beat smaller and younger players still learning their craft, a lot of other countries are picking the small, technically and mentally gifted youngsters. When these youngsters do catch up fitness wise and physically, they're streets ahead.

We also bring it on ourselves by coaching like twats and forcing children to pay 11- a side football on gigantic pitches, which highlight and encourage the monsters who can lump the ball put of defence or head it the furthest. Kids should be developing their skills on small pitches, concentrating on ball retention, control and technique in 5 a side football until they're at least 12 or 13. Probably 15 or 16 to be honest.

[Brass Monkey]

I think whatever you do, you do it the hardest. We all know about Bradman and his stump and golf ball - Pele played a lot with a rag ball or tennis ball. It makes sense that if you can do things well with them, normal size equipment is going to be easier to deal with. That's what I'd do, anyway - make them all play with a tennis ball!

[Chivalry Augustus]

Football has changed. England haven't. There's something that happens between the ages of 16 and 19 in our footballers that means they're sh*tter than their European counterparts. We win at under-17s but struggle the higher we go. Why is that?

We also bring it on ourselves by coaching like twats and forcing children to pay 11- a side football on gigantic pitches, which highlight and encourage the monsters who can lump the ball put of defence or head it the furthest. Kids should be developing their skills on small pitches, concentrating on ball retention, control and technique in 5 a side football until they're at least 12 or 13. Probably 15 or 16 to be honest.

This is what other countries are doing now, but I can tell you the current generations of good footballers from other nations weren't doing things much differently until recently, when 'the science age' changed football. I was born in Germany and had the pleasure of training with a professional German team for a while when I wasn't sh*t (bear in mind this was age group football and I was eight years old). Once the kids started playing matches, they played on whatever pitches there were. They played football and they enjoyed it.

Now, the crucial difference at our age group level was that we didn't even play on pitches. We just worked on technique within our group, learning to walk before we could run. Coaches knew what they were doing and they wanted you to play football. Playing football on a big pitch and playing on a little pitch don't always matter if you teach your kids to play in the right way. It's daunting to play full size and I DO AGREE THAT IT BENEFITS YOUNG KIDS TO PLAY FOOTBALL IN PROPORTION TO THEIR SIZE, but all these little things are aids in a kid's development, not the be-all and end-all. Talent thrives no matter what conditions it is brought up in. You don't need everything to be in the goldilocks range, otherwise we'd have never produced any good footballers.

Fact is since the late-90s we've stopped producing players with an abundance of talent. Shearer, Beckham, Scholes and Gascoigne were all excellent at what they did. Even my own personal hero Stan Collymore had all the talent in the world. He just happened to be a c*nt about it. When you look at what has changed since they came into football, you have to decide which factors are responsible for the decline in English talent:

- The inception of the Premier League
- The disproportionate rise in wages compared to the rest of the world
- The decline of traditional English clubs like Leeds United and West Ham, whose Academies have produced an abundance of England players
- The marginalisation of English players within their homeland due to foreign influx
- The rise of nothing teams like Bolton, Wigan and Fulham replacing traditional clubs
- The pre-eminence of the Premier League brand over the national team

There's a lot of things that have gone wrong with English football, although many of the same things have happened with other countries. I personally think the fall of Leeds United and West Ham has been particularly unhelpful in England's decline. These two clubs between them produce a lot of good players and seemed to know how to develop them in a caring way. Since they yo-yoed between divisions, their talent has been cherry-picked, not developed, before dispersing into the lower league wilderness. I guess the stupidity of footballers in general has to come into question, though. The best player Forest has produced in the last twenty years is Jermaine Jenas, a player who has developed very little since making the highly questionable move to Newcastle United. He was technically a very good player.

[taipan]

Football has changed. England haven't. There's something that happens between the ages of 16 and 19 in our footballers that means they're sh*tter than their European counterparts. We win at under-17s but struggle the higher we go. Why is that?

It's a difficult one. Why do we win at youngish age representative football? Because the other teams give less of a shit about it. I did some (low level) coaching with kids in France and Spain long times ago, you wouldn't believe the difference between those lot and our lot. We drive our kids so hard that the extra bit of determination pulls them through. It really opened my eyes as to the differences between those two countries and us in terms of technique. It was startling and disheartening.

I was speaking to the Spaniards and even moreso with the French about why their control is so much better than ours - both of them said a similar thing - most of their kids play with the smallest type of ball and they're playing more on the streets than the Brits. They think those formative years, doing that, makes so much difference. The Frencho said that many British coaches they've worked with are still in the 'GET IT OUT!!!!' school of not knocking it around, not passing back etc. They Spaino said that he reckons we play a lot more 11-a-side than they do. They don't even do the 'mini football' 8-a-side as much as we... they'll do 3s or 4s a side and make the pitches smaller. This all helps with control.

I personally think that the French are invariably the best at controlling the ball in the entire world... their first touch is usually impeccable. My answer would be to stop hiring meathead shitwads to coach our kids, don't act like xenophobic table-thumpers and let our kids enjoy the games rather than the win at all costs mantra.

Interesting Dan. The question is why?

[beamer]

I guess there's a lot due to the culture of the game. Football in England traditionally is the working class game, less so now in the stands but still in the game itself there seems to be a reverse snobbery making it harder for more "educated" types to progress, both in the playing side where they may get bullied out of it by "tougher" kids at a younger age and also in the coaching side of things where the "up and at 'em" approach had always prevailed.

There's also English lower league football where a certain physical, uncultured style tends to dominate, making it hard for "footballing" managers to come through and really good players to emerge from lower levels. That has to be put partly down to the competitive, professional nature of our lower league football, and the healthy crowds it gets who expect their team to win at all costs and chase the Premier League dream. Other countries have big clubs' reserve teams playing in the lower leagues, probably in front of one man and his dog. So do we have to sacrifice our lower professional league game as it currently stands, to get an England team capable of success? Maybe.

[Brass Monkey]

Interesting Dan. The question is why?

Why what?

[taipan]

Did you stop coaching?

[Lara Lara Laughs]

Eeesh. Sorry Dan. I genuinely hadn't read your posts before my reply to Aug but I see you've been saying similar things.

[Brass Monkey]

Did you stop coaching?

Loads of reasons. I didn't have any commitment whatsoever - you have to continually do courses to keep your badge, I'm not even sure if I was any good. As soon as that crept in, I suppose like playing football and cricket, I wasn't interested. Like most things I do, I didn't love it enough. I was doing Uni at the same time, so I had double study going on - I wondered which I was most likely to succeed in. In essence I found it a thankless task, too much responsibility and too little remuneration.

[Brass Monkey]

Eeesh. Sorry Dan. I genuinely hadn't read your posts before my reply to Aug but I see you've been saying similar things.

It's alright, I didn't even read them.

[taipan]

Did you stop coaching?

Loads of reasons. I didn't have any commitment whatsoever - you have to continually do courses to keep your badge, I'm not even sure if I was any good. As soon as that crept in, I suppose like playing football and cricket, I wasn't interested. Like most things I do, I didn't love it enough. I was doing Uni at the same time, so I had double study going on - I wondered which I was most likely to succeed in. In essence I found it a thankless task, too much responsibility and too little remuneration.

You were doing it as a Uni course?

[Brass Monkey]

You were doing it as a Uni course?

No, I was doing my degree in 'computers' and doing a coaching badge at the same time. It was my first year at Uni, so I felt I could cope. By the time I'd got it, I was doing quite a few hours coaching - but I suppose I soon lost interest, I lasted less than two years. In my defence, after about a yearish I had f*cked my coccyx up, so I wasn't going to be too enthused of going the extra miles. I think that put pay to all of my sporting aspirations.

[taipan]

You were doing it as a Uni course?

No, I was doing my degree in 'computers' and doing a coaching badge at the same time. It was my first year at Uni, so I felt I could cope. By the time I'd got it, I was doing quite a few hours coaching - but I suppose I soon lost interest, I lasted less than two years. In my defence, after about a yearish I had f*cked my coccyx up, so I wasn't going to be too enthused of going the extra miles. I think that put pay to all of my sporting aspirations.

Pity, you understand the game and the ethos.

[Brass Monkey]

Pity, you understand the game and the ethos.

A bit. Yet I always seem to be at odds with people around me about most things football! Plus, there was always the sort of person inside of me that Lara's on about - a meathead toe-punter - I always wanted my kids to get stuck in and sometimes they didn't fancy it - which could anger some parents. We didn't really have much time to work on skills - parents want to see their kids play, they don't want to see them practice. Parents having a go. Parents trying to coach their kids from the sideline. I was probably too young to have the authority I'd earnt. Have you noticed a theme about what's wrong with English football?

[taipan]

Pity, you understand the game and the ethos.

A bit. Yet I always seem to be at odds with people around me about most things football! Plus, there was always the sort of person inside of me that Lara's on about - a meathead toe-punter - I always wanted my kids to get stuck in and sometimes they didn't fancy it - which could anger some parents. We didn't really have much time to work on skills - parents want to see their kids play, they don't want to see them practice. Parents having a go. Parents trying to coach their kids from the sideline. I was probably too young to have the authority I'd earnt. Have you noticed a theme about what's wrong with English football?

Parents. How did I know that was going to come up. I just won a private bet with myself. Parents should be told to f@ck off and not watch their kids play. I know. I almost went that way myself until sanity set in.

Many years ago myself and a few parents used to take our kids to practice and then retire to the pub. One day the coach crapped us out for not watching the kids practice. I was like, WTF. You are the frigging coach. The last thing you need is us watching.

[Brass Monkey]

Parents. How did I know that was going to come up. I just won a private bet with myself. Parents should be told to f@ck off and not watch their kids play. I know. I almost went that way myself until sanity set in.

Many years ago myself and a few parents used to take our kids to practice and then retire to the pub. One day the coach crapped us out for not watching the kids practice. I was like, WTF. You are the frigging coach. The last thing you need is us watching.

You did the right thing... in all seriousness, if the parent's advice directly contravenes your own - it's a terrible thing to make the kid choose between their dad's tactics and the coach.

[taipan]

Parents. How did I know that was going to come up. I just won a private bet with myself. Parents should be told to f@ck off and not watch their kids play. I know. I almost went that way myself until sanity set in.

Many years ago myself and a few parents used to take our kids to practice and then retire to the pub. One day the coach crapped us out for not watching the kids practice. I was like, WTF. You are the frigging coach. The last thing you need is us watching.

You did the right thing... in all seriousness, if the parent's advice directly contravenes your own - it's a terrible thing to make the kid choose between their dad's tactics and the coach.

Look I knew a shithouse more than the coach, but if he was prepared to do the job, and I wasn't, he was right.

He was a total prick, but that's another story. I can write reams about this type of crap but my forte was more admin and letting kids make their own mistakes.

[lardbucket]

Update?

[Brass Monkey]

Semi 1 is tomorrow. Semi 2 on Thurs. There'll be plenty of mincing tomorrow, mixed in with some sublime touches.

[lardbucket]

Germany, Spain, Italy, and ? Portugal

[Brass Monkey]

Aye, Spain/Portugal tomorrow, Germany/Italy day after.

[lardbucket]

I think deep inside we all know it will be a Portugal-Italy final, and that it will be decided by the best dive.

[Brass Monkey]

In the past, the Germany/Italy match would've been a crying dive-a-thon. No more... these teams are made of honour and understated machismo.

[Guest]

Penalties, hurray!

Shootouts are fun when it isn't England involved. Don't really mind the result, if Spain go through then it's always fun seeing Ronaldo in despair, if Portugal win then at least Spain's dominance will be halted.

Having said that, would rather Spain go through.

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