da cassino online： We are just a year away from the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, and it’s safe to say that England don’t stand a chance at winning football’s greatest accolade, despite the traditional overhyping by the British press that will accompany the build-up to the international tournament over the next 12 months.
da pixbet： Optimism and patriotism are one thing, but let’s look at the facts. England are yet to put in a display that can be described as ‘dominant’ throughout Roy Hodgson’s tenure, excluding the occasional romping of teams such as San Marino, who would struggle to hold their own in the lower leagues of English football, and overall, the squad is the weakest it’s been for a generation. Even the Spain Under 21s, with their stellar cast of exciting young talents, probably possess greater quality than the England senior team, and would most likely out-class them over the course of 90 minutes.
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We’ve all heard the arguments before as to why our country continually fails to perform at national level – our style of coaching young players has become outdated and focuses on the wrong aspects of the game, we are unable to produce any top-class wingers, out-and-out strikers or midfield technicians, but most importantly, the English game is continually undermined by the sheer nature of the Premier League, where the continual lust for profit and the availability of cheaper foreign stars has outweighed in terms of importance the more honest and nationalist intentions of providing opportunities for home-grown talent.
The latest critic to bandwagon the trend of speaking out against the financial power of the Premier League is the FA’s outgoing chief David Bernstein. The 70 year-old chairman recently told reporters; “I’ve got a lot of respect for the Premier League but its success has put the game out of balance. On the wider issue of club and country, the number of English players in the Premier League and the Football League is a really important matter. We have this number of around 30 per cent and in Germany it is more than 50 per cent and that 20 per cent is a lot of players. We desperately need to increase the pool of real quality players that the manager Roy Hodgson has to choose from. All the work we are doing such as in youth development is aimed at doing that over the next few years and it’s great to see some very good players coming through now such as Jack Wilshere. There are some coming through but we need many more.“
The criticism is certainly true – if England’s recent failed Under 21 campaign wasn’t enough evidence that the Three Lions set-up and the FA have somehow took a wrong turn in their bid to bring through and nurture young talent, the fact that just three of the summer’s 33 already completed transfers involve English players tells its own story.
But shouldn’t Bernstein have done more during his tenure with the FA to rectify the crisis, rather than simply point it out as a major challenge to his successor, Greg Dyke?
It’s not as if the situation wasn’t already well known when Bernstein took up the role as chairman back in 2011. We had just witnessed another tournament of failure at the 2010 World Cup, which not only spelled out that the ‘golden generation’ had not been good enough in comparison to Europe’s other footballing powerhouses, but also that our berth of stars who could be described as ‘world-class’, such as John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, were now edging into their twilight years.
From the offset, the plan should have been to begin planning for the future, starting with legislation to improve the environment for English starlets to receive as much game-time as possible. Yet, at this summer’s Under 21 European Championship, Stuart Pearce managed a side that on the most-part plied their trade in the England’s second tier, or if not, made sporadic appearances and produced cameo roles for Premier League clubs.
You can argue that the involvement of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in the senior set-up undermined the junior team’s chances, but it’s a truly disturbing state of affairs when the England management can’t find eleven players under the age of 21 playing regular top flight football. In comparison, the Spanish side that won the tournament consisted of players already plying their trade with either Barcelona or Real Madrid, making consistent and regular contributions to the first team, or are members of the starting XI for some of the smaller clubs in La Liga, such as Malaga’s Isco.
To be fair to Bernstein, he has overseen one significant change during his two year spell; the opening of St. George’s Park, that will not only become a major facility that the England team will benefit from, but also improve the quality of English coaching -another pressing issue considering the top jobs in English football have been dominated by foreign appointments for over a decade. The new training ground came at a cost of £105million, but in many ways it a rather superficial solution to intrinsic problems in the English game, that cannot simply be overcome by a shiny new sports centre.
If the FA truly wish for change, it must come through the official rules of how the Premier League is run. The Financial Fair Play laws will hopefully turn clubs towards promoting from within in a bid to reduce costs, however further legislation is needed in the form of quotas, not only for senior teams but also reserve and youth teams, that dictates and represents the responsibility domestic clubs must have to the English national team. In other sports, such as Rugby, the national game is prioritised far above club levels, and the FA must do more to push football in the same direction by subverting the influence of money and analyses of success based on profit and loss rather than progress on the football pitch.
Combating the overwhelming influence of the Premier League is not the only issue Bernstein’s FA have come up short in terms of finding an adequate and popular solution to. Over the past few years, we’ve seen continual inconsistencies in the battle against racism, and the overall effect is that England’s governing body stands accused of lacking enough bite, or for that matter a significant bark.
Greg Dyke has already vowed to make providing young English players with more opportunities to play at top level his biggest priority, telling reporters after the announcement of his appointment; “A lot of coaches I talk to tell me there is a lot of talent out there, but they can’t get through. That is going to be one of the big challenges (for me). How do we get talented kids, properly coached, into the top level of English football“
We can only hope that unlike his predecessor, the new FA chief will realise that actions speak louder than words. If we are ever to limit the powers of the Premier League, and its negative impact on the English national team, we need a much, outspoken and determined governing body, that does not see simply talking about serious issues as its only vehicle for change.
Could David Bernstein have done more?
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