England are teetering on the edge of failure to qualify for a major tournament for the first time since the 1994 World Cup finals. According to the doom-mongers it would be a disaster for the national sport if they are not at Euro 2008.
But while it might be painful to the egos of the millionaire players and the money-counters at the Football Association, failure could be the best thing to happen for the long-term health of the England national team.
Reading manager Steve Coppell said the status quo in English football was a “recipe for failure” for the national team, citing Arsenal’s completely foreign starting 11 on Monday night as a stark illustration of the problem.
Coppell is advocating a quota of English players in Premier League squads, while Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard also went on record this week to voice his concern at the ever-falling percentage of English players appearing regularly for the big clubs.
It is ironic that despite the millions spent paying the country’s superstars and the millions spent promoting the Premier League as the best league in the world, England are dependant on Israeli players they have never heard of to save their skin.
But if Israel do beat Russia and England then beat Croatia to scrape into the finals, would it not simply fuel the problem? English football would gain more profile, the money would pour in, and clubs would simply recruit more and more foreign stars.
If fans want a national team they can be proud of, maybe they have some hard choices to make. Do they want the fantasy football of Arsenal to spice up dark winter nights in front of the TV, or will they accept an inferior product with English players in the leading roles, but with the prospect of actually winning the 2018 World Cup which could potentially be on home soil?
It may be 11 years away, but failure to reverse the shrinking pool of genuine “world class” players eligible to pull on an England shirt could result in any home World Cup becoming a sense of acute humiliation.
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14 comments so far
What about sending English players abroad instead? If they aren’t good enough and experienced enough to break into a big Premier League club, they could join a club in a good league in Europe and hone their skills there? This way you could keep Arsenal’s fantasy football and the national team might even benefit from the influx of different football philosophies and cultures from different leagues.
Though, if English players aren’t good enough to be in demand in other European leagues either, then that rather points to a problem at youth level, doesn’t it?
- Posted by JanI’d agree, not enough young english players try their luck abroad. If you look at the academy squads in the premier league they seem to be full of foreign players, while european clubs are also pretty international, yet seldom with many english. do you know of any young english players on the books of bundesliga clubs, jan?
- Posted by KevThis whole debate is retarded. No one, after watching an Arsenal game, would want to watch a bunch of local cloggers heave long balls up the pitch. The real question seems to be, why are so few young English players as good as their foreign peers? What is it about their training that causes them to lag so? Simply lowering the bar with some reactionary system of national quotas would be a massive step backward. As Wenger once said, once you’ve had truffles it’s hard to go back to sausage.
- Posted by nicosianare all of you people blind to the world of football, the only people that come to the premiership are players that are proven at the highest level, or youth players that are breaking into the 1st team. how are the english players supposed to develop when foreigners take number one priority every time. give these guys a chance. they shouldnt minimalise the foreigners into what clearly is the best league in the world they should make sure that everyteam has a certain level of english born players in there squad. how can we be top 10 ranked team in the world and not qualify for euro 08. if we fail that should open the eyes of everyone involved in the england setup
- Posted by badgerkev: I’m not an expert there, I only know of Werder Bremen’s Aaron Hunt, but he’s half English, half German and has decided to play for Germany’s U21 instead. Otherwise I don’t know of any English players in Germany. Kevin Keegan and Owen Hargreaves have been rare exceptions.
- Posted by JanThe number of foreign players in the league is a factor but it’s not the only one. Remember 1984, hardly a foreigner in the leagues, yet England failed to qualify.
It’s now a fact of life that to in order to break into the 1st team for one of the top clubs you have to be champions league standard and that is almost impossible for a player without some form of first team experience.
Most clubs, with the exception of Man Utd & Chelsea, cannot afford to pay £20-30m a pop for their players and hence are busy buying up all the young talent from around the world in the hope of uncovering a diamond such as Febregas.
You can guarantee the top clubs won’t entertain a limit on the number of the foreign players in the first team and will wield their legal first team to ensure this won’t happen.
What may be possible is implementing a limit on the number of foreign players under 21 at each club. This will force the clubs to persevere and develop young English talent. Added to this, introducing a rule that only allows a club to loan out English players to other clubs would encourage clubs to invest in English youth as their foreign youngsters won’t be able to gain that vital first team experience.
I watched Liverpool reserves play last night. Hardly and Englishman in the side.
- Posted by honest JimI hear what you’re saying nicosian but I wouldn’t mind going back to a more competitive league with more local players even if it meant a slight dip in quality and english teams reaching the european cup final a bit less often. even the latter might not be an inevitable consequence of having more english boys in the side. team spirit and real identification with the colours can get you a long way.
- Posted by LondonThe middle-tier soccer nations in Europe do seem to have better national sides. Take Portugal for example: until the Bosman ruling, Porto, Benfica and Sporting were on par with the best in Europe. Now, the league has weakened by a flurry of talent is showing up, e.g. Ronaldo, Nani, Figo, Rui Costa, etc, because they get or got to play in the national league. Portugal is now top European footballing nation which wasn’t the case 15 years ago. The same case can be made for Holland and France and Germany which don’t have the best leagues in Europe but are major forces in Europe. England and Spain are strong leagues but their national sides always underperform. Italy is probably the only exception where the league and the national side are strong. If England figure out how Italy does then maybe there’s hope - either than or England must learn how to take penalties…
- Posted by LinoFor england not qualifying,the problems is that leadership not there on and off the pitch to stamp out individual egos, players now are firstly motivated by professional commitment to their clubs by to the money involved, national pride is not the key motivator.
tactically, england manager has always been limited with the exception of sven
On the problem of lack of youth in epl academy or in any european league for that matter, the problem lies with the values the kids hold. its a social and economic issue….its like debating by uk failure in the automobile manufacturing industry.
government must take responsibility
- Posted by chrisI agree that England’s problem start at youth level. No one at the FA wants to take a look and see that English players are seriously technically and tactically inferior to the counterparts on the continent.
Kick and rush? England is your place. A technical game? Most English players are clueless.
And the international game is a technical and tactical one.
I believe Eriksson was trying to teach this, but he was made scapegoat #1.
Funny, I’ll bet if he were English, he’d still have that job.
I think England needs to solve it’s true problems instead of using the foreign players as scapegoats.
I think this foreigner excuse is just that. An excuse to fail.
Teach England’s youngsters how to be technically and tactically proficient instead of just fit and tough and maybe England’s fortunes will change.
You wonder why there are so many foreigners in the Premiership? I believe I just gave you the answer.
- Posted by KeithThis whole thing is silly. Quota system is a step backwards for England. The talented foreign youngsters and players will simply go to other countries where there are no quotas for un talented players.
Copple and the lot are missing the point which is that Endland must develop, coach and mentor young talented players into world class players. The problem is with soccer development in England not with foreigners coming to fill the vacuum. Your average fan wants entertainment not hoofing the ball up all the time.
- Posted by William ZimbabwePersonally I think the problem lies with EUEFA. They should re-introduce the rule that no more than four players who qualify for the national squad associated with their team can be on the pitch at any one time while playing in a champions league or EUEFA cup match.
This would force the biilionaire owners of our top clubs always to have at least seven English players of the highest quality in their teams. The FA would have no say in the matter,hopefully, and some of those multi-millions could go into encouraging English players.
Living on Merseyside I see thousands of potentially top rate youngters kicking the ball around in streets and parks ,as kids do in Brazil, but knowing that if they want to break into the big time they will have to curb their natural talent and become stereotyped players that suit a club’s ideas. The great players have always been individuals and that is the one quality lacking in 90% of England’s current team -flare!
Glasgow has more good kids, but their natural enthusiasm for the skills of Cruyf,Pele,Garincha or Matthews - each the best in their generation - is coached out of them in their early teens.
- Posted by AntonI agree with that Anton. Having watched my son go through the junior ranks at Leyton Orient….natural flair and tricks are certainly not encouraged while the emphasis seems to be on big, powerful players and playing in straight lines…In Brazil there is fare less structure to their junior football, which actually means the kids retain their natural instincts far longer…
- Posted by martyn hermanI’ve really got to say that England deserve everything they’ve got.
- Posted by PaulOVERPAID PRIMA DONNA USELESS PLAYERS.
OVERPAID CLUELESS MANAGER.
BORING NEGATIVE TACTICS.
GREEDY PLAYERS, MANAGERS AND OWNERS.
USELESS PUNDITS WHO DISGUISE ENGLAND’S INADEQUACIES, EG ANDY GRAY, LINEKER ETC.
AND CAN YOU BELIEVE THEY RECALLED THE ‘I ONLY THINK ABOUT MY IMAGE AND MONEY’ BECKHAM.
All in all you got what you deserved you useless bunch of *****************