[football] halting the deterioration of england

Red Mist opines:

Consider the 2-0 defeat to Croatia, the Euro 2004 defeat against Portugal, France in the world cup a few years back, the list goes on.

Why does this occur?

From an early age there is a difference in approach taught in England compared to the rest of 'footballing' Europe and Latin America. It's all about formation, the 4-4-2, being allocated a position and playing there for the next 20 years. There's little time for small pitches, 5-aside and technical training.

When I was at school, 95% of the time was spent playing 11-aside, with a few minutes here and there set aside for some dribbling. The result - drones who only know how to play in one position, with very limited technical ability or tactical awareness. Keeping hold of the ball is just not tought...it's all about scoring goals ASAP.

Soccer Lens says:

For too long have they been hiding inside the bubble of invincibility which they have constructed for themselves. Too long have they surrounded themselves with the air of self-perceived superiority. The sad fact is that England are not as great as they make themselves out to be - I have been telling England supporters this my whole life and none of them listens.

Years ago they employed a Swede by name of Sven-Goran Eriksson. When that decision was made, many derided the English FA for turning to a foreign coach. It was a disgraceful thing to do considering how the English often saw themselves as a football powerhouse. To be sure, the English FA wasn’t too pleased of the decision themselves and vowed that never again would they turn to a foreign coach. Yet 6 years later, the English have, as Britney Spears put it “did it again”.

What about the Premier League? It is the best? Hardly. Let’s look at the the winners of the Champions League for the past 10 years. In a span a decade, the prestigious competition was won by an English club only twice - Manchester United in 1999 and Liverpool in 2005. That’s not too bad you might say considering that Italian clubs have only won it twice as well during that same time span.

I'd like to make a suggestion

In the Australian competition, there was a situation where Carlton, Essendon, Hawthorn and one or two others were mopping up all the championships, Carlton being the blue-bloods of the competition.

Starting a couple of decades ago, the powers that be decided to do something about it.

First off was the admission of new clubs from interstate and this then grew into an almost wholly national competition which saw Brisbane and Sydney [non-AFL states] win flags, on top of traditional states like WA and SA.

Secondly, there was a new policy of recruiting brought in, a highly prescriptive policy of National Draft, Pre-Season Draft and Rookie Draft. There is also a trading day. clubs are allocated "picks" according to where they placed in the previous season and can trade these picks as they wish, to maximize benefit to their club.

These picks are highly scrutinized and work to a formula, the end result being that the weaker clubs benefit from good picks and if the off-field process is also well organized, then the club can look forward to some success maybe five years down the track.

There's been criticism of course and it mainly comes from middle placed clubs who get middle value picks and therefore tend to stay in the middle of the competition. What the system has certainly done though is to even up the competition and even overcompensated at one stage.

The Brisbane Lions were a hybrid of the new Brisbane Club and the old Fitzroy Lions, the latter a perennially struggling club. In 2001-3, they won three flags in a row, largely due to a great off-field organization, heaps of money some years earlier enabling them to pick well, the drafting of a great coach and an esprit-de-corps which grew up around the club.

They've had their day and new clubs are now up there - it seems to be a most egalitarian arrangement and has brought into the lexicon the term "window of opportunity", whereby a club finally matures to the point it is ready to win a flag and is able to do so for maybe three years, after which it drops back again, having suffered poorer and poorer draft picks in each successive year.

Another factor is the salary cap. Clubs have X amount of dollars to spend on players and if they can't keep it under the "cap", then either players must accept a cut or be jettisoned - this particularly hit Brisbane.

The English system of relegation is a good one in principle and affords well organized clubs a chance but the sorry truth is that while the Big 4 continue from riches to riches, the others will languish on the middle to lower rungs. Everton is such a club.