A lot to agree with here.

Firstly, Harry's point about Sven is right. His England looked worryingly like they may punch above their limited weight for a while. Hodgson hasn't come near that but, at least, he has brought England up to its potential for this depleted group of players. Indeed, I am somewhat surprised by the thread title as there was no suggestion there was going to be an improvement beforehand

As JV says, at least they are passing to each other a touch more. See threads passim for my views on coaching in England and Taylor has reiterated and expanded on this expertly above.

As tacey says, the FA have introduced somewhat more progressive coaching methods which may improve coaching over the next generation and the likes of Gerrard etc will be retired so, maybe, 10-15 years time there will be genuine improvement for England.

Taylor, do you have a link to that article? I'd like to read it and show it to my friends over here

Amor de Cosmos wrote:


I remember reading a perfect example of this in wsc a few months back. Phil Jones, one of the brightest young centre halves in the country, was converted into a holding midfielder by United, while Barcelona signed midfield stopper Javier Mascherano and almost immediately converted him into a central defender.

Mascherano is probably little more than 5' 7" in height (imagine the hoots of derision from the motd pundits had Liverpool tried to play him at centre back) yet he has become a regular fixture alongside Puyol for the finest team in Europe. Jones, meanwhile has struggled to find his best form this season, as he has been asked to play at full back and in midfield on a fairly regular basis. Surely this is no coincidence?

Er Liquidatore wrote:


Ah OK, it turns out it's on the WSC archive here, so yes.

www.wsc.co.uk/the-archive/911-Youth-foot.../5203-stunted-growth

Make sure you send me the photos of their stunned faces.

This is something of a bugbear of mine, the way young kids are coached.

When I was 11 years old I started playing organised football. We played on full-sized pitches, with full-sized goals, and every game was savagely competitive. We'd have dads screaming at their sons to smash everyone up in the air, there would be threats or actual fights nearly every week, vicious tackles and the mentality was win, win win.

I was quite lucky in that my dad played for Arsenal as a youngster and my uncle had been taken up to Man United for trials when he was a kid, so they had an idea of what it meant to be a decent footballer (we were also lucky in that one of Ray Wilkin's sons used to play for us, so his old man would sometimes come along and give us pointers). Consequently when we trained we did a lot of ball work and were encouraged to play as expansive a game as our mediocre talents allowed. It gave me an appreciation of how football is played, and how a team functions. However playing on full sized pitches at 11 is clearly mental.

Defensive minded wrote:


Yes.

Two questions, Liq - How long ago was this? I try and do similar and get looks like I am suggesting naked saunas from some coaches. More than 15 years ago and it must have been like introducing coaching in Esparanto

How would you define 'expansive' in this context? Passing a lot into space? Running into space?

from 93-98. By expansive I mean trying to keep possession, moving into space for passes, using the width as well as the length of the pitch etc

Liq good luck might have been to have relatives that were a bit more than the usual competitive dad whose experience of football is sunday league so they could speak in a position of authority.

Cal Zapiekanki Bialystok wrote:


A younger Danny Murphy?

Have to say, I thought that England at least played as a team for once, and from what I saw of them in the group stage, they had some good moments in all three games.
But by God, they were shocking yesterday. I think you have to give credit to Hodgson, the only things to say in their favour are that they were well organised and kept on trying right til the end. But you had more than a few players on the pitch who couldn't trap a bag of cement.

Amor de Cosmos wrote:


English/British full backs of that height do exist and it even appears one of them was at Euro 2012. Leighton Baines is listed as 5' 7".

I'll take this chance to say it now, if I've been one arse in any way toward you in english or other language, I appologise.
I can be a downright muppet, weird, shit-cunt....erm often. But, like I mentioned before, today, the one reason why I remain here on OTF is because of the huge respect I have for you all.

Oh, that's not bad.



I thank you. I tell you the odd thing I find about full-size pitches. When kids move from 7 a side, you would expect them to be running all over the place on the field but they seem to crowd together even more.

An anecdote possibly apropos of nothing to do with this thread but the other team in my son's age group are, obviously, the lads' greatest rivals. While they dominated the 11-a-side league and cup, they have done nothing in 7-a-side tournaments, drawing with us last week and not qualifying from their group this week while we reached the final. One of their lads, well primed by the coach, said "Oh, we're more of a league team than a tournament team.

Phil Jones is a bugbear of mine. I watched him and Smalling strike a very decent central defensive partnership at the U21 Euros last year. Smalling was good, but Jones was immense at times, powerful but intelligent with the ball. He started the season pretty well for Man Utd, but his form has been pretty poor in the final three months of the season, his inclusion in this squad was surely down to his 'versatility' rather than any actual form.
On the subject of the midfielders of the future, obviously Wilshere is the one we should all be excited about. His season long lay off could do him real damage, but he seems to me to be the most exctiting midfield talent we've since Gascoigne. Maybe Cleverly and McEachran also worthy of a raised hope.
England OK at this tournament for me, Back 4 apart from Johnson pretty decent and Hart very impressive>

If you're looking for English midfielders from middling teams, then I'll add that Norwich's answers to Busquets, Xavi and Iniesta are David Fox, Jonny Howson and Anthony Pilkington. Sorted.

I wonder if Scott Sinclair will get a look in at some point. He's not brilliant but, at 23, he is definitely worth a look.

Yeah, we had Sinclair in our iterative collaborative squad. (We would also have suffered the three key injuries Barry, Lampard, Cahill incidentally). We had Jarvis (no Downing) and Carrick (no Parker) in as well.

Beltrano Carpinteiro wrote:


So he is. He doesn't look that small. Or maybe it's just that Lahm does in comparison to the rest of the German team.

I was also wondering if Leon Britton should have gone. and also if you read the comments on say the independent then no they weren't better that last time they were worse