England: The Solution

So we’ll be hanging on to the ’66 victory for at least another 4 years. I can see us hanging on to that for a lot longer though. My dad reckons it’s because the schools are discouraging competitive competition. I agree that this doesn’t help, however, I think the England team did at least try very hard. They just weren’t very good.

The more traditional football fan still believes you can win the tournament playing a traditional 442 style. I’m not convinced. The game has evolved so much in recent years. The win has become so important that teams no longer seem to just ‘go for it’. The underdog will attempt to get every man behind the ball and hope for something to happen on the counter. The Final itself was a clear example of this. The Dutch game plan was to disrupt the Spanish, and it almost worked. This made for a very poor game of football.

With our trusted 442 system it relies on there being space for the wingers to get to the byline to cross. Against Algeria, this wasn’t ever going to be possible.
So what system should we be playing? Well, it’s up to the manager. What no answers Len? Well until we have the players with the level of ability required it’s irrelevant. There’s a serious lack of English talent at the moment. You look at the world champions and you’ll note that the majority of them play for Barcelona and Real Madrid. Our best players do come from Chelsea and Manchester United, but where do the rest come from Portsmouth, West Ham, and Blackburn. You get the picture. We need to look at the grassroots and adopt a model similar to the Spanish.

Johan Cruyff introduced the total football theologies when he went to manage Barcelona and the Spanish style of play has also adopted this.  I’m not convinced that style of play is what the England game is all about. Instead of a slow ‘tippy tappy’ approach, we tend to play at a great intensity of physicality and speed. However, when we play at the international level this approach never seems to be part of the game plan? Whether this is due to the foreign manager or whether our mentality suggests we should play in a ‘continental’ manner I don’t know. I would like to see us look at our nationalistic strengths and build on these at a grassroots level.

Here is my 3-point plan to help build a World Cup-winning side.

1. The first is to limit the number of foreign players per team in the Premiership. This would force teams to invest in (and actually use) their youth teams.

2. I would introduce football academies across the country funded by the FA. With the amount of money in the Premiership at the moment, I’m sure this shouldn’t be a problem.

3. A salary cap in the Premiership has to happen. It’s gone far too far now. It’s time to make these spoilt children slightly more humble. If they move abroad then so be it, they can still be picked for England 🙂

England for the cup in 2030!