Topic: Is it any wonder we're behind the footballing times?

[JohnnoWhite]

My cousin when he retired used to work for the PFA - he played for City and Everton. He now works for City coaching in their academy set-up.

Anyway when he was working for the PFA, he was commissioned to perform a tour of the leading European football nations to see what they were doing with development programmes for kids. He went to France (PSG) he went to Spain  (Barca and Madrid) he went to Germany (Bayern) he went to Holland (Ajax) and Italy (Juve and Milan).

He came back and reported to the PFA what he'd seen and witnessed in operation. What they did with his report is still not known but he certainly told me that all of them operated a version of a mini-sized game depending on the age of the kids. Little uns played on down-sized pitches and all the dimensions of the pitch and the goals and the balls were similarly downsized to suit. Also numbers per side were reduced to suit the reduced space available and other things until the kids were accustomed to the game and when bigger and smarter were introduced to the full sized pitches etc

I've just seen this on the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18236981 and by Jeez, no wonder we're followers now where once we led the way!

His tour and his report were performed over 15 years ago and only now are we getting organised !!

Shite is what the footballing organisation is in this country - useless and behind-the-times shite.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

The PFA are a shower of knobheads. Just like the FA.

Bellends all.

[Upanishad]

Utter shite isn't it. I heard Les Howie on radio 5 live this morning, he was saying how these things needed to be thought through and given time to prepare. What a load of bollocks, the stupid muppets, as the OP states this has been talked about for over a fucking decade! Makes me really angry! Idiots. 10 year old kids playing on a full size pitch, what a fucking joke!!!

[Cybertom]

It is a joke! When I played from U6-U11, I played on a half size pitch. 60 yards long (about). From U12 onwards, full sized pitch.
That is actually ridiculous, looking back on it. At the age of 11, I was expected to make my way up and down a pitch that fit as a fiddle Steven Gerrard is expected to dominate. It's no wonder that in this country a lot of our players turn out to be fine athlete's with little tactical knowledge, inferior footballing ability and slow reaction times.
The smaller the pitch, the more touches a player gets. The smaller the pitch, the faster you have to make your decisions. That's why players such as Xavi, Iniesta, Alonso, Silva, Fabregas and Mata all come through the same country in the same generation and why we get left with Scott Parker, Aaron Lennon, James Milner, Theo Walcott and Kyle Walker.

[Barneylfc∗]

It is a joke! When I played from U6-U11, I played on a half size pitch. 60 yards long (about). From U12 onwards, full sized pitch.
That is actually ridiculous, looking back on it. At the age of 11, I was expected to make my way up and down a pitch that fit as a fiddle Steven Gerrard is expected to dominate. It's no wonder that in this country a lot of our players turn out to be fine athlete's with little tactical knowledge, inferior footballing ability and slow reaction times.
The smaller the pitch, the more touches a player gets. The smaller the pitch, the faster you have to make your decisions. That's why players such as Xavi, Iniesta, Alonso, Silva, Fabregas and Mata all come through the same country in the same generation and why we get left with Scott Parker, Aaron Lennon, James Milner, Theo Walcott and Kyle Walker.

You do realise that Scott Parker is the bravest human being to have ever lived yeah?

[SamAteTheRedAcid]

You do realise that Scott Parker is the bravest human being to have ever lived yeah?

John Terry says hi.

[S]

No idea how to embed YouTube links so I'll let someone else do the honours.

One of the most passionate and accurate outlooks on the subject...and it's given by someone who's not even English. Try and ignore the Sky presenter (harder than it sounds).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB6WCSKkkIc

[tonysleft]

Not only that but the Spanish are allowed a lot more time to train their youth players than England currently does.. I think that's subject to change at the start of the 2012/13 campaign after a push spearheaded by Fergie. The old rules were that young players had to live within something like 20 miles of the training ground and could only be trained for a few hours a week, but those will be done away with and English clubs will be allowed a lot more time to train their young players from now on. Don't understand WHY it's taken so long for the FA and PFA to cop on to this, I mean it's one of the main reasons why the English NT is such a monumental flop all the time.

[GBF]

PFA is a union not the one that can implement change.  They probably gave it to FA 15 years ago but FA has filed it under the "crap" pile because until now, the FA/clubs/fans/media all believed in players who are big, strong, can run with a bleeding head and practise "shoot & chase". 

[Andy @ Allerton!]

PFA is a union not the one that can implement change.  They probably gave it to FA 15 years ago but FA has filed it under the "crap" pile because until now, the FA/clubs/fans/media all believed in players who are big, strong, can run with a bleeding head and practise "shoot & chase". 

The English League has been 'kick and rush' for decades. Apparantly that's what makes it "The best league in the world" (TM) an absolute lack of control and running really, really fast.

[rowan_d]

No idea how to embed YouTube links so I'll let someone else do the honours.

One of the most passionate and accurate outlooks on the subject...and it's given by someone who's not even English. Try and ignore the Sky presenter (harder than it sounds).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB6WCSKkkIc

Compare that to English lion Tervor Brooking droning on about the reasons he's utterly failed at his job for the last 9 years. Get people into those development jobs who actually give a shit, whose reputations depend on their methods and successes/failures, and who are the right people for the job rather than those who necessarily have played the game at the highest level.

I'm tired of everyone at the FA blaming every other organisation for their collective failure to push through even the most basic pieces of legislation which would improve our grassroots development. There was a month or two after Germany embarassed us when it seemed like a revolution was inevitable at academy-level, but that fizzled out when the lazy c*nts realised how much work was really required, and by all accounts we've firmly stayed with the methods that have produced inevitable failure for the last 3 decades or so.

[Something Awful]

The irony is that for as long as I can remember I hated playing on smaller pitches. I coulda been a contender!

At this point, good English players are either a fluke or because some rogue coach broke from the accepted formula. Shocking.

[JonnyDubb]

Even if this is the start of a massive grass-roots revolution, surely it'll take years before we see any sort of impact at PL or international level. Then it'll probably be out of date again.

[S]

Even if this is the start of a massive grass-roots revolution, surely it'll take years before we see any sort of impact at PL or international level. Then it'll probably be out of date again.

We'll probably put together all these plans, start playing some lovely technical football and then Spain will win the 2018 World Cup by hoofing balls up to a target man.

[rowan_d]

Even if this is the start of a massive grass-roots revolution, surely it'll take years before we see any sort of impact at PL or international level. Then it'll probably be out of date again.

That's a problem attitude. Things have to change, sooner rather than later. If our methods are outdated again by the time they've had a real effect, then so be it, we move on again. But retaining the status quo will, and has led to failure time and time again. Long-term planning may not give you the instant riches you desire, but its necessary, and its a disgrace that the FA seemingly got bored of it after about a month of looking like they were genuinely going to try and shake things up 2 years ago

[Suareznumber7]

These changes were made in the US a few years ago.  Probably won't help our national team because we are shit but it certainly isn't going to hurt. 

[rowan_d]

These changes were made in the US a few years ago.  Probably won't help our national team because we are shit but it certainly isn't going to hurt. 

Get the sport more popular, get the grassroots right, and you'll have the best national team in the world

[lindylou100]

This is an absolute embarrassment to english football, I honestly thought this was already being implemented as it has been in spain for the last 15 years but I'm not at all surprised given everything thats gone on with the FA in recently. We'll just have to add it to the mountain of existing evidence that FA is not fit for purpose, but i guess reform is only going to happen when the last of this bunch of self serving dinosaurs dies of old age.

[Antics]

This is an absolute embarrassment to english football, I honestly thought this was already being implemented as it has been in spain for the last 15 years but I'm not at all surprised given everything thats gone on with the FA in recently. We'll just have to add it to the mountain of existing evidence that FA is not fit for purpose, but i guess reform is only going to happen when the last of this bunch of self serving dinosaurs dies of old age.

Did I miss the part where it didn't get passed? Late or not, the fact the reforms have been passed is hardly an embarrassment.

How effectively and widely they are implemented is another question altogether however, and that's before you consider the myriad of other issues currently holding English football back.

[Suareznumber7]

Get the sport more popular, get the grassroots right, and you'll have the best national team in the world

While you are absolutely right, There's too much money in the other major sports right now. Kids in the US don't grow up dreaming about becoming the next Messi, they want to be the next Lebron.

[BEAST]

better late than never.

Need to promote futsal pitches as well

[WEST HAM PAUL]

I remember in the 80's from U'8's upwards always playing on full size pitches & goals. Didn't know any different .

Corners where ridiculous very few ever got air born & reached the six yard box. Goal kicks just reached the edge of your own penalty area. Plus it was like bees round a honeypot at times.

The big kid with the big kick always stood out plus he might be able to head a ball.

But we didn't know any different the only time it hit home but for the English way & mentality it was too late was when in 1989 I think I was U'13's we went on a week tour to Spain. We were a tough little decent team & played 3 games . These Spanish kids looked half our size some of them. We lost all three games 5-0, 5-1 & 5-2. All little Maradonas it seemed.

We came back & played our usual way oblivious really to the skill we'd seen.

How many good footballers as kids in this country been turned away from clubs for being to small .

Messi would have been turned away probably in this country

[kellan]

I used to train on a Saturday morning and finish just before the first youth games kicked off. My neighbours lad was on one of the teams, so I used to stick around and watch him play. He was a good little player who stood out a lot, had a few trials here and there, and ended up at Bury for a while. He quit around the u11/u12 age because he thought it was stupid; not the game its self, but the bit were he was asked to play on a full size pitch with goals so big his Dad had to use a ladder to put the net up. He won't have been the only kid to pack it in for that reason.

I've overheard grandmothers at their first game point out within a minute of kick off that having pitches and goals that big makes no sense what so ever. It's ridiculous that it's taken 15 years for proper footballing people to realise it and do something about it, and it will be another 15 years before the changes start paying off.

[cornelius]

My cousin when he retired used to work for the PFA - he played for City and Everton. He now works for City coaching in their academy set-up.

Anyway when he was working for the PFA, he was commissioned to perform a tour of the leading European football nations to see what they were doing with development programmes for kids. He went to France (PSG) he went to Spain  (Barca and Madrid) he went to Germany (Bayern) he went to Holland (Ajax) and Italy (Juve and Milan).

He came back and reported to the PFA what he'd seen and witnessed in operation. What they did with his report is still not known but he certainly told me that all of them operated a version of a mini-sized game depending on the age of the kids. Little uns played on down-sized pitches and all the dimensions of the pitch and the goals and the balls were similarly downsized to suit. Also numbers per side were reduced to suit the reduced space available and other things until the kids were accustomed to the game and when bigger and smarter were introduced to the full sized pitches etc

I've just seen this on the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18236981 and by Jeez, no wonder we're followers now where once we led the way!

His tour and his report were performed over 15 years ago and only now are we getting organised !!

Shite is what the footballing organisation is in this country - useless and behind-the-times shite.

Gareth Southgate was getting his balls sucked by some yesterday for helping to get the vote through at the FA regarding kids pitch sizes. He's a fucking, gravy train riding, weapon and it's taken him 2 years in the job (which so far seems to have consisted of him having lots of nice little foreign jollies dressed up as fact finding missions) to conclude that coaching in schools is very crap and almost non-existant. Fuck me, there's no flies on him is there?!!! I could have told the FA that 27 years ago when I was 8 years old. After Barcelona whipped United at Wembley he was tweeting shite about the desperate need to copy Spain. I told him that it's too late to start copying the Spanish now, that we'd said the same about the French 10-15 years ago and the Dutch 30 years ago, that following will get The FA nowhere because by the time the useless shithouses have implemented anything to catch up, the game will no doubt have moved on again and what we need are some genuinely innovative people at The FA and not some jobbing, goofy fuckwit of a failed manager on a cushy little number draining money from the game. Naturally he didn't like that. The truth hurts.

[Ryan M]

Don't get me started on Player Development Pathways! It's a really good discussion subject but I believe the problem lies with the coaching development, we need more highly qualified coach's than we currently produce. The FA are frustrating when it comes to this.

[Gods_Left_Boot]

Even if this is the start of a massive grass-roots revolution, surely it'll take years before we see any sort of impact at PL or international level. Then it'll probably be out of date again.

Not really... Germany started a similar generalised grass-roots revolution after their embarrassing Euro2000 showing, and it only took them a few years to build and implement the new system and start getting huge results

[cornelius]

Not really... Germany started a similar generalised grass-roots revolution after their embarrassing Euro2000 showing, and it only took them a few years to build and implement the new system and start getting huge results

Yes well that was Germany but this is the FA, Trevor Brooking et al we're talking about.

[JohnnoWhite]

There's supposed to be a much-vaunted lobby of Parliament etc about how the game is administered, controlled , planned etc, et-ferkin-cetera. Wonder how much those tits in Westminster really know - or care - about our game?