Why England Will Never Win the World Cup Again!
The World Cup in Brazil has been finished for 3 months. Germany were the deserved winners (probably). Ironically, despite all the hoo-ha and riots in the build-up it will probably go down as one of the best world cups ever in terms of the quality of the football played.
It started with some dubious decisions for the hosts, some very questionable football by the holders, Suarez amazed us with his comeback and then we could scarcely believe our eyes as he literally got his teeth into Italy. There was a broken back for Neymar, broken hearts for Brazil and broken records for Germany after thrashing them 7-1.
By the way, England were there too! Technically we left after two weeks but in reality we lasted 8 days. Two crushing defeats to Italy and Uruguay left us dangling by a thread and Costa Rica then proceeded to cut that thread by beating Italy.
Despite all the positivity that surrounded the Italy game we were one dimensional. Our game plan largely consisted of giving the ball to Sterling and seeing what he could do. This was same plan as Argentina had but unfortunately, Sterling is no Messi.
We employed a sort of 4-2-4 formation. Very attack minded but naïve defensively. Baines was hammered but what could he do. It was 2 against 1 most of the time he played as neither Rooney nor Sterling track the wing backs of the opposition.
We can lament the tactics and quality on the pitch but England's problems run much deeper. The fact is NO-ONE cares!. Not the clubs, not the Premier League, not the Fans and certainly not the media. The FA may profess to give something resembling a damn but they too are not prepared to make the tough decisions that will improve England.
Even the fans only care about England about 6 times a year. They will moan and complain about the state of English football but come the transfer window it becomes all about which talented Bolivian 18 year old they've signed or which mercenary is on £200k per week.
In 1991 the decision as taken by the FA to form a breakaway league, and it was a breakaway league! Their reasoning was that as the arbiters of Football in this country they should be the ones to run the league and they also made a point of saying how this would improve the national side. So, the FA Premier League was born. The league was so successful that it became too big for the FA to manage so they set up a separate management arm "The Premier League" to run it. Fast forward 20 years and the FA has been dropped from the title and they no longer have anything to do with running it. So other than more of the money going to fewer of the clubs, what's changed? The FA still don't oversee league football, the national side are still hopeless and to top it all less England qualified players are playing. It would be interesting to see how many of the aims and objectives stated by the FA in 1991 have been achieved. I daresay only the financial ones!
What it has meant is that Football is well and truly a business now. Fans are no longer fans in the truest sense of the word, they are customers. However, unlike customers of say, a supermarket, these customers will not go somewhere else when the product becomes poor or the prices increase by unrealistic levels. They will still buy season tickets, replica shirts and complain about how the foreign owner just doesn't get it. It is not their club anymore. They have been disconnected from their club so vastly that they don't get that they have no say anymore.
England matches are the only time where they can feel connected to the sport again. So they can show their disgust at the manager and the state of the football and they can choose not to attend matches. They do however fail to see that they are part of the problem and so the cycle continues.
So what is the solution? First off all fans need to start voting with their feet and their wallets. It may feel like disloyalty but if enough of you get together then differences can be made. Secondly Clubs need to encouraged (forced?!) to bring on more English talent. English players need to be brave and go abroad to develop their skills and finally they need to get experience of high level football.
Here is my action plan:
1 Make prize money related to the number of England Qualified players they have in the PL squad. If they have 10 then they get full prize money and reduce it for each player they are short. Clubs can still have 25 non-English players but they would not receive any PL prize money
2 Get our younger lads to play tournaments at their level. Let's send our best U21 to the U21 tournament to help them get the tournament experience. Who cares if Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scores a goal in a meaningless friendly against Brazil, he could be scoring that for the U21's in the semi-final!
3 The FA need to have young player liaisons to help young English players when they go abroad to play. If young Jack Smith is playing in Spain then they can work with his club to help him settle.
4 Get rid of Wembley. England had a tendency to do better when Wembley was demolished. Take the internationals around the country. Get the fans invested and interested in the national team. I can't take my 10 year old to a Wednesday night international in London! He needs to be at school the next day and it would be an 8 hour round trip.
