Needed for England to succeed: skill, coaches and a willingness to change

Sir Trevor Brooking has a plan but the FA's problems and the Premier League's dominance are major obstacles


If you thought England's ignominious exit from the World Cup was bad, the FA's director of football development has news for you: things can only get worse. As the nation concentrated on whether Fabio Capello's team could squeeze past Slovenia, Sir Trevor Brooking was issuing a dire warning about the likely talent gap to come in 2014.

"I don't think there are the obvious quality ones coming through who can replicate what we have, unless we can fast-track one or two of the younger ones and that's asking a lot," he said. Brooking and others had long ago identified the problem and, shortly before the World Cup, finished work on the blueprint he hopes will be part of the solution.

"I am acutely aware there are no quick fixes and easy answers, that we must focus on the long-term future of our game. The key is that we must have more and better skilled coaches with more access to kids at an earlier age," he said.

The Future Game document, distributed initially to academy directors at professional clubs, is designed to provide a template for the revolution in the way football is coached.

Over the past 16 years, English representative teams have reached five finals and won one. That record compares unfavourably with Spain (20), Italy (14) and France (11). A decade ago, when Germany were going through a barren spell at youth level and suffered the indignity, along with England, of being turfed out of Euro 2000 at the group stage, the German FA sat down with their colleagues at the Bundesliga and sanctioned a €500m investment in a wholesale restructuring of their youth development system, starting in 2002.

The result? "From the 23-man Germany squad in South Africa, 19 players came from the academies of Bundesliga clubs and four from Bundesliga 2," Christian Seifert, the Bundesliga chief executive, said. "And it is the youngest team ever with an average 24.7 years. More than 5,000 players [under-12s and upwards] are always going through our training system at any one point."

Germany won the European Championship at under-17, under-19 and under-21 level, all within the space of two years. And their fast, fluid young team easily dumped the oldest squad in the competition out of the World Cup.

It is hoped that the Future Game document and the belated opening of the National Football Centre in Burton-on-Trent, seen by Brooking as the culmination of the first phase of a tenure at the FA that has been bogged down in depressing turf wars, will in time come to be seen as a new dawn similar to that in Germany.

But having a plan is different to being able to act upon it. There are real fears that English football's dysfunctional governance structure and warped funding priorities will leave it unable to translate words into action. The Premier League, with all the money and the power, have long resisted attempts by the FA to get involved with how the clubs coach young players in their academies. Brooking's latest approach is to deliver the coaching document in a spirit of co-operation. Ged Roddy, director of youth at the Premier League, is said to be working positively with Brooking.

More than £30m a year is invested annually by Premier League clubs in academies (in Germany last year it was €80m). "The biggest hurdle we have to overcome is access opportunities for players in first-team football. Hopefully, the introduction of the new home-grown players rule is a step in the right direction," said Huw Jennings, the former youth development manager at the Premier League who now runs Fulham's academy.

The major bottleneck is still between the ages of 18 and 21, and it seems unlikely the new Premier League rule, requiring clubs to have at least eight players developed in this country, will be enough to rebalance the situation. Last season, 40% of Premier League players were English.

"It shouldn't be about tokenism or cheap labour. It should be about opportunities for talented players to have a chance to play. Managers have wanted an imported international player not only as the first choice but the second choice," Jennings said.

Nor are there nearly enough top-level coaches. Statistics unearthed by the Guardian before the World Cup have taken on added significance since. England has 2,679 coaches holding Uefa's A, B and Pro licences: Spain has 23,995, Italy 29,420 and Germany 34,970. The FA say the numbers taking A, B and Pro qualifications annually are now on a par with other leading European countries.

In Spain and Holland, the clubs with the best academies are able to attract the best talent, whereas in England there are rules to prevent recruitment of players living far away. Germany has a classification system, something Jennings would like to see implemented across the professional game – an "Ofsted for football".

The widely respected Roddy, formerly director of sport at Bath University, has spent the past year or so examining best practice in other sports and disciplines, as well as touring the nation's academies. He is believed to have come to a similar conclusion to Jennings, and the Premier League are looking into grading academies. That would enable the smaller clubs with good reputations for their academy to attract players who might otherwise gravitate to bigger clubs.

In terms of what they teach, many of the more enlightened academy directors long ago took on board the arguments contained within The Future Game. The emphasis is on skill and small-sided games, rather than physical strength and rigid tactics.

In 2007, the chairman of the Rugby Football League and Sport England, Richard Lewis, was commissioned to deliver a report on how to break the logjam, but progress has been too slow for many. "It's a source of great frustration to me that three years after the Lewis review we haven't managed to implement the level of change we should have done," Jennings said. "Youth development has been a victim of unnecessary politicking."

Jennings would like to see a separate body created for youth development. Others in the professional game would like to see a technical director appointed to work alongside Brooking.

The German experience is instructive. There is a much more balanced relationship between professional league and national governing body, and more unity of purpose. Investing hundreds of millions of pounds, as Germany did, is unthinkable for the FA, who are still short of cash because of the collapse of Setanta, the loans taken out to build Wembley, and other problems. It is an enduring irony that in building the £757m national stadium, the FA have damaged their ability to produce a national team capable of filling it. Even with the FA's role limited to "coaching the coaches", and setting an overall direction of travel, there are fears that they simply do not have the funding or the clout to deliver.

The England and Wales Cricket Board rightly attracted scrutiny over their strategy to flow Sky's millions into grassroots cricket but can now point to evidence that their 2005 Building Partnerships blueprint is working. "We made a commitment in 2005 to invest 20% of our total income in grassroots sport. We have grown participation by 101% in the last three years, making the game much more vibrant for the future," their chief executive, David Collier, said. "It's very much a medium- to long-term plan and we're just starting to see the fruits of that now. The important thing for us is that it gave certainty to all areas of the game."

Jennings, and others, believe Premier League clubs should be mandated to spend a minimum amount on youth schemes. In France, clubs spend up to a quarter of their turnover on youth development. And while the way the game is being coached at elite level has changed for the better, every weekend at parks up and down the country there is evidence that there is much work to be done. With the FA relying largely on Tesco to bankroll their grassroots coaching programme, some wonder how we ended up in a situation where such a key part of the FA's remit is reliant on a sponsor.

Nor is it just about money. "When we went from 10th in the Olympic medal table to fourth in Beijing, everyone thought it was because we gave the sports more money," Sue Campbell, the chair of UK Sport and the Youth Sport Trust, said. "But it wasn't really, it was to do with how we applied the money and, more importantly, our performance strategy. A huge part of that is coaching. And you need a performance director separate from your coach. Football gets those two confused."

Optimists say that the homegrown players rule, Uefa's financial fair play initiative, a more enlightened attitude from clubs, less money for overseas signings, a better working relationship with the FA and more focus from the Premier League should start to make an impact. "There is a plan. We need to be patient and work to that plan and improve it. It won't necessarily bear fruit tomorrow, but in years to come its very much our intention that it will," Brooking told the Observer.

Others feel that without a complete "year zero" rethink of the structure and governance of youth development, combined with a huge injection of funding that is unlikely to materialise given the constraints on the FA, we are doomed to keep repeating this debate every four years.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jul/03/trevor-brooking-fa-plan

Germany won the European Championship at under-17, under-19 and under-21 level, all within the space of two years.

More than £30m a year is invested annually by Premier League clubs in academies (in Germany last year it was €80m).
England has 2,679 coaches holding Uefa's A, B and Pro licences: Spain has 23,995, Italy 29,420 and Germany 34,970.

In terms of what they teach, many of the more enlightened academy directors long ago took on board the arguments contained within The Future Game.
The emphasis is on skill and small-sided games, rather than physical strength and rigid tactics.

The advantage Australia has over England, is that we know we are in relative terms shit. England will have the old guard talking up all their great players of the past, the success of the EPL, and 100 years of culture which will all inhibit change.

"I am acutely aware there are no quick fixes and easy answers, that we must focus on the long-term future of our game. The key is that we must have more and better skilled coaches with more access to kids at an earlier age," he said.

The advantage Australia has over England, is that we know we are in relative terms shit. England will have the old guard talking up all their great players of the past, the success of the EPL, and 100 years of culture which will all inhibit change.

Not sure that we know this, TBH. Its only a 2 weeks ago that we had Craig Foster telling us how great our players are, how shit Verbeek is and how we'd be better off with a committee of ex-socceroos overseeing the NT's managers team selection and strategy. And it hasn't been plain-sailing for Berger to implement his plans at the junior development levels, with resistance from existing youth coaches, mainly because they belive things are fine as they have been.

Had to read that again:

UEFA B/A/Pro licences: Spain has 23,995, Italy 29,420 and Germany 34,970. That is extraordinary.

Once the FFA sorts out an improved licencing regime with the AFC, the goal has to be to make it accessible to everyone involved at the game.

Good to see you comment, Stefcep!

Craig Foster is too emotive. His comments oscillate from day to day, week to week.

You are right about resistance from some coaches who won't change.

MARTIN SAMUEL: Sir Trevor Brooking must realise our kids are lost in the land of the giantsLast updated at 10:02 AM on 20th May 2010

Like most Football Association publications, 'The Future Game' is well-packaged and glossy. It is a substantial document, too, full of good ideas. For Sir Trevor Brooking, the FA's director of football development, it is the culmination of six years in the job.

To produce it, Brooking studied technical reports of England's under 17, under 19 and under 21 teams at recent tournaments. 'They were pretty consistent,' he said. 'If a player had a weakness in our back four, it was quickly identified by the opposition, so when we won possession our better players were marked and they let our weaker ones have it, so we gave the ball away.

'In tight areas our midfielders lost possession and in the attacking third, one against one, we lacked the ability to open up defences and the final ball wasn't good. When we didn't qualify for the 2008 European Championship it triggered a debate, but then Fabio Capello came along, we had a successful couple of years and it all went on the back burner.'

Well, not here it didn't. With three boys of school age, some of us have been banging on about the parlous state of youth football since first standing on a touchline watching a son, who is now a strapping 14-year-old, playing his first game as an under eight.
The root of every problem that Brooking identified is there almost from the start, which is why there remains a gaping hole at the centre of his treatise, however well intentioned. For nowhere does the director of football development mention pitch sizes or team numbers as a factor in youth football; and this is where the rot sets in.

Back in November 2007, I challenged Brooking, and any youth football administrator who fancied it, to a game. The goals were to be 3.057metres (10.029ft) high and 9.174m (30.098ft) wide; the length of the pitch was to be 150.4m (165 yards) and the width 112.80m (124 yards), making the total playing surface 16,800m sq; the penalty area alone would stretch for 20.68m (23 yards). Despite the increased dimensions, the teams would remain 11-a-side.

Expanded by ratio, this equated to the travesty of the average 11-year-old playing on a full-sized pitch, a corruption of common sense that occurs throughout the country each weekend.
Within days, Brooking's office proposed a chat. I took along Rob, No 2 son, who was a 10-year-old goalkeeper playing for Redbridge district on a man's pitch at the time. He wished to know why so much of his goal was physically impossible to reach. It didn't seem fair.

Brooking was nice, understanding, but talked like a man who was remote from the problem, rather than poised to conquer it. He talked committees, and professional game boards, and Rob soon bore the look of a boy who couldn't believe he had skipped double geography for this.

Brooking knew something had to be done, so why didn't he do something? Now, almost three years on, he has. He has produced a booklet called 'The Future Game' that, in essence, leaves youth football mired in its past.

'Is there anything in there on pitch sizes?' I asked the gentleman at the FA. 'No,' he replied. 'That's a rather abstract concept.'

But it isn't. It becomes finite, the size of the pitch, if Brooking makes it so. Were he to instruct that it should be made relative to the size of the players, instantly we would have a better quality, more technical game.
Ever notice the size of the pitches kids mark for themselves in the playground or the park? Not big, are they? Kids don't want some gruesome slog against the odds; they want a quick, fun game with lots of action and lots of goals. The faster the better, in fact: what do you think rush goalie is all about?

What is an entirely abstract concept is the vague notion, advanced by Brooking and others, that we should play like Holland or Brazil, France or Spain, Germany, Argentina, or whoever wins the World Cup this summer.

I've heard a million of these theories and they founder at the same stage: teach the Ajax method as much as you like, but if on Sunday the wind is against you, the pitch is sodden and the halfway line is 50 yards away, your 11-year-old goalkeeper will barely be able to get the ball out of his own penalty area, so the opposing forwards will push up and camp on the edge of the box, the wide players will close down your full backs and you will be trapped.

When small boys play on an oversized pitch, an opposition goal-kick is often a better attacking tool than a corner. It is a total perversion of the way the game is meant to be played. Each one of the failings Brooking identified in the young England teams can be traced back to issues in junior football. Those vast expanses of boggy, uneven parkland are where the agricultural central defenders with scant technique are created.

If you can't get the ball out of your own half, the quickest, easiest taught solution is not to coach the kids to knock it about like Barcelona and bamboozle the opposition - because that would take years and a far superior pool of talent than is going to be available to a typical under 11 coach - it is to get your two biggest kids, stick them at the back and tell them to lump it forward.

This is how we have produced generation after generation of clumsy defenders, the type our opponents want to have the ball because they know possession will soon be conceded.

If Brooking then wonders why, one on one, English forwards lack the ability to finish or open up defences, it is because they do not have sufficient experience of this facet of play.

Manchester United, who know a thing or two about nurturing young talent, made a study in this area and reported that small-sided games in restricted space produce significantly more passes, crosses, scoring opportunities, shots, one-on-one situations and goals. The optimum game for increasing the technical ability of five to 11-year-olds is four versus four. Obviously, Sunday clubs cannot be run on that basis but there is no reason why seven and nine-a-side football should not be standard until the age of 14.

Hockey is an 11-a-side sport with many similarities to football, but the majority of games played by children of school age are seven-a-side on smaller pitches. The alternative is that technique would go out of the window and circumstances would merely reward the biggest, earliest developers, who could hit the ball farthest.
Brooking told me that his generation played on full-sized pitches, too, and the experience did not harm their technique. Yet this is not entirely true. For a start, England have won a single World Cup, in 1966, so for all the talk of the superior technique of previous generations, it has remained consistently inferior to their European and South American counterparts.

Indeed, a recent interview with Brooking opened with an anecdote about a match he played for England in 1977 when Johnny Rep, the great Dutch right-sided forward, began mocking the quality of the opposition minutes into the game.

Also, Brooking's generation had more open spaces to play football in an unstructured environment: in the road, the alley, at recreation grounds that are now housing estates. This freedom developed skill in the raw.

These days kids are coached to death by the dad of either the best (if he wants the glory for his son) or the worst (if he wants to ensure his son is picked) footballer in the team, often with one eye on the league table, plus an audience of belligerent parents.

As Brooking surely accepts, there is absolutely no reason why English footballers should be inferior. There is no genetic predisposition to lack of flair, so it must be a failing in our system, in the way our game is coached and run.

Watch a group of little kids playing football anywhere in the world and they look the same. It is ridiculous to imagine our seven-year-olds have less skill than tots in Spain. It is what happens next that holds them back and while Brooking has some bright ideas, he does not go far enough.

He has the power to change youth football in this country almost overnight, yet refuses to exercise it. An edict restricting pitch sizes, goal sizes and team numbers up to the age of 14 would be a radical start.

Instead what is being proposed is a very English revolution, in that it will look nice on an occasional table and you can always serve tea off it.