The England football team

[chickenfeet]

frankie_ecap asked me to post my thoughts on how to improve the England football (soccer) team.  Now, as a very new rugby coach with the sum total of one season coaching juniors I of course am extremely well qualified to do so!  Actually, as far as I can see the England football team is so bad that I probably could improve it but I'm not going there.

Really the question frankie_ecap's request raised for me was "why bother"?  I can see the point of international teams when that level of competition is the highest form of competition in a sport, as it is in rugby or cricket, or even when that kind of competition is the sport's major money raiser as it is, again, in rugby and cricket.  Clearly that isn't the case in football.  Manchester United or Real Madrid would beat the pants off just about any national side and, not coincidentally make far more money than any national side.  The elite clubs will attract the best players and the best coaches and playing internationals is really not much more than an additional chore imposed by FIFA, just as playing in whatever the League Cup is called this year is of no consequence and best left to the Reserves.

Maybe it's time to ditch internationals in football.

Comments

[psychochicken.livejournal.com]

I asked in work today whether England were really bad enough to warrant sacking their entire management team. The reply was an overwhelming "yes!"

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

C'mon now, you've only failed to reach one set of finals. No need to take the ball away from the other boys...

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I really don't give a monkey's about the England football team. It was partly asking myself why that was that led me down the train of thought that I posted about.

[topicaltim.livejournal.com]

Cricketers occasionally step off the international treadmill for a winter (but then they might be facing the prospect of literally months of touring for the nth year in a row, which is notoriously hard on family life); rugby players do start to wind down when the body tells them that it can't take another season which includes international games as well as the assorted domestic leagues and cups (after all, nobody decides they'll tackle you 30% less hard because it's a domestic game); it's only the footballers who walk away from internationals at the age of 30 in order to prolong their massive earning power joy at representing their club side.

You're right, of course, for a lot of cricketers the end of their international career means it's all over because the step down isn't rewarding enough; the gap between Test cricket and anything else is massive. However, if you're a footballer, you might think a World Cup would be nice, but a clutch of League titles and Champions League medals will count for just as much; and the pay will be better...

[ninerva.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's time to ditch internationals in football.

You are right about the quality of the football at international level compared with club football, I really can't argue with that. So why bother is a valid and obvious question.

On a personal level I share the affliction that many fans of football share in this and many countries, I support a lower division team, Stoke City. Yes I can understand your deep sympathy at my plight but there it is. It isn't a choice, it just is. But as a result I endure mediocre players fighting for those briefest moments of glory. I wait patiently for those occasional magical moments which keep me going back again and again. I dream a dream for my team of Premiership domination and European campaigns, but know in my heart that it's just a dream.

So there is one bright light on my footballing horizon, a team I can support with just as much passion, a team full of the best players of their day, a team which promises the standard of football I can only dream about for my own beleaguered Stoke, that team is England. They let me down big time on Wednesday.

If I supported Manchester United or Chelski or Liverpool then I could shrug and go back to watch the magic of top level football played with grace and inspiration by the masters in their field, but I don't and I can't. Today Stoke are away to Burnley.

So why internationals? Well for me it's so us passionate supporters of lower division teams can have a hope of supporting a team which does have a chance of glory on an international level. These top players are not playing for England per se, they are playing for all the Stoke fans, the Burnley fans, the Stockport fans, the Doncaster Rover fans...

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Good point!

I really do understand your point about not choosing who you support. I'm a Manchester United supporter, but a third generation one (sort of, my dad actually supports City which says a great deal about him but my grand dad supported United)

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Why drop internationals in football rather than, say, rugby or cricket? Both these sports have truly international club sides, and I can't quite see why it works for one sport but not another.

There has been much, much hand wringing over here for the last few days. Why should England expect to do so well? One solution proposed involved revamping sport in state education (though Brasil seems to do pretty well without sports facilities in the favelas - although i might be wrong about that!).

Having national sports teams can be a highly positive experience - binding disperate people together; the downside is the occasional chauvinism it prompts (well, frequent chauvinism in the English tabloids, I suppose).

I think the English FA might actually spend sometime thinking things through, considering what steps to take to accomplish effective change. But somehow I doubt it - they'd have to change themselves, first.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

The difference between rugby/cricket and football is that in r/c the international game is (a) clearly the highest level of competition (fn1) and (b)the international game generates the revenue that funds junior levels of the game. neither of these things are true in football. What club side could beat the All Blacks, England, Australia, France, the Boks or even Argentina? I could think of a dozen club sides that would likely beat Italy at football.

In the SANZAR countries the club game is still largely amateur. The Super 14, NPC, Currie Cup etc are essentially owned and operated by the national unions as farm team systems for the national team.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I don't doubt that you are right - I can't imagine any club side beating the All Blacks (though I haven't consciously watched a non-international rugby match for a long, long while). But I am not sure quite why this should be - why local football teams could be superior to national sides, but not rugby teams, when both consist of individuals who play at international level. Why should local rugby players join together to form a national team where the sum is greater than the whole, but not a football team.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Follow the money!

Arsenal, Real Madrid or Chelski generate enough revenue to be able to hire the world's best players and there are no barriers to them doing so. There simply aren't eleven English qualified players good enough to play for Arsenal! In contrast, as I pointed out above in rugby it's the international sides that generate the cash. Thus the NZRFU can contract the best 50 or so players in New Zealand and determine when they play and who they play for. No club side can compete with that kind of clout. They only get to go play for, say, Leicester when they retire from internationals. And, frankly, the only reason Leicester can afford them is because the RFU have ballsed things up so badly that they have made players reluctant to support a central contract system and so have to bribe the clubs into releasing players for internationals.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Chris Dillow covers some of these issues in his blog, here (http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2007/11/caring-vs-talki.html). He is an economist who supports Arsenal. Clearly deranged.

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

The more I think about this, the more I agree with it - viz, in the last 24h, the resignation of Alex McLeish (MacLeish? Not sure).