Wednesday 11 July 2012

St George's Park - the key to the future


As the keys to St George’s Park were finally handed over to the FA last week it seems only right to explore how this £100 million project is expected to turn around the fortunes of English football, enabling us to compete with the very best in the world and perhaps even emulate the iconic success of ’66.

St George’s Park will soon be the home of English football, a ‘centre of excellence’ for all of England’s representative teams. It will be the base for the England’s men’s team but will also be home to England’s disabled side, women’s side and the youth teams at every level. More importantly though St George’s Park will be central to improving the quality of English coaches and increasing the numbers of English coaches in the game. Coaching is seen as the ‘golden thread’ leading to international success and when you look at the number of English coaches in relation to that of Spain, Germany, Italy and France, four of the most successful countries in Europe, it becomes clear why we haven’t won an international tournament for 46 long years. In the latest UEFA report England had 2,769 registered coaches holding the highest available coaching qualifications (UEFA’s B, A and Pro badges) whilst Germany had 34,970, Italy 29,420, Spain 23,995 and France 17,588. Is it really any wonder that we are unable to compete with the very best nations when we only have a fraction of the number of top class coaches they have? Without a large network of top coaches how are we supposed to find, nurture and develop youngsters into world class players? How are we supposed to create a philosophy that dictates how all English players should play when we have a distinct lack of qualified coaches to implement that philosophy? And how can we teach our players the technical ability that is required to be successful at the very top when we only have one UEFA qualified coach for every 812 people playing the game in our country?

To be successful on the international stage you need to have world class players that are capable of winning the games. Spain for example have Xavi and Iniesta, two of the worlds very best players, with a support cast of numerous extremely talented footballers, all of which possess extraordinary technical ability and composure on the ball, willing to receive the ball and pass it on anywhere on the field. England however lag far behind in this sense, resting most of our hopes on our one truly world class player, Wayne Rooney. The technical ability of our players is far below what it should be and this was proven all too clearly at Euro 2012. Roy Hodgson knew it and as a result opted to play a disciplined defensive game focused around conceding very few goals and hoping that we could nick a goal or two at the other end. Nevertheless whenever we were in possession of the ball we lacked composure and the technical ability to create many chances. Against Italy in the Quarter-final we misplaced almost one third of our passes, on top of the fact that we attempted less than half the amount of passes Italy did. This was telling and ultimately fatal as it led to a miserly total of just 4 chances created. Italy on the other hand created 31 chances and although neither team were able to put their chances away, Italy, guided by the majestic Andrea Pirlo demonstrated just how large the gulf in class between the two sides was.


 Herein lies the problem; we have a distinctly average crop of players that struggle to maintain possession of the football, even against weaker teams we seem to struggle to take hold of the game. In both of our pre-tournament friendlies we ended up seeing less of the ball than the opposition, Norway and Belgium, ranked 24 and 53 respectively, both of which failed to qualify for Euro 2012. Seeing less of the ball means fewer chances can be created and when you do get the ball the pressure is on to do something with it. Technical ability again crops up as it is the cornerstone of flowing, attacking football and without it, as England have proven, it is very hard to achieve anything. Germany had a similar problem back in 2004 that culminated in the sacking of Rudi Voller from his position as national coach and a complete overhaul of German football. Jurgen Klinsmann was drafted to lead the ‘German revolution’ deciding upon a new philosophy for the German national team and leading them back in the right direction. The ‘German revolution’ is now bearing fruit with Germany having made it to the final and two semi-finals of the last three major international tournaments, not to mention the host of very impressive youngsters that are playing at the very top level of European football and the many that are closely following in their footsteps. A German-esque revolution is something English football is in desperate need of, not mimicking the German way but taking the idea of reform and implementing it into the English game.

This is where St George’s Park comes into play. It is England’s answer to Spain’s La Masia and France’s Clairefontaine, it is the first step on the road to change and one that sets the foundations for the future. St George’s Park should create a much larger and stronger base of coaches across England with the FA hoping the number of coaches across England will more than double by 2018 to almost 250,000 across all levels, thus enabling us to better educate more youngsters that hold the potential to become great players of the future. In conjunction with the opening of St George’s Park the FA created a 275-page document, entitled ‘The Future Game’ which includes guidelines and requirements for the future develop of players and the new playing and coaching philosophy of the England national teams.

Now we must wait for the FA to officially open St George’s Park and from there it will be a good few years before we see the true rewards from the investment. By no means will it result in a sudden turnaround in fortunes but it should greatly improve the foundations of English football, creating a stepping stone for future investments and developments. Similarly St George’s Park alone will not transform the state of English football; there are many other areas which needed amending, chief among them the relationship between the FA and Premier League. It is said that to have a successful national league the national team will suffer and it couldn’t be truer than in England. The Premier League is considered as the best league in world football and that is largely a result of the vast numbers of foreign players that now play in our league. It is easier, and usually cheaper to buy a good player from the continent than it is to buy a young English player or to develop your own, which has greatly affected the number of top youth players being developed in England. This is just one of many difficulties that face English football but at least now, with the arrival of St George’s Park it is clear we are making a change for the better and a brighter future for English football lies on the horizon. I am not saying we are going to win a World Cup or European Championship within the next decade but I am more confident now than ever before that we might just see an English victory at an international tournament in our lifetime time.


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