English Football. (long)

[The_Dealor]

Dear Editor.

I'm a long time reader of your website which i find a hugely entertaining read, along with about two other, 'enlightened to the art of football, friends'.
After reading you're mailbox comments on, 'rip it up and start again', I decided to e-mail. Now a 19 year old futsal player for my university, I was once a under 13's player for the local side. I always have been something of a weak player, in terms of strength, I' am no slouch but am not very quick, also wearing glasses am somewhat disinclined to head the ball, but without arrogance i think myself quite astute player technically, with pretty good dribbling, quite a high level of vision, passing, decent shooting control etc. The attributes needed for a decent futsal player, and for it seems, every other nation in the world except England, a decent footballer. At under 13's level I was always left on the bench for A, the managers son, and B, a kid that could easily be barry the baptists son from lock stock. They both occupied my position, centre mid, or as i prefer attacking mid but of course, under 13's play 4-4-2 forever without any thought of change. The training sessions were once a week, which compared to that age of other countries, is no way near enough, and consisted of 20 minutes of laps and fitness training and the rest was a game and shooting practice. The idea of practicing skills or control seemed to be a ridiculous idea. Looking back at the team now, I've always continued and increased my love of the beautiful game, where as the remainder of the team no longer have any real care for it. And from once being a young kid who idolised the sheer skill of Gazza am now a total sceptic of the English game and have a hatred of the england squad. Growing up watching the Premiership and for a while Serie A on channel 4, my favourite players were always the likes of Bergkamp, Zola, Cantona, Ginola, and from Serie A, Ronaldo, Baggio, Del Piero and the great Zidane. The obvious pattern here being no english players? As i got older i started to hate being made to watch England when the likes of Brazil, Argentina, Holland, France, Spain etc were on other channels. With the exception of an certain few friends who share my view on football, I despise talking to others about the game as it only ends in an argument. An example would be the after the european championships, talking about the game of the tournament. Where as they all thought England Portugal, because of the sheer tension and '*%££&' refereeing, me and a select group, would discuss the Czech vs Holland game and the privilege of watching Nedved, Rosicky, Van Nistelrooy, Davids in full flow in a true account of the beautiful game.
Now when we discuss football, it is talk of nice touches we have seen in games. The likes of Messi, Ronaldinho, Deco, Kaka, Ronaldo, Berbatov, Van persie, Nakamura, Ibrahimovic, Pirlo, Totti, Riquelme etc are the footballers we love, because they are actual footballers not athletes. While others call Lampard and Gerrard the worlds best midfield, they really aren't fit to tie Totti and Pirlos (the world champions equivalent) laces. Lampard, Gerrard, the Nevilles, Heskey etc are targets of our sheer hatred. They're lack of the technical, artistic side of the game is infuriating. The things Ronaldinho does with a football give us sheer joy, and the fact he turned down Chelsea for the love of football, makes him king to us. I feel through mostly media lies and FA appointments, Brian Barwick and his band of merry men who seem to be made in charge of the FA when they reach a certain weight, Mclaren, his team gets beat of so called foreign Arsenal 6-0 so they make him England boss. Surely losing to a team of foreigners isn't good credentials for boss of the country, with (Wenger's love of the beautiful game and how it should be played is also god like to me), so they make him England boss. These failures in the English game are so infuriating. The lack of organization and lack of talent nurturing, in favour of win at all costs sickens me. I think in the next 20 years the Scottish national team will be far superior to the English one. This Euros qualifying, they had France and Italy to contend with, where as England had the mighty, erm, Andorra and the sheer footballing force of Macedonia. Scotland managed to accumulate more points. Interesting. Its not like England haven't had the talent, its just ignored. Matt le Tissier, something of a genius with the ball at his feet, didn't receive a single cap, where as Phil Neville, who it could be argued, cost the country two major tournaments, and is as much use as a cat flap in an elephant house, has received 50+ England caps. Sounds about right then. I could talk forever about English philosophies and failings in the game, (Blackburn turning down arguably the best player of all time, a certain frenchman, who won everything, as they had Tim Sherwood....)
but i feel my point has been made.

When the Fa is fired, (Trevor Brooking being an exception), English fans admitting that they 'might', not be the best team in the world, (technically they're in the bottom 30), then we might see some changes. In my lifetime though? Shame.

I did not write this, i just wondered what other people think about it.

[zacd]

omg try again

[tarheeljks]

i dislike the english style of soccer. it's a very grinding style and tries to amass a large # of so-so scoring opportunities as opposed to trying to generate and capitalize on a few quality ones. it can be effective, but it is not particularly creative and not much fun to watch.

[Jay Riall]

[ QUOTE ]
The training sessions were once a week, which compared to that age of other countries, is no way near enough, and consisted of 20 minutes of laps and fitness training and the rest was a game and shooting practice. The idea of practicing skills or control seemed to be a ridiculous idea.

[/ QUOTE ]

Meh at the rest but this is soo true. Unless you get into a very good side as a teenager, teams and practises are [censored] crap. School teams mostly are pretty much a jolly kickabout once a week and none of the coaches have a [censored] clue what they are doing. You compare this with American high school teams and English sport starts looking like an absolute farce.

[Bedreviter]

Englsih football is the only league I follow, because of the intensity and amosphere and the high pace of the game. I cant stand watching Italian football, with all the primadonnas and crying and diving and whatnot. La Liga is more entertaining, but far from Premier League in my opinion. I love the hard tackles, the no-nonsense style of English football.

And the person who wrote the letter in the original post was nothing but a bitter tool with little understanding of the game, just that technincal football necessarily was better than any other football. His notion about Gerrard shows how little he really understands. While we all love to see players like Kaka and Ronaldinho, there is not one team in the world who wouldnt love to have Gerrard on their team.

[tarheeljks]

[ QUOTE ]
La Liga is more entertaining, but far from Premier League

[/ QUOTE ]

disagree. i find it to be more entertaining and just better. however i do watch epl b/c i like c.ronaldo

[Jay Riall]

Also, the Premiership is the No 1 league in the World, and I don't think thats up for debate tbh.

[Bedreviter]

[ QUOTE ]
Lampard, Gerrard, the Nevilles, Heskey etc are targets of our sheer hatred. They're lack of the technical, artistic side of the game is infuriating. The things Ronaldinho does with a football give us sheer joy, and the fact he turned down Chelsea for the love of football, makes him king to us.

[/ QUOTE ]

I bet the weather in Barcelona helped, as well as the lack of willingness on Barcelonas side to let him go coupled with differencies with Mourinho and Roman as to what players to get. Ronaldinho loves the money as much as anyone, and if Chelsea offer him and Barcelona enough money he is in London quicker than Shevchenko can tell his kids how much he loves them in English.

To hate players who are not "technical enough" is just plain retarded as well. Football would be less interresting if only there only was one player-type, and a team can not exist with only technical players on their team. Steve McManaman was a technical wizard, but he was half the midfielder Steven G. is.

I rather have a Gerrard who can make a great hard tackle to win the ball at midfiels, then make a 30 yard through-pass to a teammate then some player who thinks he needs to make love to the ball and touch it with his heel 8 freaking times before losing it to a defender because he kept the ball too long.

The guy who wrote that crap is a futsal-player, which will explain his lack of understanding of the tactics and different sides of football that goes beyond the pure technical stuff.

[Fallen Hero]

"the fact he turned down Chelsea for the love of football"

lol

[The_Dealor]

Ronaldinho loves the money as much as anyone, and if Chelsea offer him and Barcelona enough money he is in London quicker than Shevchenko can tell his kids how much he loves them in English.

well i disagree with this. as i heard that ronaldinho donates of his weekly wage to various charities, so i dont think money comes into the equation whatsoever.