England’s World Cup defeat at the hands of Germany could just be the wake-up call that this country needs to stop neglecting grassroots football and ensure that more English talent starts coming through.
Ironically a German said that England weren’t producing talented players two weeks before this match. Legendary defender Franz Beckenbauer said:
“I am not sure if the England coach Fabio Capello can still change much there. The English are being punished for the fact that there are very few English players in the Premier League as clubs use better foreign players from all over the world.”
After the weekend’s game you feel that Der Kaiser may well have a point especially as Germany’s side included a lot of young and talented players like Mesut Ozil and Thomas Muller; it makes you wonder just where are England’s youngsters? Part of the problem does seem to be because of the big influx of foreign players in the Premiership. Most nations have the league’s big teams contribute towards their squads yet only 11 players out of the 23 came from last year’s big four. Surely there has to be some young talented English players coming through at those clubs? Manchester United have let a lot of their talent youngsters go in recent years when they should have been given more of a chance at club. Ryan Shawcross is an example and he has proved himself as a talented youngster at Stoke, yet he would have thrived even more at Manchester United and could be a more accomplished defender had they not let him go.
However the problems behind England’s youth don’t just lie at a senior level, it goes all the way back to grassroots football. The country still doesn’t have a regional centre of excellence and if one was in place then all the young English talent could be pooled together. The facilities for youngsters’ Sunday league games are dire, and with five-a-side centres offering a more casual and eye-catching experience a lot of people are turning to them instead. A lot of teams also focus their scouting abroad and bring in players from other countries which in turn push out the English players. The FA seems to struggle to properly invest in grassroots football and the main reason behind it could be because of how costly Wembley stadium turned out to be.
As for current youngsters coming through the ranks none of them are getting regular game time for the top four clubs. The youngster who appears to get the most game time for the biggest club is Jack Rodwell of Everton and David Moyes needs to be commended for putting faith into his youngsters. Unfortunately the likes of Arsene Wenger and Martin O’Neill don’t seem to want to give youth a chance, in the instances of Jack Wilshere and Fabian Delph respectively.
Unfortunately the English national side is not going to progress until teams stop buying so many foreign players and give the young English ones a chance. Otherwise if the influx of foreign players keeps increasing we will see more and more Emile Heskey’s turn out for England, rather than Wayne Rooney’s and nobody wants to see that!
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