Child's Play

Following England’s rather dismal U21 European Championship performance, if you can call it that, there has been an interesting debate developing in the mailbox of the ever-excellent Football365.

Sparked by the all too familiar technical shortcomings that were evidenced by Stuart Pearce’s young side, many in the mailbox have been suggesting problems that lie right at the very root of football in England. Getting straight to the point, what the debate centres on is why we don’t produce any technical players at the highest level.

The hypothesis goes like so: In England, we play competitive football from a very young age, so results 'matter' even when you are about 6. We play on huge pitches, which require strength (to kick the ball far) and speed (to run around in the vast acres of space). Therefore, coaches favour the kids who shoot up first (in height I mean, not premature smackheads), who are bigger, stronger and therefore at a younger age able to bully their way past smaller peers and score goals, win matches and make life worth living.

The sensitive aspect which has lent this particular debate it’s spice and passion was with the accusation that all coaches of English kids teams are, in no particular order: chavs, failed footballers, living vicariously through their kids, angry, ignorant, only doing it to pick their own son, and so on. This (rightfully in my opinion) raised the ire of many blokes who wrote in to defend their kind, displaying a justifiable indignation about being stereotyped with these negative connotations. Fair play to them as well; there is no way anyone should consider it an easy job or disparage all of those who do it. It’s largely thankless, causes no end of difficulty and grief in terms of having to drop or leave out well-meaning kids, it costs you your Sunday morning plus one night a week – so I think by and large those people in England who do run amateur kids teams should be given fair credit.

That being said, there are a lot of the bad coaches out there. If you’ve ever been to an English football club or playing fields on a Sunday morning, with multiple games being played, you’ll doubtless have encountered the negative stereotype once or twice – the guy screaming at an 8 year old who lost the ball, or squaring up to a referee for an offside call in an u11’s match, or apparently oblivious to the fact that perhaps F and C bombs aren’t the nicest of language to expose your girls u7 team to.

For me part of the solution lies in making coaching qualifications more accessible. It’s an oft-quoted statistic that the UK has something in the region of 20% (if that) the number of registered qualified coaches when compared to the likes of Spain, France, Germany or Portugal. I’ve looked into registering for it myself – I’ve had to manage a few football teams form time to time and will without doubt run an amateur team when I return to England some day – and it is not cheap. Nor is it particularly accommodating, so you need to stump up a fair bit of cash and arrange for time off work in most cases, two fairly significant hurdles that I’m not surprised have a deterring effect.

If more people in the UK had access to FA run, affordable, convenient coaching courses, there would be a greater proportion of coaches out there with a bit of credible knowledge and official education. This would give them the tools with which to adapt their coaching strategy - having a greater appreciation for the technical abilities of their players and the strategic side to the game.

Secondly, a reform is clearly needed in the way we make kids play football. As mentioned above, from a ridiculously young age, all emphasis is put on winning. I don't happen to necessarily subscribe to the notion of not keeping score or things like that, but when kids do start playing in matches, let's tone down the life-or-death element. Clearly it's more fun to win, and most people who play competitive sport will naturally have that edge within them that wants to win...but if all managers, coaches, parents adopt the same approach and make it more about playing good football than winning at all costs, that mentality would filter down to the kids. Start it later - let them spend the first few years working on their touch, skill, ability to look up, and feeling comfortable with the ball before you throw them into actual matches.

My vested interest in this particular debate comes from personal experience. Throughout youth football, I was never the tallest or strongest player. What I did have, if I may say so, was a decent touch, a bit of Le Tissier inspired skill, but above all an understanding of the game. It used to drive me mad to see fat cloggers getting picked ahead of me, because they could smash into a tackle and kick the ball far, but they could read a game about as well as they could read a book (sorry, generalising there, calm). I still play football, and love it, and will until my body completely packs up hopefully many years from now. But I know for a fact there are many players like myself who, frustrated at never getting the chance their talent deserved, held back by physical limitations that should not matter and can easily be overcome, turned their back on football in early teens and have now not played for years.

The fact that 3 of the best three players in the world right now are tiny, and that the best team (Spain/Barcelona...same thing) play tiki-taka genius football is surely evidence enough for the FA to make some changes. It won't happen straight away, but subtle changes should hopefully pave the way for future skillful midgets to be properly appreciated. Like I wasn't. Bastards.