Science And Progress

I felt England did well the other night against San Marino – sometimes those kind of games are ones where you simply can’t win because you’re expected to score a hatful, but the boys did well and scored some pretty good goals. They say there’s no easy games at international level but I was looking at the World Cup Qualifiers – Cape Verde Islands, and Equatorial Guinea?

I don’t mean any disrespect but those nations are unlikely to get anywhere near a World Cup and when you look at the qualifiers where Australia once won 31-0 – THIRTY ONE to nil – you have to say there are some games that are easy at International level. Thankfully, Australia was subsequently rezoned in order for them to face a tougher route of qualification. Tonight England play Montenegro and that won’t be an easy game, that’s for sure, as our last trip there shows only too well.

I have to be honest though and say if anything, I’ve been even more impressed with the quality of the under 21‘s.

They played with an invention and incisiveness against Romania that was great to see – players like Wilfried Zaha who showed a fearless determination and penetration, and Raheem Sterling of Liverpool, could bring something different to the senior squad. The senior squad can’t rest on their laurels; the core of the squad was the same five or six players for so long, those players are now ending their time in the set-up and with the opportunity there to put some fresh, exciting faces in, why not take it? The Rio Ferdinand saga has brought the politics back into it but maybe the squad would benefit from moving on from the story and the John Terry troubles by starting afresh.

Yes, the under 21’s weren’t playing the strongest of opposition but to play with that invention and penetration was encouraging; I am a huge fan of individuality in football and players being given the chance to express themselves in the system that Stuart Pearce favours. And I have to say I’m a fan of the work Stuart has done; he’s a man who understands the game, what it is to play for your country and he wears his heart on his sleeve.

There are potential problems of course – early exposure to the media might set them up to fall, and some of the players haven’t played at the highest level yet. That’s not their fault – the root cause, I believe, is the amount of foreign players, which means that any young English player who does break through in the Premier League is automatically touted for an England call up after just a few games. Maybe it’s to the benefit that many of that under 21 squad play in the Championship, somewhat away from the radar.

Evolving

It’s been said for the last few years that a change has to be made in the approach to the grass roots development of youngsters in England in order for the players coming through to be as technically efficient as their European counterparts. I have had a particular interest in youth development for well over a decade now both in England and the United States and though we’ve made strides in the right direction I’d still say we’re a split second slower than some of the players in Europe. I mean that in a mental sense, regarding comfort on the ball. Maybe that’s just my philosophy, which has always been focussed on a quicker style of play so you’re more active – get it, give it, move. Be more “on the ball”, no pun intended! You watch the Spanish and the Germans with their speed of movement; we now have players that are willing to take on an opponent, that can do things ‘off the cuff’, so we should be in a position now where we want to play a similar standard, a similar quality. Styles evolve – the Spanish style that is similar to the way Barcelona play won’t be successful forever and it is about creating the next successful wave of football.

Clubs have got to take a chance and be bolder in their approach – you won’t achieve anything by shying away, in order to make a change you have to be brave. It doesn’t matter who you are playing against. My old team Manchester United have got a reputation for stinging you late on and scoring goals but does that mean you stop playing against them, that you give up and not chase an equaliser if you’re losing against them because of the speed of their counter attack? Fortune favours the brave and that’s why Chelsea took them to a replay in the Cup. It’s a philosophy that extends past the 90 minute game and digs deep into the very structure of the development and evolution of style. The middle period of the first decade of the twentieth century was dominated by teams who tried to grind out results defensively – Euro 2004 was the perfect example of that – and now it seems to have come back around where teams understand that the best way of winning a game is to actually attack more.

The penny has finally dropped with the regulations that have been introduced in the last two or three years to say the best way the English national team can improve is to give more of them a chance at the highest level. Introducing the change to force clubs to concentrate on the development of players from their own country is a fundamental necessity; there are countries across the world who don’t have the resources we have and so use every advantage they have, which mostly is the emigration of top talents to leagues in Europe rather than concentrating on the development of their own domestic league.

Science

It’s not rocket science, even if we’re in an era that is dominated by science.

Expectations have got to be higher than just one player making the first team per year or per academy. I work with Mel Eves quite a lot and talk to him about the development of youngsters; he has told me of the troubles that Wolves have just affording to keep their academy running and in my opinion that can be traced back to the number of non-football people employed at football clubs. The number of sports scientists involved I think has gone on too much; muscle fat and diet are tightly scrutinised despite the different make up of every single person. And we still see muscle injuries, we still see people suffer from hamstring trouble. Can we really look at football and attribute a fundamental change for the better of the sport in the last 20 years to the introduction of science and concentration on statistics? Do I really care if my team had ten, twenty, fifty shots on goal if we lost the game 1-0?

I’m not afraid of evaluations, I’m not afraid of analysis, but what’s next? Are you going to analyse when a player takes a piss? I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some clubs tightly scrutinising what, and how much, a player has in his stomach at kick off time.

It won’t be long until football clubs insist on running credits at the end of every game.

“We’ll thank Jimmy Jones for doing up the laces. Thank Fred Bloggs for washing his shorts the right way. For the hairstyles, Vidal Sassoon.”

Come on.

I’ve always thought the game is decided by a players technical and inherent ability, their mental frame of mind and their effort in the game. Soccer, or football, is unpredictable. Science doesn’t rule it – did it rule the FA Cup? How did Millwall and Wigan end up as an FA Cup semi final then?

People say that with the way the game has gone, that science and this level of analysis has to have a place simply because that’s what everyone else is doing. Does it have to have a place? I think you should do what applies to you and helps your team perform as best as possible. You’re raising footballers, not athletes. How do you teach streetwise? How do you put the science in to that? If it has a place, it should be to aid, not to govern and dictate.

The change in the game is the biggest reason why people should become more attracted to the lower leagues or the parks on a Sunday afternoon. Maybe, instead of looking for all these performance analysis technologies, the game would benefit from an introspective look at how it all began in the first place.