Let's start with a question. Just how has the richest soccer league in the world bar none—where the bottom club earns from TV rights more than the usual third-place finisher in La Liga—contrived to gain just three semi-final places in the last eight seasons of the Europa League (or UEFA Cup)?
Just over two weeks after a beaming Richard Scudamore announced to an incredulous media a new deal for the Premier League that amounted to a jaw-dropping £5.136 billion over three years—or, if you prefer, £10.2 million per game, or £113,333.33 per minute not counting injury time—Everton became the only club in the Premier League to gain a place into the draw for the last 16 of the Europa League.
Clubs at the top end of the table have fared better and since 2005-06 in the Champions League can boast two wins, seven final appearances and 13 semi-final appearances. But here, too, the signs are ominous.
Last season, only Chelsea made it as far as the semi-finals, and in 2012-13, only Arsenal and Manchester United made it into the knockout stages of the tournament before being eliminated at the first time of asking.
Never say never, but while the fat lady may not have started singing yet, she’s certainly waiting in the wings, and it's only the most optimistic of English football fans that will think that any English side—apart from Chelsea—has much of a chance of making it into the Champions League quarter-finals following the first legs of the last-16 matches held recently.
In the words of J.R.R. Tolkien: "How did it come to this?"
My take on it is scarily simple. There are a number of reasons, but top of the list is a lack of enough interest and focus on training as the way to win games. This might sound strange, but I am convinced that more often than not, training is not seen as a preparation to a game but only a way to keep fit. There is not enough work to give weapons to players to respond to every obstacle they find in games.
In English football, tactical nous runs a very poor second to physical prowess in a game that relies too much on the heart and not enough on the brain. I am clearly generalising, but I have heard complaints of this type often enough in the last decade to reach that conclusion.
No one is denying that football on occasions needs the blood and thunder, a "no guts, no glory" approach. But sometimes—in fact, very many times—football needs to stop running and start thinking, put down its sledgehammer and pick up its scalpel. And the truth is that coaches, including foreign coaches that come here, go with the flow because the emphasis, which is on brute force, box-to-box action, nonstop running and aggression, will always get the nod over a more reasoned, tactical approach.
Foreign players also follow the trend even if they come from a different football culture because we like to comfort—if they get asked to work less in the details, in the perhaps more boring side of training, who are they to change that?
In fact, I know of many players who train in the afternoons on their own because they feel not enough specific work, in this case physically, is put in training. Whose fault is it? Well, just about everybody's actually, from the coaches to the players to the fans.
This is what the fans want, and this what they get, which is fine and dandy until they have to cross the channel, and that is where, almost inevitably, the wheels suddenly fall off the team bus. The type of football played in England effectively creates a situation where English clubs more or less need to have two separate squads—one for the Premier League, the other for European competition—unless of course, like Jose Mourinho's at Chelsea, they are sufficiently well-organised and structured in defence to allow them to prosper in both tournaments.
But for most clubs, there is insufficient work carried out on their tactical template to adapt their game when competing in Europe. Bizarrely, as well, the huge amounts of money in the English Premier League have also contributed to the malaise of English football at a European level, not least because it is all too frequently spent unwisely. Clubs have to name a percentage of homegrown players in their squads. Salaries have to be very high because it is a closed market, and many of the players in the sides are, frankly, overpriced and overvalued.
The attitude would seem to be, "Why bother to find or make great players when there's enough money in the kitty to buy one off the shelf?" English football needs to wake up to the fact that it is not putting in enough effort, money or inclination into resourcing and scouting for the great English players of the future.
In Spain, a lack of money has left them with no choice other than to scour the country in search of promising young talent. But over and above that is the existence of a footballing culture that concentrates on looking more towards tactical awareness rather than physical presence, and consequently, better choices of player are made.
Would the likes of the lightly framed Andres Iniesta, Xavi and Santi Cazorla have made it to the levels they have had they been born in England? I'm not so sure.
In Spain, training is perceived as part of the procedure that will be lead to the final denouement, the last scene of the drama, the game itself. Training is carried out not for itself, but with the game to be played in mind. The two are inextricably linked, and that doesn't seem to apply much in England.
I will always remember speaking to Javier Mascherano when researching my book about Pep Guardiola, and he talked about Barcelona's 2011 final against Manchester United.
"During the match, I was thinking, 'I've seen this already, I've already heard all about it,' because Pep had already told me about it," he said.
And that's just how it should be. Training prior to the game, if done correctly, should be reflected in how the game ultimately turns out.
And until such time as English teams, coaches, directors, media and fans realise this and address it—money or no money—they are going to have to content themselves with playing a minor role among Europe's elite.
from Bleacher Report http://ift.tt/1Gfjmb9
via IFTTT March 03, 2015 at 03:23AM
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