Greg Dyke's 2013 Targets for England

[TangerineMike]

This makes for interesting reading and shows just how far and how quickly the national set up has come. The FA gets a lot of flak (rightly), but under Dyke and later Clarke deserves enormous credit for what they've been able to achieve in those eight years.

I wondered in another thread how deeply things have changed: is this just a fortunate chance meeting of a gifted generation of players with the right manager, or is it indicative of a deeper systemic shift in how football is organised at the national level? The signs seem positive.

Guardian

 

[Tango1953]

Worth reading Das Reboot by Raphael Honigstein too.

The book is about Germany winning the World Cup in 2014, plenty of parallels between them from 2006-14 and England at the moment. From 2006 to 2012, they suffered 3 semi-final defeats and lost the Euro 2008 final, but they gradually improved and got more savvy and it eventually culminated in winning the World Cup in Brazil.

England to win Qatar 2022?

 

[voyeur]

This makes for interesting reading and shows just how far and how quickly the national set up has come. The FA gets a lot of flak (rightly), but under Dyke and later Clarke deserves enormous credit for what they've been able to achieve in those eight years.

I wondered in another thread how deeply things have changed: is this just a fortunate chance meeting of a gifted generation of players with the right manager, or is it indicative of a deeper systemic shift in how football is organised at the national level? The signs seem positive.

Guardian

Dyke "praised the opening of St George's Park, the emphasis on training more quality coaches and the overhaul of elite academies under the £340m elite player performance plan."

So those things had already been put in place. What did Dyke do after his speech?

 

[TangerineMike]

Dyke "praised the opening of St George's Park, the emphasis on training more quality coaches and the overhaul of elite academies under the £340m elite player performance plan."

So those things had already been put in place. What did Dyke do after his speech?

Main thing was the commission he started: https://www.thefa.com/news/2014/may/08/fa-commission-report

It started a lot of motion around grassroots facilities and coaching in particular.

 

[BFC_53]

I think the single most important thing we're doing as a country is fundamentally moving our youth development and grassroots away from conditions that favour pace and strength over technical ability. This happened in 2014/15 for u-13s when pitch size, goal size and team size were all reduced in FA rules - see link. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2012/may/28/fa

This is a crucial part of shifting away from the 'get rid of it' mindset. I've always thought the lack of premier league starts for English players hasn't been down to foreign coaches (which is an easy/lazy scapegoat), it's simply down to our kids not being coached properly. Any Prem manager of any nationality will pick the best players, and if we improve our grassroots coaching we will find more English players playing regularly in the Prem, without the need to put any homegrown rule in place.

So, we are already seeing the results of these changes and I believe we'll see the England team getting even better over the next decade. It's a little too soon to see the full effect.

 

[voyeur]

The more kids we produce with the basic technical skills and better tactical awareness, the better our chances become. The current England team has some great qualities. It is resilient and hard to break down. Spain move and retain the ball better, but they lack the strikers we have. Italy had a strong midfield compared to us. I think that midfield guile was our missing ingredient. Lots of honest graft but it begins to drown and just backs off into shallow water against the best opposition, Jorginho and Verratti, or Modric and Rakitic. We are still a bit pedestrian in midfield, and we don't trust the Fodens and Grealishes in case we get overrun and then lack the defensive fallback position. Need to be braver IMO.

But if we churn out more players at that standard we will have better options, and we will develop the guile and the confidence to attack more, hopefully.

 

[voyeur]

WCSF in 2018 had Henderson sat in front of a back three behind Alli and Lingard, two more creative midfielders, and that didn't work either.

Hopefully Jude Bellingham doesn't try to fit a full career in and fade before he's 21 as he looks like he can do both sides of the game in the midfield from the cameos we've seen so far.

Those three just not good enough. Against the Croation midfield. Difference in quality.

 

[BFC_53]

It's a step in the right direction but I still see a gap between U18/20 level and the seniors with England where players aren't learning to beat opponents and win tournaments with more than just physicality when it gets to the U21s. There was a little flurry of activity a couple of years ago but for the most part it's treated as an overthought.

Totally agree, there are still problems that need addressing (appointing Boothroyd as U21 boss for example, and persisting with him for years!) but if there's anything the last two tournaments have shown it's that wholesale changes like these at youth/grassroots does have an impact on the national team. There's no excuse now for shying away from making these kind of big decisions, and we shouldn't be too proud to look at how other more successful countries operate.

 

[BFC_53]

WCSF in 2018 had Henderson sat in front of a back three behind Alli and Lingard, two more creative midfielders, and that didn't work either.

Hopefully Jude Bellingham doesn't try to fit a full career in and fade before he's 21 as he looks like he can do both sides of the game in the midfield from the cameos we've seen so far.

I think the problem in 2018 wasn't that two creative midfielders wouldn't work, but the players deployed weren't good enough. Just imo, Bellingham and Foden/Mount/Sancho/Saka has the potential to be a step up from Henderson, Alli and Lingard. As I say, I don't think we've seen yet the full effect of the changes that have been made, we're only seeing the start of it. And we've already reached a major tournament final.