How to Save English Football Following a Poor Round of 16 Exit from the FIFA World Cup 2010
England's poor showing at the 2010 FIFA World Cup and their subsequent exit in the Round of 16 has left some people wondering if there is anything that can be done to save England's team in International football. Well, every team in sports can improve, and all it will take is hard work and a change of mindset in the England camp. With that done, England should see a marked difference in its team's performance in the coming years.
It will take some serious work to fix the England International football team. One look at the Premier League and it is striking just how many players are not British but are from different countries around the world. One of the biggest problems, it seems, is that not enough money and time is spent on nurturing, training and finding quality new players for the England side. Germany took a chance with the youngster Mesut Ozil in this World Cup and he has blown the competition away. England does not seem to have young talented players of any real dominance. It has been suggested that children in the age bracket of 5-11 should be trained instead of the current 8-12 age bracket. By starting at a younger age, more talented youngsters will be able to handle the ball and will develop ball skills and a flair for the game at a very young age (Stevenson, J., 2010). The Premier League needs to start spending more money on training youngsters and trying to find some quality future stars.
It seems the government also has a part to play in all this because a lot of talk is coming through that the government should do more to fund physical education in schools and promote games like football in the public school system to get youngsters interested in the game (Jackson, J., 2010). The next generation of kids seems only to be interested in junk food and watching television; the concept of outdoor sports needs to be brought back into the school system. This obsession with TV and fast food has led to a massive obesity problem in England, with many young children being too overweight to enjoy traditional sports.
Another big issue is how much footballers are paid. The entire team who showed up at the World Cup were millionaires. They certainly did not play like millionaires. This has become a serious issue, with the players getting paid such high salaries that the clubs, instead of spending money on finding new local talent and nurturing them, have to pay outrageous salaries to old and tired players and then hire players from other countries and pay them huge salaries as well (Winter, H., 2010).
It seems the coach is to blame here as well. He heaped immense pressure on the team to perform and they looked at times nervous and unsure of themselves when they should have been winning matches. Capello effectively trained them so hard that they were too tired to perform in the games they played (Merakli, T., 2010). Maybe Capello's time has come and it is now time for someone new to take over the reigns and make the team shine. Maybe picking a home grown coach instead of a foreign one might be a start. It might be that a British coach might be able to understand the temperament of his players better and connect with them better than a foreign one would. It may be that Capello tried to make his team perform well by pushing them too hard and it backfired on him. A different approach to coaching might be in order for the coming years. If one looks at the best teams in the World Cup at the moment - Brazil, Argentina and Germany – all of them have local coaches, Dunga, Maradona and Joachim Low respectively. It is not a hard and fast rule but it could be a big factor.
Whatever happens in the next few years in English football, the coaching team and management really need to try something new and fresh and see if they can turn around the tired and ageing boots of the current crop of players. They need new talent, fresh legs and a revised playing style to really challenge the Brazils and the Argentinas out there.
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