Paid Members CleetusVanDamme Posted October 14, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 14, 2017 Conte's refusal to ever play Christensen anywhere aside from the middle of the back three is baffling. Does being 15 yards further to the left suddenly make him inferior to Cahill in any attribute? I'll take solace in the fact that Azpilicueta is surely the first player ever to have been the top scorer for a team he's never played for in mid-October! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted October 15, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 15, 2017 Sterling's goal yesterday was goal of the season by a mile. An absolute thing of beauty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D@mm Posted October 15, 2017 Share Posted October 15, 2017 Are you on about the tap in he did Rick, I thought Fernandinho was a better goal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Danger Posted October 16, 2017 Share Posted October 16, 2017 Watching City this season id like watching anyone half decent play against me on Fifa. They just know all the angles and exact sweet spots to make goals. They're on another level. It'll be really interesting to watch them and United  compete this year. Two very good teams with very differing styles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Cod Eye Posted October 16, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 16, 2017 That second city goal where they basically passed it through most of the team before scoring was great to watch, and also shows why the kids coaching in this country is so behind the times. My lad is 13, and was dropped from his team a few weeks ago, for passing the ball along his own 18 yard box and not giving it the t'old "Av it!". He basically got dropped for doing what City's defenders do week in week out(and works for them)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members PunkStep Posted October 16, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 16, 2017 I watched my son attending a football camp on holiday (which in fairness was a holiday thing so not a proper summer camp or club as such), but they were practising headers, diving headers and volleys. No short passing or doing anything with the ball at their feet. I think that spoke volumes. Â Rick says from his experience that the mentality has changed massively at youth level though, there is more emphasis on encouraging kids to become more familiar with the ball at their feet rather than 'kick and rush'. You'd hope so, because English players are going to struggle to improve technically and fall even further behind other countries in this respect. I think the fascination with Barca's tika taka years ago should have a long-term positive impact on our game at grass roots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted October 16, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 16, 2017 Yeah, there's definitely a drive towards encouraging kids to learn at-feet technique, to play around with the ball. One of the elements of that seems to be the popularisation here of foot-sal. I remember there being a short piece during the 2014 World Cup about foot-sal, and Neville mentioning that there've been a number of foot-sal programmes started up in the UK, and that he even took his own boys to them. I'd love to see a resurgence in technical wizard footballers with mesmerising footwork in the UK; there seems to have been a massive decline in those since the mid-90s. There's no reason, other than training culture and infrastructure, why the UK can't have another Best, Barnes or Beardsley, or produce maestros as proportionately frequently as Spain or Brazil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted October 16, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 16, 2017 Well, for a start, it's futsal. I'd just like to point out that to suggest that there's been a decline in technically gifted footballers since the 1990s is only what someone who watched no football in the 1990s would say. It's just totally wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The British Bushwacker Posted October 16, 2017 Share Posted October 16, 2017 Supporting a non league club and seeing them into the first round proper is still an amazing feeling, hoping for Pompey away for Oxford City Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted October 16, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 16, 2017 18 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said: Well, for a start, it's futsal. I'd just like to point out that to suggest that there's been a decline in technically gifted footballers since the 1990s is only what someone who watched no football in the 1990s would say. It's just totally wrong. Thanks for the correction. I did watch plenty of football in the 90s, and there were quite a few technical wizard footballers during that time; bear in mind I'm not saying the new batch aren't technically gifted, I'm saying that they don't seem inclined to play with the ball "glued to the feet", beating players with tricks and flicks - they seem to be more about using single instants, beating opponents with runs and placement to set up for the next pass or shot, which requires just as much technical ability. I didn't watch much during the 2000s, so I'll happily accept correction if I'm wrong about there being a decline since the 90s. I'm just going off what I've seen in recent years, and I'll admit it's not going to be the most complete understanding of modern football. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted October 16, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 16, 2017 We're talking about the lack of maverick players rather than technical ability. It's not an English thing though. The game's just changed. The old fashioned winger barely exists anywhere. The little maverick playmaker is completely different now. You rarely see players beating a man with a trick now, it's either about raw pace or working an angle to release someone into space. We've come on a bundle technically and tactically but too many teams on the World stage still do it better than us. Personally I think its because our players don't broaden their horizons and the pool of players is far too small. The pool of truly elite players is tiny. At grassroots level things are still improving. The FA introduced 5v5 for U7 & U8 age groups and 9v9 for U11 & U12 age groups which bridges the (too big) gap between 7 aside and 11 aside. They encourage more involvement for players and more touches which is great. At 5v5 and 7v7 too, players retreat into their own half at goal kicks to encourage playing out from the back. I've seen that work spectacularly with some outstanding players coming through the last few years. Unfortunately there will always be bad coaches and worse parents who are impatient with weaker players or too quick to try and "educate" players on the "tactical" side which is why you get stuff like not passing across your own goal. In their defence, the lesson can also be to protect the kid. There's nothing worse for your confidence than passing the ball straight to a striker to score. Coaching is complex. We've come a long way in the last 13/14 years that I've been involved but we're still light years behind places like Holland and Germany. We need far more education and less emphasis on winning at young age groups. I'd also ban parents from stepping within 40 metres of the pitch but sadly we've not go the space to do that! Edit: On the broadening horizons, I'm not sure if anyobne clocked but there appears to be a bit of a sea change on that front. Chelsea have been sending players out on loan in the last few years to Vitesse primarily but other clubs abroad. Noticed in the summar that Willock quit Arsenal for Benfica and Sancho left Man City for Dortmund. I wonder if the penny is dropping seeing players like Eric Dier succeed having being educated at a club with a great reputation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Houchen Posted October 16, 2017 Share Posted October 16, 2017 I've said it before but I recommend "Those Feet" by David Winner which explains why England doesn't produce a Maradona type player. Â It's all down to a Victorian fear of masturbation and post empire declinism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted October 16, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 16, 2017 rick, that was a cracking post, and explains a lot. Thanks for that. Houchen - I still tell people about how you used Total Football to help you learn to drive. I've even started looking at my own driving, and trying to figure out how I could apply it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Houchen Posted October 16, 2017 Share Posted October 16, 2017 7 minutes ago, Carbomb said:  Houchen - I still tell people about how you used Total Football to help you learn to drive. I've even started looking at my own driving, and trying to figure out how I could apply it. Haha, I try to apply it to many things, even in the workplace.  When I train a team up, I use a Dutch version of the Bruce Lee "Be like water" approach and try to get people to learn a bit about every role in the office so we always can cover each other! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members PunkStep Posted October 16, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 16, 2017 26 minutes ago, tiger_rick said: Noticed in the summar that Willock quit Arsenal for Benfica and Sancho left Man City for Dortmund. I wonder if the penny is dropping seeing players like Eric Dier succeed having being educated at a club with a great reputation. Excellent post and this part in particular- yes those moves really stood out for me this summer and I was pleased to see these moves (although a little gutted we didn't hold on to Willock). But of course, that's only part of the problem- because you can't send everyone out and the biggest change needs to continue to happen here. You only need to read Cruyff's book to help change your perception on how you would train children to play football. My son is 5 and really starting to get into football- he attends the half term and school holiday camps (too young to have a school team for his age group) and I might look at taking him to a local club to start training soon. I can't wait to see the mindset the coaches give the kids, because as a kid I really can't remember having a footballing brain until long after I left school- even though I was in the school team. No wonder we got hammered most games! But man I'd love to go back to school with the understanding of the game that I have now. I've played regularly since I was a kid until today and at 34, I've probably learnt and developed more as a player over the past 18 months than I have since I was at school- and that's from playing in two new and completely different 5-a-side leagues. I actually feel as though I've been coached properly on an individual basis for the first time in my life. At 34! Hopefully I can instil some of this knowledge into my son- on the basis he remains interested of course. I don't want to bore him or turn this into a chore- he has to enjoy it and I'm not going to force him into doing. Either that or I'll just get him and his friends to go through Rondo drills for every spare hour until their feel hurt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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