The post mortem into England’s dismal World Cup performance is in full swing but it seems to me that the first conclusions pointing to tired players after a long Premiership season and Capello’s insistence on 4-4-2 are missing the point.

rytext">This blog has been submitted by Hailbeats. To view more from this author click here. TWTD blogs are added by site users unedited by the admins. Want to become a TWTD blogger? Simply send us your first article via the Contact Us page. Sure, these things won’t have helped but they don’t explain the fundamental malaise the English national team have suffered from for the last 40 odd years. Foreign players in the Premier League who have had just as hard a season are performing well in South Africa. Carlos Tevez, Johnny Heitinga and particularly Dirk Kuyt who uses up the energy for two matches in every match he plays so should be more exhausted than any other player around spring to mind.

No, I think the problem lies in the fact that English players aren’t good enough on the ball. We don’t notice this so much when they play their club football because they are surrounded by many foreign players who do have these skills and their role at their clubs is therefore different and mostly very useful for the team where they play the rugged, no nonsense, typically English dynamo role. Subtlety is not part of their game.

Put 11 English players together and you do notice this ball skills deficiency. They can’t control it quick enough and they can’t pass it Clubs and their supporters have different expectations from their players and the cry of “get it forward” is often heard from the stand. Defenders booting the ball into row Z get a round of applause and supporters prefer tryers over fancy Dans.

Keeping possession is a bit of an alien concept to English players and certainly doesn’t come naturally to most of them. But as Johan Cruyff, in my opinion the best player on the ball ever, says “without the ball, you can't win”. Look at even the so-called lesser teams at the World Cup. They all seem to like the ball and want it rather than hate it and get rid of it as soon as they can.

Even defenders don’t boot it up in the general direction of the forwards bypassing the midfield but their first instinct is to keep it and give it to a team mate. Possession gives you the opportunity to create; playing the long ball mostly relies on luck of it happening to find a team mate.

How do we put this right? Well, let’s start by changing the way in which young children play football. Give them a ball and let them play with it for a few years. Forget about the running and the weight training to make hulking six-footers out of them all.

Get the ball skills first; the natural, instinctive first touch and then and only then think about physique. After all, the Sneijders, Messis and Villas of this World Cup would never have got a look in as children at English football clubs; too small and not athletic enough would have been the judgement of the coaches.

It will take years of course to change this as even the under-21s and under-17s in today’s English football are in the Connor Wickham mode who at just 17 is built like a tank; more Emile Heskey than Lionel Messi. So, don’t expect the fluency and ball skills for the England team at Euro 2012 or the World Cup in 2014. If English football changes its approach, I predict the current 44-year of drought will come to an end in 2022.

whymark4lazio0 added 16:05 - Jul 2 I disagree, I think Capello's old fashioned tactics were a large part of the problem. Lets look at the evidence. Brazil, Spain, Holland and Germany have all played with 2 holding midfield players. We played with one, Gareth Barry, whose lack of pace/fitness was cruelly exposed by the Germans. Capello seemed fixated by the "English Spirit" when what we needed was Continental intelligence and cynicism (I know Italy finished bottom of their group but their squad was old and complacent). The German players do not have superior skills but they did play with a lot more intelligence and tactical awareness. Joachim Lowe said that he expected Lampard and Gerrard to support the attacking players and that this would leave gaps in midfield. We then compounded the problem with ridiculous defending and quickly found ourselves 2-0 down. We fought back to 2-1 (should have been 2-2) but then lost our heads again to concede another two goals. I believe the stats show that we had more possession and the same number of shots on target. Obviously overall the Germans were the better team with team being the key word. If we had played with 2 holding midfield players and with more calmness and intelligence I'm sure we would have won. Ask yourself if you were Premiership manager which German players would you chose over the English players. Perhaps: Nueur, Lahm, Mueller and Ozil. I'm sure the Opta stats for pass completion (especially in opposing half) for Premiership show Gerrard, Lampard and Rooney very favourably compared to foreigners

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KUTB added 18:38 - Jul 3 Too many Prem players not performed / didn't make it. Not just english ones. Drogba, Fabregas, Torres, Ballack, Essien - these are top players too. Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe evidence of a too long a season without a break.
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StavangerBlue added 14:18 - Jul 7 Over paid, over rated, over valued and more interested in taking pictures of themselves with their mobile phones. They showed no pride, no passion and no desire. Don't blame Capello. Blame the players. What do you expect when they put more effort into the advertisements and marketing campaigns than the actual tournament. Next time take 23 Championship players and we might even beat the likes of Algeria.

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WadzillaBhoy added 04:11 - Jul 9 It seems to me that the FA want the Premier League to be the best spectacle in the world, so why don't they fund the Championship teams to improve their youth facillities and pay Championship clubs to train up our future international prospects? I'm sure Championship clubs would relish in this prospect and would give their youngsters a run out. Most EPL teams dont give their youngsters a chance and are constantly put down in the pecking order by new transfers. It would surely also help bridge the gap between EPL and Championship teams.

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DrJeckyll added 17:53 - Jul 9 I believe that most of this current crop of players, although probably the most technically accomplished squad England has had, have lost the capacity to overcome adversity. Due i believe to their pampered lifestyles. They are more like women than men.
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generalpublic added 09:43 - Jul 10 i dont think england underperformed at all i was suprised they got out of the group well done england even you are breasted macho woman like jeckyll reckons you can flash me anytime you cuties
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RevAdrian added 16:45 - Jul 13 Shame such an insightful article didn't get more notice - I've only just read it. I remember Bobby Robson going overseas for the first time and commenting on the huge difference in how young players (and he was talking about very young onwards) were encouraged to develop skills to start with rather than to have to win. If I have it right the kind of thing that is allowed in Cub football - and I speak as former Cub linesman whose children had great fun playing - is simply neither encouraged in some countries or even outlawed. I'm sympathetic with some of the comments made but I think this blog has touched on one of the fundamental truths of the situation - we need to have a radical overhaul of football culture. I think I heard Chris Waddle saying the same sort of thing after England went out the World Cup - but his comments were ignored or drowned out by the calls for 'someone in particular to blame'. If we allow the situation to go on we are ALL to blame.

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