EUFA U'19 Championships

I heard on SkySports News today that Fabio Capello had no intention of watching for himself the England U19s in their semi final with Spain this afternoon..........not that it prevented him from watching it on Eurosport but it's not the point really is it.

The same reporter claimed that Capello and Noel Blake had never met. What does that tell you about the current England set up and the serious attitude that is needed to provide a consistent through flow of talent to the full England set up?

What does that tell you about the standing and respect for Blake amongst the top echelons of England's football structure, indeed what does it tell you about the chances of many of these young players being treated with confidence and respect as their careers progress?

Not a very healthy situation in my opinion and yet another underlying reason for the decline of our national team.

Although the U19s were well beaten (3-1) by the Spanish this afternoon, the nation's U17 side beat the Spaniards in the final of the EUFA Championships for their level in May when it was staged in Leichenstein.

There are some very talented young players in that squad of which the stand out one is Ipswich Town striker Connor Whickham and one of the most remarkable is 16 year old Saido Berahino (WBA) who arrived in this country as a refugee with his mother seeking political asylum from Burundi just five years ago unable to speak English ~ French being his first language. There is also a youngster playing in the squad two years above his age group ~ 15 year old Nathaniel Chalobah (Chelsea) whilst I also hear great things about Arsenal's striker Benike Afobe from people who know their Academy players far better than I do.

Their Coach is John Peacock who is the FA's Head Coach and the highest qualified coach operating outside the national team set up and the U21 squad. He specialises in youth coaching and coach education and has been on the FA Staff since 2002.

In my opinion, he is just the type of specialist coach we need in charge of such a vital age group and the one from which many players might possibly emerge to play for the full England team when the World Cup is held in 2018....................the one that this country is pinning it's hopes on being awarded the honour of staging; and thus there will be a huge pressure on these young men both to develope and deliver the ultimate prize in World football.

Half of the German team that obliterated England in the recent World Cup represented their country in winning the U17, U19, and U21 European titles.

According to Sir Trevor Brooking, England's current group of U'17s are the first ones coming through where all the outfield players are competent at playing proper possession football. "We've had some good groups before " he says, "but too often in the past, the good teams have been able to identify the weak links in our team, the players who will play the long ball or just give it away under pressure. This group has quality in depth".

What beggars belief is that Brooking has been the FA's development chief and been banging this particular drum for seven years.....................seven years of clubs dragging their heels and putting obstructions in the way of the revolution needed in our game.

Probably the most significant change comes THIS week when the Premiership clubs have to nominate their 25 strong squads containing the pre-required one third of "home produced players" and only being able to add to those squads from amongst players aged under 21 years old. Now the likes of Liverpool, with their ridiculous 90% overseas players; will find out the hard way how they should have been conducting their affairs. Now clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City will sit back and realise just how many unnecessary overseas signings they have made as they will be forced to omit them from their squads and pay their big fat salaries for doing precisely what so many at the top table of our national game have been doing for so long ~ sitting on their arses!

At roughly the same time as the England national team leave the World Cup as the laughing stock of world football (although much of that is due to our self-delusion on how great we are rather than the lack of quality of our football), it is the comments of a great player from a rival nation (Der Kaiser) that get the majority of the nation's media up in arms, and not the FA/Premier League's refusal to listen to a great player of our own (Sir Trev) on the deficiencies in our game and why England won't challenge for the World Cup for the foreseeable future.

While we as a society continue to trot out Alan Hansen, Mark Lawrenson, Andy Gray and Jamie Redknapp as our chosen advisors on the state of our domestic football we will continue to arrive in foreign countries in the summer of every two years and surprise ourselves at how much better than us all the other teams are.

We'll be lucky to get out of the group stages in Brazil 2014 (TM) and all the same reasons and solutions will be trotted out then as have been over the past few weeks. The problem is the FA's attitude to coaching and the Premiership's need to win at all costs; but the solution is the country's media.

Only when MotD and Sky Sports combine to criticise the standard of coaching and performances at the top level on a weekly basis will anything be done about it.

Because only when change happens at the top will the benefits to the national side be realised: otherwise the best young under-11's of 2010 will face a choice of hoofing the ball into the final third as often as possible (a la Noel Blake) and play 30 Prem games each season + Internationals + lucrative marketing contracts, or be loaned out to a Championship team for failing to follow the manager's instructions.

I know I'm biased because I found myself at Upton Park a lot when I first came to London in the early 80's, but the priorities of our footballing society are neatly summed up for me when I see Kevin Keegan as an expert World Cup pundit on a national TV network and Trevor Brooking's calls for progressive change consistently ignored.

New squad restrictions, new national manager called for, new players called for, new tactics to consider. Plus ca change...

I'd say that is quite ambitious. I think we'll be lucky to qualify and actually be playing in Brazil 2014!