Grass Roots

[Bruce Wayne]

Well I havn't heard anyone but Gerrard calling for a quota but maybe I don't look in the right places.

I'll ask it for a third time though in the hope that someone can provide an answer. In 1974, 1978 and 1994 when there were barely any overseas players in the English game, what was our excuse for being awful?

Here's the team for the infamous 2-0 defeat to Holland in 1993.

Seaman D A (Arsenal),
Parker P A (Manchester United),
Dorigo A R (Leeds United),
Palmer C L (Sheffield Wednesday),
Adams T A (Arsenal),
Pallister G A (Manchester United),
Platt D A (Sampdoria) - Captain,
Ince P E C (Manchester United),
Shearer A (Blackburn Rovers),
Merson P C (Arsenal),
Sharpe L S (Manchester United),
Subs: A Sinton for Palmer,
and I E Wright for Merson.

Palmer!!, Dorigo!!, Merson. Geez Louise

On the first weekend of the Premier League in 1992 there were just 10 foreign players in the starting lineup. You can see here the full list of players attached to PL clubs.

http://football.guardian.co.uk/news/theknowledge/0,9204,659407,00.html

We had Jason Kearton and Robert bloody Warzycha Real golden age that must have been.

 

[SuitsBlue]

There you go, that's why we havn't won diddly since 1966. Have a look at the Argentina youth system that has produced the Messi's, the Tevez's, the Saviola's of this world. All of those three are short guys with amazing technique and I doubt any of them would have been produced by an English system precisely due to the mentality you just highlighted. You spoke in another thread about being tough on criminals. When I worked in a local school the PE teacher was accused of being a paedo because he made a kid play rugby in the rain. That's the mentality we're creating in our society now. Who the [Poor language removed] in their right mind would want to work with kids these days when one accusation can get the mindless vigilanties trashing your life.

But hey, as long as we have dad's coaching the boys, dad's that generally don't know [Poor language removed] we may continue to produce the odd Joey Barton or Lee Bowyer. Who cares that the likes of Holland, Portugal, Brazil and Argentina are so far ahead of us in terms of youth development it's scary. We're England, we invented this [Poor language removed] game so everyone better know their place. Lampard covered 12,000 metres on Wednesday night. Pretty cool huh. That's what our youth system produces, players that can run all day, that can get stuck in. School of hard knocks right. The fact that we havn't won anything for so long sure isn't our fault, no need to change anything we're doing, lets blame the foreigners.



Like I said in the post you have quoted, how many foreign players were there in the English league when Graham Taylor was manager? 10 perhaps? How many were there in 1974 and 1978 when we failed to qualify for the WC? Bugger all I suspect. Who was to blame back then for us being [Poor language removed]? Probably the blacks or someone.

It's easy to point the blame at foreigners for our own troubles, it reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Quimby overspends on a bear tax and bewildered by the stupidity of the electorate for wanting it in the first place and then complaining about the cost, he blames the budget deficit on immigrants because he knows that they're everyones whipping boy.

But still you want quotas in the naive believe that it will make the path to World Cup glory laden with gold. Funny really, South Africa want quotas to get more blacks in their sports teams, heck Zimbabwe put quotas on pretty much everything in the name of redistribution, of making things more 'Zimbabwean'. Lovely examples to follow huh.

congratulations, you completely missed the point, and in a manner so unexpected. - accuse and be proved a liar = justice for the liar.

as for diddly since 66, who else has won in that time?

i dont particularly want to get into the socio-economic politics of south america, what i will say is, that some children have nothing, education, parent, any sort of future - in brazil the police hunt them down and shoot them (the calous pricks) but football in the ghettos flourishes.

ps. paul scholes isnt a tall/big guy. what cosmic alignment can we blame that on?

as for footballing 'hardmen' having a place, they clearly do - nobby styles and our own bally knew how to rough it.

the mentality nurtured currently is the compensation culture, i know where it came from that place is malignant and so has infected right here right now. what did i say about cutting cancer out before it further infects?

france won the WC in 98, (lasagne for ronaldo), dynamic management with an eye to the future has to be nurtured in the policy makers early on - instead of the inbred [Poor language removed] that currently occupy the easy life on the board of the FA.

thats the problem, the FA, its time to get rid.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

It just smacks of arrogance frankly, this belief still that we invented the game and its our birthright to be great at it.

How many Englishmen knew the first thing about any of that Croatian team? The players certainly didn't seem to considering the amount of space they gave the two players who scored long range goals. Don't you see? We have to be even more outward looking rather than pulling up the drawbridge and shutting ourselves off from the rest of the world.

It is no coincidence that our best clubs are managed by foreigners, that the best players at our best clubs are foreigners. We have to accept that most of our players and coaches simply aren't that good.

This 'blame the foreigner' thing isn't restricted to Britain. Italy are having the same debate, despite winning the World Cup last year and having less than 30% of players from overseas. It's the easy, knee jerk reaction but it's the wrong reaction. As Wenger has said, players should be selected on the basis of their ability, not on what is printed in their passport. If we want more English players then there has to be more produced of a better quality. It really is that simple.

 

[SuitsBlue]

training and the arrogance on the pitch the current celebs showed are different things though.

i feel it slightly churlish to consider ferguson a foreigner.

with regards outward looking, what areas do you suppose should be studied extensively? or are you engratiating a closed shop study of world cup winning countries only? Where is the line???

as for the wenger boys and arsenal, they were the first side ever penalised for the system they have corrupting the passport/immigration/visa laws with regards players from certain continents.

what price success?