Like the theatre and the novel, English football is constantly in decline, someone once wrote. After poor Kevin Spacey floundering at the Old Vic and The Da Vinci Code’s dodgy premise and dodgier writing, there are dire warnings that England are about to enter the international wilderness.
Early last week, Arsenal became the first English club to name a team and five substitutes without one native-born player, the natural progression from Chelsea fielding an entire overseas XI under Gianluca Vialli a few years ago.
In a slow week for football news, witnesses were called to suggest that this does not bode well for the national team beyond next year’s World Cup finals in Germany. How will players of the future be developed?
Legitimate arguments and concerns. But, as with much in the English game, it is an emotional rather than reasoned argument. It is part of the appeal but also a barrier to progress sometimes.
Take the proposed takeover of Manchester United by American Malcolm Glazer. We are led to believe that he is a predator who will hike up ticket prices and get the club into hock. The family silver is in jeopardy.
But nobody at Old Trafford complained when history and tradition were overlooked as the club became a plc and built a decade of success on the financial windfall. Being bought was always a possibility. And before the militant wing of the Old Trafford Popular Front march on my offices, all I am saying is that until his business plan and intentions for the club are properly and officially made clear, the rush to judgement should be postponed.
When it comes to players, blaming the foreigner is a dangerous tactic and one that avoids scrutiny of the real issue. The problem, say those most concerned, is that if young English players are not at the top clubs and not exposed to Champions League football, they will be deficient at international level.
Yet when England failed to qualify for the World Cups of 1974 and, especially, 1978, the top club sides were full of Englishmen, with a smattering of Scots, Welsh and Irish, competing in Europe. In 1977 the English were beginning a six-year monopoly of the European Cup.
England will — surely, hopefully — go to Germany next year with their best chance of winning a World Cup for two generations, with a clutch of players having reached maturity together.
The average age of most World Cup-winning sides is 28. It will be the England first-choice XI’s average age. A sound argument can also be advanced for the group — including players such as David Beckham and Michael Owen — having been improved by their exposure to foreign attitudes and methods, from Eric Cantona’s talent and professionalism to Gérard Houllier’s training regimes. And now Real Madrid’s elite environment.
The succeeding group of English elite will also get some help from new Uefa rules. From next year, four players out of squads of 25 named for European competitions must be ”home-grown”; that is, two having been brought up through the club’s academy and two having had to spend three years between the ages of 15 and 21 in the country. This will rise to three and three in 2007 and four and four in 2008.
This is not a cure-all, however. Home-grown need not mean English. The biggest clubs, notably Arsenal, are now recruiting teenagers from overseas for their academies, though inevitably some will be English.
What is curious in this is the Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein’s opposition to the Uefa plan, designed to recognise the problems of national teams with the international game in danger of being a mere sideshow, except for major championships, to the club game.
Dein is also on the Football Association’s international committee. There is a conflict of interest here. The real challenge is to young players and coaches, to improve themselves physically and in technique with the same professionalism as the best of the overseas players.
The elite will always come through, in any era, in any system. Wayne Rooney would have emerged no matter what. Those without such remarkable natural ability need to recognise the true consequence of Arsenal’s Monday-night 16, as opposed to simply complaining they will not get their chance.
Too many promising academy and first-division players lack the right attitude to dedicate themselves to modern standards, preferring to be big fish in small ponds. Besides, as Jose Mourinho observes, a wise coach knows that many fans still want to watch the local boy made good. Frank Lampard is Chelsea’s heartbeat, for example.
In addition, for many years there have been too many overseas players of insufficient quality earning too much money, but the sense now is that most English clubs are more discerning. It is a funny thing, but just as nature always finds a way of resolving an imbalance to arrest a decline, so too does football. — Â