1. England have never been as good as this Spanish team, and there is nothing to suggest that is about to change any time soon.
2. None the less, the Germany players are not as good as the England paryers - how Germany keep progressing so far is a mystery!
3. Fantastic to watch Spain play football and it is a great "victory for football" (cliche alert!) - Croatia were probably te only other team that could have been as good.
4. Hansen said you can throw away the coaching manual when you watch such gifted players as the Spaniards tonight.... whihc is correct - and perhaps suggests that we over-pressurize and over-coach players in this country?
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great final, thought Germany would score two in the last 10 minutes but their threat never materialised. I suspect that the spaniards have had some coaching in the past. Someone said that they may expand the finals to 24 so there is a chance for England in the future, but based on this lot don't book your South Africa tickets quite yet.
German organisation and commitment gets them through, this time they just did not have enough to get ove the final hurdle, a fully fit ballack may just have done it.
Sadly, with very few exceptions, the modern English player lacks pride in his nation and is too much of a mercenary to risk injury busting a gut for his country.
One can argue as to reasons why the English player has a different mentality to his foreign counterpart but in my view that certainly is the case.
He says that one of the main coaching problems is that full time good coaches tend to be working in the 16 plus age group as that is where the money/jobs are paid for by professional clubs. He says that there is a proposal on the table for the FA to organise/fund full time coaches for the 8-11 and 12-16 in each professional club. That way the clubs do not have to have worry about funding coaches who may not produce players for 10 years or more. Apparently The FA has not yet secured the FL or PL's agreement to accept this coaching.
It was totally depressing listening to him speak. He clearly has the vision for what needs to be done but no power. Frankly he sounded pretty p*ssed off and if I was him, I'd resign because what's the point of his job if anything he suggests is veto'd or ignored? What is needed is somebody with the ideas and the remit/power to make the changes needed. The most depressing thing of all is that I can't see us ever getting to that stage,. The PL now basically does what it wants and anyway clubs just scour the world for talent and then throw cash at them to come. It's even a similar case in the Championship with teams like Barnsley sourcing players from abroad. Outside of the professional game, the FA appears to be controlled by a bunch of amateurs.
Unless we embrace the changes which mean we offer the best coaches to the young players and get them playing with the ball, not lumping it forward we won't change the demise. I'm afraid it is down to coaching at that age because kids just do not have the street/park football that happens elsewhere and that ain't ever going to go back to where it was.
Hear it said a lot, 'I would rather 11 (insert grafter here) than 20 (insert flair technical player here)
You need the competetive fighting spirit as well as the guile to win things. Look at the Dutch sides, loads of talent but no team ethic.
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Team work, the German ethos is that the team is the star.
The Spanish sing their National Anthem with pride??!
Here is a youtube clip of the Spanish from the 2006 WC singing their NA:
Note not a single player was singing...the reason being there are no words to the Spanish NA. As for the Germans (and other nations) look carefully and you'll see some players singing and some not, while others mouth the words.
Spanish football is riven with as much mercanaryism as English football is and it's worth noting that this is their first international trophy since 1964. Considering that teams like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia etc have been among the world's biggest clubs and the popularity of football in Spain has been consistently high winning one international competition since then is a very meagre return.
Technically this was a good Spanish side with skillfull players, good team ethos etc and they are deserved winners and that is why they won, but let's not bring patriotism into it - half the clubs in the Primera Liga have a visceral hatred of each other that makes the rivalries in English football look pretty tame. People from Catalonia don't consider themselves Spanish, neither do those from the Basque region, while the Castilians somewhat arrofantly consider themselves as the only true Spanish and so on.
Look at any good side and you will rarely see 11 stars or 11 grafters. The secret lies in mixing both types of players and getting the balance right. Everyone concentrates on the flair players and perhaps rightly so - it's their skill and genius that unlocks defences or sends over a perfect cross or saves a penalty or whatever, but every team needs a player who does the ugly stuff and grafts away without much reward. One player who played consistently well for Spain was Marcos Senna - a good old fashioned grafter, who did all the donkey work, closing players down, won back lost possession and otherwise doing a lot of the stuff that doesn't get headlines, but it did allow Spain to attack.
If all the players sang the national anthem they would win. Just look at the Rugby heroes at the last six nations and on tour in NZ. Sang their hearts out and then won every game.
The proof of the pudding is Beckhams Real madrid Galacticos, great players won nothing, probably the most expensively constructed team in history.
Brooking says that too often our top players do not have the ability to look at the options and make the best play decisions. This leads either to passing the ball backwards so that it can be lumped forward or lumping it forward themselves. He says this comes with players not being technically comfortable with holding/keeping the ball, especially with their backs to goal. He says players need to learn to hold the ball/move the ball around the team from the back until the right opening is created for the attacking option. So with the ability to hold/keep the ball it allows coaches to help young players especially midfielders to focus on making the right passing options when the opportunity arises. He said that when he worked under Ron Greenwood, he spent hours in training over the passing decisions he made.
So we can't hide from this. The Spanish and the Dutch are technically far superior to ours yet there is no huge cultural difference which might explain that. The same can be said for French players. My take on this is that we have to get the basic set up right and depressingly we don't seem to be much closer to doing this than we were 10 years ago and for that set up to really make a difference, it will take at least another 10 years or maybe more.
The PL which was lauded at it's inception as making a huge contribution to the England set up; far from doing this, now presents even harder challenges to bringing forward home grown talent. It's no use having a "head in sand" attitude that somehow "the cream will float to the top": if at a basic level we don't actually have the ability to produce enough "cream" to make a difference and all the while clubs are scouring the world for foreign talent; we will continue to stage the richest league in the world which houses the best talent on the planet but where very little is home grown.
They do have a different mentality, they are too busy thinking of there bank balance
Enjoyed the whole thing really(other than Mark Lawrenson and smarmy Lineker). With us not in it the media couldnt swing from "best in world" to " worst team ever" ina blink of an eye. we didnt have to put up with what Rooneys , dogs, dinner was today or seeing the "wags" every few seconds.
Won nothing??? could hae sworn they won the league in Becks last season. Or are you talking about when zIDANE ETC WERE THERE AS WELL.
The face on the t-shirt was of Antonio Puerta, the Sevilla player who died during a game last season. Ramos used to be his team-mate at Sevilla, and the message on the shirt said 'always with us'.
A Brazilian, who qualifies for Spain having played at Villareal for 5 years.
And i thought they had a Weaver who came on for them later in the second half. I pointed out that his parents were probably english and he had been born in spain/moved out there when young. Until i actually saw the correct spelling of the sub's name.
becks was there for 4/5 years, his first trophy came at the end of his last season, by which time the cult of the galacticos had gone thanks to Cappello, even though some of the aged players remained. Madrid no longer tried to fill every position with an attacker, even to call Roberto Carlos a defender is contravening trades description, so yes I am talking about the era of ZZ. -
Real Madrid have won the European Cup 9 times, la Liga 31 times, and the Copa Del Rey 17 times, and the UEFA Cup twice. Even when the Galactico experiment failed they only went a whole three seasons without winning anything and even so in this time they were regularly finishing in the top three of the Liga and making the CL quarter/semi finals.
You could argue that with the TV money on offer that by continually reaching the last four or eight of the CL and raking in tons of cash in the process that they were the real winners. Regarding Beckham, despite paying him a fortune they are supposed to have made a profit on him via all the merchandising and other spin-offs.
Traditionaly under the Franco regime the government would bank roll them and turn a blind eye to all sorts of financial misdemeanours(and rumour has it worse).All government officials, their hangers on and families were of course made life members and lauded it up using the facilities for free....totally corrupt,and to this day there's more than an unhealthy connection between the government and Real.You really had to be a memember there and be seen there to be part of the in crowd with Francos clique.
The debts have 'never' been paid and I've no doubt that a certain amount of lenency/blindeye is still shown where they are concerned, especially re financial 'irregularities.
It has a great deal to do with the 'Madrid' factor and no wonder Barcelona and ALL Spanish clubs have this inherent hatred of them and their shady methods down the years.
Quite simply, the playing field has 'never' been level in Spanish football and looks to remain that way for the foreseeable future.
A great football club on the pitch but always were and always will be Spains mafia/ untouchables off it!
Didn't they arrange some deal a few years ago whereby the government bought Madrid's training ground/complex for something stupid like 400m and wiped out their debts?
I've long argued that we have been over coaching our best kids to the extent that yes, they may be able to run further than the oppo, or maybe muscle them off the ball or out jump them or get themselves organised behind the ball but we've still to see a decent left sided midfielder come through for ages for instance. Or someone who has the close control of a Ronaldo or Iniesta or Robben (was that the same player BTW???!). Those are the sorts of things you learn in the park with your mates largely and I'm sure if you tried to backheal a pass during most formal training sesions, and lose the ball, you'd get a right earful from the coach.