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Can English Football learn from German Football

Can English Football learn from German Football


Can English Football learn from German Football

German football had yet more success recently when winning the ‘Confederations Cup’. A very youthful side beat Chile 1-0 in the final in Russia. This felt even more successful for the Germans as victory was experienced despite the team not featuring their established star players. Instead their team was full of youthful talent pushing to make it to the top!

We all here about how great ‘The English Premier League’ is and how all the star players want to play in this country, but you’ve got to wonder whether that’s really the case. It was interesting to hear the pundits speaking at the ‘Confederations Cup’ and debating this issue. According to many, the focus in Germany is now on youth with Bundesliga clubs spending a total of nearly £100m a year on their academies, of which all are independently inspected, tested and rated by the German FA. Is that the same in England?

When looking at the recent England squad, you’ve got to wonder how many top, top youthful players have come through over recent times? Well we could debate this all day long, but for me, there’s 3 big hopes are:

Marcus Rashford who has made his way through Man Utd’s youth setup. He was just 18 when he made his Premier League debut, scoring against Arsenal.

Dele Alli who grew up playing for MK Dons in League One, before Tottenham signed him for £5m at the age of 19. He made his MK Dons debut aged just 16 and grew up playing against men. This meant no big money deal, and at such a young age, learned fast about responsibility. Is this why he’s been such a success?

Eric Dier, a player who grew up in Portugal. He made his senior debut for Sporting CP at the age of just 18 before Tottenham signed him for £4 million when he was just 20.

The big difference is that both Dele Alli and Eric Dier enjoyed playing 1st-team football, albeit at clubs that aren’t the top English clubs and therefore probably learned a lot from doing this. You could argue that nowadays too many English players are happy to be playing U23 football and don’t get chances to play in the 1st team. Also, I think as there’s so much money in the English game, Premiership clubs can afford to buy the top players from across the world, rather than produce their own talent and risk giving youth a chance.

I believe another problem area is how clubs can have such big squads! Yes, you can only have a 25-man squad to play in the Premiership, with at least 8 being homegrown talent but you can also use as many U21 players as you wish as these don’t need to be included in the 25-man rule. Most of the top clubs have lots of player in the U23/U18’s squads of who they loan out i.e. Chelsea who loaned out 38 players last season. The Stamford Bridge side loaned out youth prospects and older heads looking for 1st-team football.  What is interesting is that they’ve not really produced any 1st-team home-grown talent since a certain John Terry! The top sides can afford to hoard many 1st team prospects, but is that good for the English game or the national side?

What can the FA & Premier League agree to do? Well, could we not limit the number of foreign players in a 1st-team matchday squad? Or, could each team have to have so many English U23 players in a matchday squad? There must be ways around this and if we want success on the national front, issues need to be discussed? You surely only improve when you play 1st team football, and English players would surely gain from doing this, rather than playing in the U23 / U18 competitions? Even when playing in The Championship, or League One etc, it gives players the opportunity to challenge themselves a lot more than in the reserves, doesn’t it?

According to pundits at The Confederations Cup, too many English players sign big contracts and are happy to sit on the bench of the top clubs or play reserve football. English Youngsters aren’t coming through, and when they are, they aren’t for the most part that good are they?

It’s easy to talk about the ‘old days’ but the old apprentice system was much different. Kids had to work hard behind the scenes, cleaning boots, listening to the Senior players and learning from them. They didn’t get paid much i.e. didn’t get too much too young. They got bonuses from the 1st-team players if they did jobs for them, but this would be a mere £10 or similar and this taught apprentices about the importance of responsibility. If this didn’t happen, players knew they had no chance of succeeding in the game!

Now, you hear about teenage players earning thousands per week, often before they’ve even made the 1st team. This means they don’t have to do menial jobs like boot cleaning. They don’t build the same relationships with Senior players who often cannot relate to youngsters who don’t have to do that kind of work, and that’s not good for any football club. Modern youngsters are less willing to learn from seniors as they don’t feel they have as much to learn, because of what they earn. Gone are the days when they were taught that if you work hard, you will be rewarded.

One team that continue to build and produce young players are Southampton. Look at all the players they have produced over recent times and sold for big money?  Gareth Bale, Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana etc. Why? Well, because they are based on more ‘traditional’ ways of working in the way they produce young talent, of which many are British.

Maybe a salary cap for youngsters could be introduced? They could get a basic wage, with a bonus for making the 1st team and then further incentives to ensure they continue to work hard. This would surely help them to take further responsibility and work closely with the 1st team players?

What’s interesting is that all but two of the top-flight Bundesliga clubs are majority owned by their fans. It means German sides do not belong to businessmen based across the world but to people who want to see their own German national team succeed. This means money isn’t so well spent as it is in England so German players get more chances to play in their own country, even if they earn less than they would playing in England. However, you don’t hear of English players willing to take a substantial pay-cut to play regular 1st team football abroad, do you? Instead, many are happy to earn big contracts over here, even if they aren’t playing much football.

In conclusion, surely English football can learn from the Germans?  They finished 3rd in both the 2006 & 2010 World Cup before winning the 2014 one. They made the Euro’s Semi-final in 2008, 2012 & 2016, it’s certainly been a great time for them. It’s all well and good having so much money in the English Premier League, but perhaps more can be done with it, rather than it being spent on transfers and wages? That’s something that surely the big heads in the English game need to decide?

Regards,

Dan Scattergood