| Richard Williams's damning verdict The FA's money-grabbing imperative is putting the future of England's gifted young players in grave dangerA minute or two before midnight on Tuesday, on the near-deserted ground floor of Wembley's maze-like multistorey car park, a man rammed his car into a metal barrier, got out, and stood silhouetted in the Kafkaesque darkness, bellowing his frustration: "Where's the bloody exit?" He was echoing the dominant emotion of the many thousands who had left the stadium before the final whistle ended England's goalless draw with Montenegro, a profoundly depressing experience.To get up the next morning and watch the replay of Germany's 3-0 win over Kazakhstan in Astana was to redouble the impression of futility that lingered from England's efforts. Joachim Löw's team took almost an hour to break down the Kazakh defence, but when they eventually succeeded it was with beautifully worked goals by Miroslav Klose, Mario Gómez and Lukas Podolski, the consequence of football that blended patience and persistence with speed of thought.It was also an entertaining game which kept the home crowd's interest, and thus an even greater contrast with the drab affair served up for the 73,451 at Wembley. Arriving at the Football Association's £800m showpiece in the reasonable expectation of seeing a match of international quality, all but the few hundred Montenegrin fans went home disillusioned.Ytoday is not the best of days for David Cameron to be welcoming the president of the international game's governing body to Downing Street as part of the 2018 World Cup bid campaign. No Premier League clubs reached the semi-finals of last season's European Cup. The national team left South Africa in disgrace. Legal vultures are squabbling over the entrails of Liverpool FC, one of the great powers of club football over the past half-century. And the other day Manchester United, whose gushing revenue streams are the envy of the world, announced an £83.6m loss on last year's trading.Sepp Blatter was not at Wembley on Tuesday, which can only have been a good thing. He would have seen a team lacking intelligence and wit, given no meaningful direction by a man who, for £6m a year, came back from the World Cup having done less well in terms of results than the part-time coach paid a tiny fraction of his salary by New Zealand.The Football Association thought about dismissing Fabio Capello but could not think of anyone better and it feared the financial consequences of paying off the unexpired portion of his four-year contract. Instead it is paying the consequences of a continuing lack of progress on the pitch.Capello's equivocal attitude to young players is shown by his refusal to treat the new campaign as a fresh start. In hanging on to a majority of experienced players while occasionally feeding in the best of the new generation, he risks infecting the fresh blood with the virus of surly underachievement that contaminated the old.Germany's result on Tuesday, like Spain's 3-2 away win against Scotland and Holland's 4-1 victory over Sweden, underlined the inadequacy of the structure of English football, in which the Premier League's money-grubbing imperative takes precedence. Those countries nurture their coaches, producing enough men of quality to ensure that their national teams are run by people who at least speak the language.Löw, Spain's Vicente del Bosque and Holland's Bert van Marwijk are each paid between a quarter and a third of Capello's salary. But they understand the historical and contemporary nuances of their nation's football, and can communicate ideas to their players in the knowledge that they will be understood (even when, as with Van Marwijk, those ideas are not always very good ones). Each man stands at the pinnacle of a well resourced pyramid of coaching development, while the FA is still arguing over whether to add another £70m to the £20m already spent to complete St George's Park, the national football centre at Burton upon Trent, where the grooming of coaches would be a priority.In the most recent European age-group competitions, England won the Under-17 tournament, reached the semi-finals of the Under-19s and lost to Germany in the Under-21 final. But this newspaper recently revealed that, according to the findings of an FA technical committee, those results were reached despite England's players having worse pass-completion records in all three departments of the game – defence, midfield and attack – than any of the other seven finalists in each of the competitions. There is no lack of young talent in England, but there must be profound concern over the ability of those in charge not to waste such potential.At the age-group levels, physical strength and commitment can win through. But if Spain's recent triumphs and the manner of Germany's victory over England in Bloemfontein three months ago have taught us anything, it is that they are not enough at senior level. The desire for short-term success at any price is putting England's future – and the future of the gifted young players who should be part of it – in grave danger.In Sir Trevor Brooking, the FA has a director of football development who understands the nature of the problem. Given support rather than opposition, he might even know how to devise a structure to ensure that the remaining proceeds of England's long football boom are invested to best advantage in order to allow the likes of Joe Hart, Jack Wilshere, Adam Johnson, Chris Smalling, Jack Rodwell, Theo Walcott, Tom Cleverley, Phil Jones, Jordan Henderson and Josh McEachran a future that does not include being booed off at Wembley.EnglandThe FAFabio CapelloMontenegroRichard Williamsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Liverpool takeover: Anfield board will meet to approve sale to NESV after High Court victory Liverpool board set to meet this evening with the intention of approving the club's sale to New England Sports Ventures. telegraph.co.uk |
Soccer: Newcastle Ties Chelsea After Jumping Out Early Having lost three of its last four league games, Chelsea fell behind again after six minutes when Andy Carroll took advantage of a misplaced backpass by Alex. feeds.nytimes.com |
Leicester 1-0 Nottingham Forest Consistency is the key in the Championship, a division which has reached something close to stasis. Just 10 points separate the fourth‑placed club from the 22nd, and Leicester City's win tonight, deserved on the balance of play, means they continue to have as good a chance as any of emerging from the crowd to secure promotion.Both these clubs have made notable loan signings from Premier League clubs in recent days, but while West Bromwich Albion's Czech striker Roman Bednar started for Leicester, Arsenal's Aaron Ramsey was on the bench for Nottingham Forest, reflecting the fact that the young midfielder had played only 45 minutes of football since returning from the broken leg suffered at Stoke City in February.City came into the match unbeaten in their five home games since Sven-Goran Eriksson took over as manager but initially found themselves corralled by Forest's five‑man midfield. As a result it was the visitors who asked the early questions, and a stretching Dele Adebola should have done better than turn Garath McCleary's cross over the bar, but it was Leicester who went closest to opening the scoring.Bednar's shot beat the Forest goalkeeper, Lee Camp, only to be inadvertently blocked by Luke Chambers, and Camp made a fine block when Curtis Davies attempted to volley in the rebound. The goalkeeper was less praiseworthy shortly before the interval, when he failed to gather a header under pressure from Darius Vassell, but Chambers reacted swiftly to clear the ball off the line.City maintained the momentum after the interval but Vassell should have been tackled at least twice when he forced his way through from the edge of the Forest area. Again Camp made the save, but this time the goalkeeper could only divert the ball into the path of the City captain, Andy King, who turned it into the empty net for his eighth goal of the season."The owners want promotion as quickly as possible, though I don't know if it is possible this year," said Eriksson. "But we're bringing in players with Premier League experience, who should be very good at this level."The Forest manager, Billy Davies, was "disappointed" that Robert Earnshaw's appeal for a penalty after apparently being tripped by Greg Cunningham was turned down, and claimed the referee, Michael Oliver, had admitted he had made a mistake, but Davies acknowledged Forest had been second best.ChampionshipLeicester CityNottingham ForestRichard Raeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Barcelona v Real Madrid: live Live minute-by-minute commentary of El Clásico, the Spanish La Liga game between Barcelona and Real Madrid. telegraph.co.uk |