Haven't finished reading this in my paper yet but you can read it via the Observer website...making interesting reading so far.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/sport/story/0,,2121414,00.html#article_continueIt is Spring 2007 and Alfie Apps, who makes a living unearthing Premiership footballers, is watching a coaching session for 15- and 16-year-olds at PSV Eindhoven's training complex in the Dutch countryside. While watching the youngsters Apps, who spends more than 200 hours each year flying around the Continent in the hope of discovering 'the Thierry Henry of tomorrow today', is struck for the umpteenth time how the coaching philosophy in Dutch youth football contrasts with England's.
'The difference is immense,' says Apps, who is European scout for West Ham and, for former employees Aston Villa, discovered Gareth Barry, Jlloyd Samuel, Liam Ridgewell and Thomas Hitzelberger. 'The kids at PSV were having fun. That's what we should do here, just let them play football.
'In England our clubs put so much money into it and they only want the best, and they want it now. The problem in the UK is that if players are not deemed to "have it" at 18 we discard them, we basically say they're not strong enough. There's too much emphasis on strength. On the Continent they persist with players until they are 22. That's when English clubs often pick them up.'
Dropping them too early is not the only problem. What they are taught is also a cause for concern. Brazil continues to produce a ceaseless line of top-class players and one of them who lit up the Premiership, Juninho, said this after watching an FA youth coaching session in England: 'This is a load of rubbish. It's like learning to swim on dry land.'
Juninho is not alone in expressing such a view. English coaching is seen by many outsiders as backward and the clubs appear to be increasingly unwilling to invest in local talent at their youth set-ups.
Liverpool have forged a link with the Hungarian club MTK Budapest and signed two of their teenagers, Krisztian Nemeth and Andras Simon, last month. 'Hungary,' says Apps, is 'one of the emerging nations for talent.'
Others include Poland, which has six teenagers on the books of Premier League academies. There are also five Germans, four each from Australia and Austria and 24 other countries are represented. The number of non-British youth players at Premier League clubs this summer is 66 and it is growing all the time. At least two clubs have set up scouting operations in India and Arsenal have an academy in Africa.
The coaching structure and growing number of foreign teenagers pose an enormous threat to the wellbeing of English football, according to the man whose responsibility is to safeguard its future.
'While there might be an issue now with English players managing to make the starting XI in Premiership matches, says Sir Trevor Brooking, the FA's director of football development, 'in five years' time we are going to have a far more serious problem: can our English youngsters even get into the academies at Premiership clubs? 'It's a challenge that everyone has to face up to.'
So far, Brooking believes, they are not facing up to it. The professional clubs do not want to be told by the FA how to run their coaching schemes and spend the money they invest in future talent. And even within the FA, Brooking does not have total support from the top.
In 15 years of the Premier League, the number of overseas first-team players has increased by nearly seven-fold. A similar trend at the academies - set up a decade ago to provide elite coaching for talented youngsters - is what prompts Brooking to warn of dire consequences within five years.
Officially, young foreign players can only become attached to a Premier League club at 16 and can sign professional forms a year later, though they might be offered a scholarship at 14. Brooking's chief concern is that by the time elite English players reach that age they are way behind their overseas counterparts, which is why so many clubs employ men such as Alfie Apps to scour the world for talent.
The coaching of boys, from when they first start playing, aged five or six, at grassroots level, right through to tuition at Premier League clubs, is inadequate, Brooking believes.
Cesc Fabregas, tutored at Barcelona but brought to Arsenal as a 15-year-old, is one example Brooking mentions of a foreign player whose early coaching gave him an advantage over English players.
He has backing from Sam Allardyce. 'We don't grow top sportsmen from a young age,' says Newcastle's new manager, who believes the government should help with funding. 'Football cannot be expected to develop players from six years old, as it is, without proper quality identification programmes and ways of schooling young people of promise through the early ages to develop their talent. Until we get those basics in place our chances of breeding a World Cup-winning side are as remote as our chances of breeding an English Wimbledon champion.'
Ten days ago Brooking was at Wembley to launch such a skills initiative - one that specifically targets a million young players aged five to 11. This, according to experts, is the age range when children are best able to learn vital skills and practices that will last a lifetime.
The new scheme places 66 coaches in nine regions throughout the country and its objective is to raise standards in the general attributes of agility, balance and co-ordination. Brooking has placed a further coach in all the regions whose role is to improve the standard of youth coaching.
These are the first moves in what he wants for the professional game - better coaches better able to guide the cream of young players, who will focus on a technique-based, touch-and-pass game.
'We have to integrate to raise the bar at grassroots level,' says Brooking. 'If we're doing that we'll do it at the top level. That's why multi-skills are the starting point for every youngster. We want to look at agility, balance and co-ordination, then try to identify the ones who can become football specific. From those in the five-to-11 age range we can get the best, who should go into an elite programme.
'Only a small percentage of clubs - Manchester United is an obvious example - have full-time coaches working with the five to 11s. Most of the other staff working with five to 11s at clubs are working for expenses only, or just being paid for a session here and there. It's not specialised coaching and that's the area I believe we've got to invest in.'
He wants more resources directed at the five to 11s and for coaching to 'be age appropriate', with new qualifications introduced for youth coaching. He wants the coaching philosophy to shift, bringing England in line with the way the game is approached in mainland Europe, Africa and South America. There is also talk of strict tests to ensure standards are met and maintained.
Brooking's on-field challenge is to oversee a new philosophy, to ditch the endemic English style of play that lacks subtlety and technique and has taken a stranglehold on football from grassroots to international level, where England have won nothing for more than 40 years. 'Clubs have scouting networks all over Europe and the world,' he says. 'And the funding to bring young players here. To be honest, I don't blame them. At the moment children join their academies at nine. We should target them before that and ensure that they have already encountered a far better quality of coaches.
'We also need to change what is being coached. Let's have more small-sided games so that they have more ball time. Let's allow them to have fun, take away the importance of winning and stop the young players being afraid of making mistakes. Concentrate on first touch and technique, allow that a short pass can often be more of a killer ball than the big hoof up to the centre-forward. And any parents who are too enthusiastic should, as a last resort, be removed.
'If we don't do all these things then even the kids identified as elite, when they join academies at nine, will still be starting behind [players in other countries]. By the time they are competing at 16 with a foreign youngster they have even less chance of being taken on.'
Brooking's determination to revolutionise English football is supported by a wide range of stakeholders in the game who spoke to Observer Sport, including coaches in academies and those in charge of football strategy at several Premier League clubs.
'The quality of our academy is top class,' one director says. 'But if the game continues this way then sure we'll produce World Cup winners, but they won't be English.'
When Juninho, who won the 2002 World Cup with Brazil, offered his 'load of rubbish' verdict on English youth coaching he had a supporter in Simon Clifford. The owner of Brazilian Soccer Schools, which coaches more than a million children in 61 countries, is a big fan of Futebol de Salao, a version of football favoured by Juninho and played by boys and girls in Brazil with a smaller, heavier ball.
'It compels you to play and even think in a particular way,' Clifford says. 'You've got no option, you have to quickly pass short, support the pass and find gaps. Spaces are so tight, you haven't got a long-ball option out of anything. Brazilian kids have learned the game in this way for years and not surprisingly find it so much easier when they step up to the bigger pitch and lighter ball.'
Clifford, who was appointed head of sports science at Southampton by Sir Clive Woodward when the rugby guru switched to football, encountered resistance to his ideas at St Mary's from the older school of coaches, among them Dave Bassett, then assistant to manager Harry Redknapp. He left the club in November 2005. Officially he resigned, though there were rumours that the 36-year-old had been sacked following his claim that professional footballers do not train enough.
Clifford underlines, broadly, Brooking's views on focusing on the five-to-11 age range, but would go even further. His company has a programme, Socatots, for infants from six months to five years old. 'My personal take is that if we can get ages nought to 12 right then the rest will pretty much take care of itself,' he says. 'Make our own raw material better in terms of instinctive skill and attitude, things that can be coached and trained, and let the rest of the world try to keep up.'
He supports Brooking's view that young players should not play 11 against 11 too early, and notes that Juninho did not kick a size-5 football until he was 14. 'There's a lot of rubbish talked about Brazilian football - you know, that they're so good because they play in the streets or on the beach. OK, maybe they do, but you see kids in this country playing in the parks and that isn't why we play the way we do. Brazil are light years ahead.'
After defeating England in the semi-final of last month's European Under-21 Championships in an epic penalty shoot-out, Holland went on to retain their title with a 4-1 defeat of Serbia. Since England won their only World Cup 41 years ago, the senior Dutch side have appeared in two World Cup finals, won the 1988 European Championship and produced numerous world-class players including former world player of the year, Marco van Basten.
How? 'Dutch soccer is based on technique and tactics which we believe is important for a player's professional career, the fortunes of our clubs and the international team,' says Peter Jeltema, head of youth coaching at Groningen FC, the club that sold Arjen Robben to Chelsea for £12m.
He then echoes the views of many who can see problems on the parks and recreation grounds around England. 'It's also really important they have fun. And we allow them to display their individual qualities. Arjen was a very special talent and when I see him playing for Chelsea it is as the same player who used to cycle here to be coached at the club when he was 13.'
Winning seems to be more important than fun in England. One of the grassroots coaches Observer Sport talked to, who also works at two centres of excellence at clubs in southern England, explains the problem.
'Before they reach the centres, they can already have bad habits,' he says. 'I've seen players who individually are good, but in their Sunday league teams it's all about winning, and they're scared to make mistakes. When a match situation demands of them skills they're comfortable with in training, I've seen technically gifted kids of nine through to 11 who'd rather kick the ball away because they have a bloke on the touchline screaming at them.'
But if coaching of primary school-age children is such a problem, how come Africa produces so many good players with far fewer resources than England? They would have barely any coaching in that age range. Here is the view of a highly qualified youth coach who works at a Premier League club and also has experience of teaching boys in Namibia. 'It's surprising how the kids there are so adept and have confidence, ability, decision-making and fluency that the children I might coach in England do not.
'The only conclusion my colleagues and I have come up with for this is that they're not as bothered about making mistakes. Maybe we coach them a little too much in this country and don't allow kids to come up with their own solutions. We don't let them trust their instincts.'
Whatever Brooking might think, he will struggle to implement change in the current structure of English football.
Following discussions 15 months ago, 50 coaches from the FA, the Premier League and Football League agreed that the FA Charter for Quality - drawn up in 1997 and the basis for youth coaching policy in England - should further address the section that states 'elite young players require a development process to protect and nurture their special talents.'
There was a general consensus that there should be 'a stronger quality of coaching throughout' and some at the FA were unhappy with standards at professional club academies. Neither the Premier League nor the Football League would accept any criticism, however.
'The leagues are getting increasingly tired of being blamed by voices within the FA on youth development issues,' said a spokesman at the Football League. 'The majority of money spent in this area comes from professional clubs, not the Football Association.'
The Premier League's response was: 'We are not surprised, but a more than a little disappointed that the FA is briefing this kind of stuff in advance of the Lewis review into youth development especially given all three football authorities signed up and contributed to the process.' In other words: shut up Trevor Brooking, and get off our backs.
The Lewis report is a review of elite youth development carried out by Richard Lewis, chief executive of the Rugby Football League. His independent report was commissioned by the FA and Premier League chief executives - who, it is understood, are aware of its headline findings - and is due for publication this summer.
Brooking would never criticise his boss in public, but he was disappointed that the review was carried out by 'a non-football person' and must have been galled that Brian Barwick, the FA chief executive, sided with the professional clubs in signing up to the report. 'The leagues are often working against the governing body,' Brooking says. 'I'd like the FA to have more control over youth development. But it isn't easy.'
'The issue as we see it is this: should the two leagues prevent the governing body trying to improve the long-term future of the game? Obviously our answer is no.' That is the view of one senior source at the FA, outside the chief executive's office, who adds, 'Once the Richard Lewis report arrives then we've got to have a sea change in policy.'
Will there be a sea change in clubs' recruitment policy to go with it? Hardly likely, says West Ham's Apps. 'Put simply,' he says, 'it is cheaper to buy from abroad than here.
'The general level of compensation set by the Premier League to buy a [young] player from a club who has been an international in his age group is around £400,000. In Europe it usually less than a quarter of that, about €120,000 [£85,000].
'Also, some of the lesser clubs, certainly those outside the Premiership, take the £138,000 grant given to them [for youth development] by the FA and Premier League to spend specifically on academies but use it for their first teams. I can name a few where the money goes nowhere near the youth set up.'
If that does not change soon, Trevor Brooking could be fighting a losing battle. He can only win it, he believes, by addressing a worrying culture of inactivity among the youngest. 'The sad fact is that some of the quality of introduction into physical activity these days is not good. It's reckoned nearly half of 11-year-olds leaving primary school are physically illiterate. So if we can get good quality coaches working with the five to 11s, my belief is that at 11 most youngsters should have the first touch, the ball manipulation and individual skill in place. It's pretty evident a lot of youngsters haven't.
'Next month we should have a sponsor to get some full-time people and regional people in to work with those age groups. In other countries you get top-quality coaches encouraged to stay full-time in that age group. Here you work your way through the age groups and think you have to be in the 16-plus group to earn any money. By then coaches are working with damaged goods, players who are simply not good enough.'
Five years to make a difference, and the clock is ticking.
