Quote:
Originally Posted by Osem
There certainly is a big problem holding onto the ball and giving away possession and this so often puts the team under pressure unnecessarily and leads to conceding goals. I have no idea why this is, do the likes of Spain, Portugal, Germany etc. get more time together at a national level? Is it some sort of collective psychological shortcoming? If
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We don't have the technical skill. What with technique being so often overlooked for so long in favour of physical strength, size, and speed across all levels of English football.
The need to win at every level has meant that at the younger ages, where the differences between sizes is much more evident, the stronger players get to play a lot more football and get a headstart. The fact they are stronger, taller and/or faster means they can depend on these skills to win games and 'play well' and this is at a cost to their technical development. This is really quite evident at international youth level where the younger the age group the better England do because we placed winning over development even at that age.
Then of course they reach late teens and suddenly their advantage is gone. All the nations where their players are picked on technical ability rather than 'heart' or physical strength can suddenly move better than us, pass better than us and control the ball better than us. They spent their development playing on smaller pitches, more time on the ball, with a focus on getting better rather than winning the under-9s league or what have you.
So then England are left to hoofing the ball up to the 'big man' up front, maybe hoping to expose their full backs with pace, and our defenders throwing themselves in front of the ball rather than anticipating the play to avoid the need to do that in the first place.