I'm not sure about the 'foreigners' point. The German players who aren't of German ethnicity (with the exception of Cacau) are people who grew up in Germany. They are from immigrant backgrounds in the same way as many English players are of Jamaican background. What is different in this respect between Ozil and John Barnes?

We do have a particular issue with the UK and its different component nations blurring the lines a bit. But in most cases someone knows if he is English or Welsh or more one than the other.

Personally, I think the big difference between the two countries is how they produce their young players. The German system was overhauled 12 years ago and started churning out much more accomplished players. We should do the same.

agree with winter break but as for casting a wider net the Germans are not doing anything new and its already been happening for years in the UK - Owen Hargreaves and John Barnes come to mind. Not to mention the various players whose parents have come from commonwealth nations such as the Jamaica etc who were born in England to 'foreign parents' such as Sol Campbell

We get players that come from ex-commonwealth nations, the germans get players from eastern europe, the french from northern africa (zindane was algerian)

Granted with opening of european borders we may be able to entice more players from places like eastern europe but they, like Giggs or Bale, are likely to regard themselves as from their home country first and England second.

Putting it another way - if you grew up in Germany but were English - who would you want to play for?

Danny Welbeck's parents are from Ghana.

Personally, I think we need to tell the English players to get out of England and start learning football from different cultures. The fact is we know what is required but regardless, we'll never implement it. Hoof football will always be something we'll be known for.

Barcelona have opened their doors to everyone to see how their academy has been designed and ran, and we're still telling children that winning is more important than anything. No consideration for skill and technique developing. Just run like a headless chicken and make sure you pass.

Did anyone see the Barcelona futsal game, it was a great example on how they build their technique, and they had so much fun. They couldn't care less who was winning or losing. At one point Pique, who has incredible skill, lifted the ball under his shirt, and ran with it to the opposition, and everyone just laughed. Try doing that in England, and you won't be allowed to play football again.

No Man utd players to bring the German team down ..

Difference between us and Germany.

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Easy one.

The Germans are good.

Giggs could never have played for England. He said so himself in his autobiography.

He only played for the England U-somethings because they have different rules.

^ But that's nitpicking I suppose. Good point overall stated in the article.

We have Hodgson and they dont

Actually, we have the FA and therefore Hodgson I should say

What pees me of is that within the FA, we have one of the most technically gifetd midfield players of his generation, in Trevor Brooking.

Yet he is either nothing but a yes man to the senior figures, or he is actually quite happy with the way our game is going at grass roots level.

When he was appointed I hoped big changes would be underfoot to repar the damge done under Howard Wilkinson and the likes of Turnip Taylor.

But, nothing has changed what so ever.

I'll top you all and say the difference is that: We have our media, and they have theirs.

They trust and rely on their youth and we dont? There people there who want gerrard and terry back. Heck some wanted scholes back. If you think terry and gerrard are slow now, wait till 2 yrs from now. Complete overhaul. Are we brave enough to do this?

I don't think your reasoning behind nationality is a good one or a fair one, to be honest. Ozil is third generation German and Gomez was born in Germany and has a German mother Kloses dad is ethnic German. Only Podolski out of the whole squad was not born in Germany.

Going by your logic, we would have a lot less players available for England than we actually do!

The reason Germany are reaping the benefits now is because they overhauled their system about 10 years ago, a journey we are only just starting.

Vidicschin

I agree with you up to a point but he and other people have overseen the biggest change in our youth football season perhaps ever in the past few weeks.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18236981

So it may take another 10-15 years or so but we're going in the right direction.

I think Roy was forced into taking these big names to the Euros because of the way he was appointed so close to the tournament and to be honest the people that got England to the tournament deserved to play there.

Now we have a clean slate and a fairly easy qualifying group (we rarely seem to have a problem qualifying) so lets see what Roy does from now before anyone slates him too much.

Meltonblue

Klose was born in Poland.

so how are you going to propose this to the fa and Roy

He reads this. Pity he didn't read my article about playing 5 in midfield and playing Theo from the start :/

Meant to put Klose as well, apologies. The point still remains though, all have a valid claim to German nationality with the only possible exception of Podolski, even then he moved there when he was very young.

This shows us how far we still have to go. A good article from the Beeb for once.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18579009

I wasn't trying to say that they didn't have a right to play for Germany, more that as not being an Island country, it's a lot easier for people from Poland, Turkey, the Old Yugoslavia and other traditionally good football nations to qualify for Germany that way.
That their net is cast a lot wider than we are currently doing with our 'recruitment'.
We have a large Asian population. Why aren't we trying to see what potential lies there and try and convince them that Cricket isn't the sport they should be playing. Also set up scholarship programs for the underprivileged youth of today. I'm certain that this country has Messi's and Ronaldo's out there, but aren't being given the chance.

Vidicschin

That article shows me that we're on the right path. Until then let's just hope that Roy gives the next generation the chance to impress and he seems to have a plan. Like I said, we should only judge him once he's been in the job long enough to put his real mark on the squad.

uruguay has a population of 3 million, and have over the decades produced high quality teams capable of doing v well in major tournaments and playing good football...

population size is only one factor in producing alot of good quality players

more important is football culture and coaching...

great players are made ! they dont just drop out of the womb playing like messi or maradona !

great players are made ! they dont just drop out of the womb playing like messi or maradona !

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I actually disagree with that quite a fair bit. You can coach people with talent to be better, but you can't coach talent into people.

You either have it or you don't.

Difference between us and Germany.?

They have excellent players, we have rubbish players.

Any other questions I can answer for you?