Remember how bad the International break was...

Every time we have an international break, SkySports (amongst others) commits a few hours to posing a series of repetitive questions to pundits who proceed to spew inanities in an attempt to tell us why we aren't producing Xavis or Iniestas. They talk about investment in grass roots football, unhelpfully pushy fathers on sidelines and cultural insufficiencies in coaching techniques.

duck faced douche

I hear them shouting from the sidelines; why aren't we producing more number 10s? Why don't our midfielders have the guile to unlock defences the way the Iberians do? Why are English wingers only equipped with pulverising pace rather than the bewitching trickery of our South American counterparts? Is there a correlation between our lacking guile and the influx of foreign players into our youth academies? Does money and fame so early in an Englishman's career stifle the work ethic needed to reach that player's potential? [People don't actually shout these things from sidelines but if they did, well... what a world]

While playing and watching grass roots football in England and on the continent distinct differences begin to appear... Grit is favoured over flair in England. At school or at your club you were told to work hard and stick to your man rather than practice your kick ups and your ball control. You were told to take a touch, get your head up and play it simple rather than hold the ball or beat a man. You were taught to finish by aiming hard and low between the keepers legs so that any miscue might still finish between the posts or be parried for a tap in because if you try a cheeky lob or to round the keeper and fuck it up... you're dropped. 

I don't know

This story isn't consistent with ALL the football I played or watched. There were rare coaches who saw things in players at a young age and encouraged them to keep working at these things in training and to develop their skills alone with a ball. Can liquid football graduate to the big stage?

Probably not - when it comes to a match day, the shit gets real and if a failed attempt at invention or flair costs us the game then we'll all be looking at you, you cheeky quim. 

I play as much five a side football as I can because our dismal weather and London's logistics make five a side the easier option. Five a side is a slicker quicker game, full of goals and opportunities to break quickly while employing trickery and guile more efficiently to unlock defences. The distance to the opposition's goal and the number of opposition defenders is minimised giving way to a far more open game. 

No relevance, just looks weird

Five a side tournaments and weekly leagues were where I saw the most mesmerisingly skilful displays of football I've seen outside of the professional game. I saw players flicking the ball over opponents heads before volleying past a keeper. I saw players deftly caressing the ball embarrassingly through a defender's legs without looking at where these defenders were. None of these kids were White British, they were of Asian or African decent. None of these kids would ever make it into the professional game because of their own trepidation toward trying this stuff on a Sunday League pitch and never being asked back or worse. Why?

Maybe they spent more time practicing their skills than they did running shuttles or in the gym? Maybe they didn't back themselves to inject this invention into an 11 a side game? In Spanish academies, players graduate from 5 a side football, to 7 a side football before they step foot on an 11 a side pitch. We need to start doing the same thing.

Until match days offer the same arena for flair as training we won't see anything change. How often do you hear pros waxing lyrical about the stuff they see their team mates do in training? Thing is there's a reason this stuff is entertaining, it's because it's unexpected. That same element of surprise is why utilising flair and invention can be the difference between success and failure. Ask yourself what is meant by having a cutting edge. If you think physical prowess and rigorous tactical discipline will cut it then you're living in the past.

The premiership is packed with physical specimens and disciplined operators. Theres no shortage of Englishmen with these traits. Players like Jones, Cahill, Smalling and Caulker roll off the production lines like nobodies business. Is it any surprise that the trend bucking Jack Wilshere's talents were nurtured in an academy full of foreigners at a club synonymous for nurturing youngsters with imagination? Even the excitement surrounding Wilshere's game is tempered by Guardiola telling us a few years back that Barca B have a dozen players just like him.

Who guffed?

So what about the money? The home grown player quota rules have made young Englishmen more valuable to their clubs. This is why our clubs pay so much money for young talent like the Hendersons (£20m transfer fee, £3.5m pa salary), Carrolls (£35m, £4.16m pa), Zahas (£15m, £1.8m pa) and Caulkers (£9m, I don't know what he's on but apparently it's loads - it's not) of this world. Does the early wealth of these players temper their development?

If all you have to do is show potential and be English to earn these relatively astronomical sums then you've got to wonder whether the money might change them, might cloud their sense of drive and hunger to hit the heights. Imagine if there was a wage by age structure - imagine if you couldn't earn more than £100,000 a year before you were 23. I mean that's still a lot of money for anyone of an age younger than 23 but it's about junior players paying their dues. It's about returning to the days of apprentices like Giggs and Scholes scrubbing Robson's boots.

Nigel's got caysh

Marry together this myriad of factors with the ones I was too lazy to research and you're left with a multi faceted set of issues facing the English game. We won't win a World Cup in the next twenty years and we won't win a Euros either. Maybe we just need to get Cruyff to come in and restructure the whole structure of English football from top to bottom. Maybe we just need to not give so much of a shit because we all hate the international break and have dips in seratonin until our beloved club football restarts.

Anyway if you didn't enjoy that, shut up and watch this...