Tom Lappin: English play a totally different sport to that of cultured Spain

Published on Friday 16 July 2010 17:28

IT'S back to school for England's footballers. Ashley Cole may be leaving the England he hates (and who can blame him?) to reunite with his indulgent uncle Jose in Madrid, but the rest of the motley crew require some intense cramming in the basics of international football before they are allowed to sit the exams for European Championship qualifying.

After the debacle on the Cape, England's football needs re-education, a return to the basics of technique, tactical intelligence, passing and possession. Trevor Brooking, too often a purist voice amidst the venal vested interests of the English FA, tries to place the emphasis on youth development, but few are listening.

The battle of Waterloo was famously won on the playing-fields of Eton. It's a long shot but the outcome of the England football team's future conflicts may be affected by the beautiful parkland setting of the fee-paying Mill Hill school with its rolling fields looking down on the restored glories of the Edwardian Marnham block and the fabulous Favell Building (upwards of 8000 a term for boarders, if you're interested).

Footballers used to come from the backstreets, skills tempered from dribbling round dustbins, skipping through industrial blight bombsites. Jamie Lawrence, 17 year-old alumnus of Mill Hill, got his practice in on the bucolic splendour of middle England, in those sun-dappled hours before prep and lights-out. It should be mentioned that one of the guest coaches at Mill Hill was a Dutchman called Dennis Bergkamp. That's the sort of instruction you get for eight large a term.

Lawrence is now a scholar in Jong Ajax, the legendary Ajax Academy. Perhaps, like Dutch football, it isn't what it was. Maybe the sessions on passing and movement are now augmented with tips on how to hoof your studs into an opponent's ribs. If only a small percentage of the old lustre lingers though, you can be sure that Lawrence is getting a better football education than anything England has to offer.

It's too much to expect Lawrence, a defender (although that's probably too rigid a concept at Jong Ajax) to be the future of English football. It might pay dividends though if the English would take a little breather from the frantic celebration of the Premier League's intensity and consider where the next generation might learn their trade.

Its worth a cursory glance at the world champions. Spain has more coaches per head than any of their European rivals. Spanish football isn't just about coaching, it's an expression of cultural temperament.. Anybody who watches the lowliest kickabout in Spain will immediately see the emphasis on skill rather than competition.The shouts are not the Anglo-Saxon style yells to get stuck in or track back, they are laughing taunts at an opponent's mistakes, smooth whistles of appreciation for a trick or a feint. Strength, toughness, resolve, the characteristics that persuade the English that John Terry is a good footballer, are unimportant. In Britain physique is still the dominant determiner of a player's potential. In Spain it is irrelevant. When Queen Sofia visited the dressing-room after the World Cup semi-final, she was taller than half the players. Spain aren't so much playing a different style to the British, they have mastered a different sport.

Changing British assumptions isn't going to happen soon, particularly when they are constantly reiterated by the media. It is frustrating having to view enlightened football through the dishwater of British television coverage, although it does underline the frequency with which experts miss the point. On the BBC you hear the purblind punditry of Mark Lawrenson or Mick McCarthy (faux-Irishmen both, coincidentally) who remain deeply suspicious of anything that looks like patience, delicacy or thought. McCarthy, whose playing limitations a 19 year-old Roy Keane pithily exposed with the phrase 'you call what you have a first touch?' watches matches through the eyes of a man with a bizarre fetish for untidy challenges, tireless running, aimless exertion.

Lawrenson, another uncompromising defender in his playing career, spent much of the World Cup condemning the Spanish for their fidelity to the pass and move game. His enthusiasm for a primitive approximation of football made him insist that Spain introduce the tall forward Fernando Llorente, get men in the box, take a chance. Spain's preference for relentless possession, waiting for an opening, seeking out the perfect pass (because perfect passes win World Cups) was lost on Lawrenson.

The dismal inference is that the pundits are representative of the dearth of intelligent application in English football. For Lawrenson read the reductive philosophies of Premier League managers like Sam Allardyce, Tony Pulis, and McCarthy, and the clueless lunges of many of England's world-class players. In the catchphrase of that pedagogic but thoughtful commentator Barry Davies (he usually applied it to the Italians), they just will not learn. There are too many in the English game who remain obdurately unwilling to study. The back of the class is full of John Terrys , Steven Gerrards, Frank Lampards, sniggering at the tough lessons they need to absorb in order to develop their football intelligence, while Wayne Rooney flashes his 130,000 a week pay-packet. Let them look dumbly at Spain and realise that England's players are in the remedial stream for the foreseeable future.As for the teacher, what is that expression about an old dog and new tricks? Fabio Capello may offer lip-service to the notion of blooding new talent, but it should be remembered whom he thought could be the most useful addition to England's squad for the World Cup. Paul Scholes.