England U-18 Discussions Thread (2006 born)

He already has a wiki page which is highly detailed for a player of his age and limited profile. It's likely that it's made by a family member or agent. It makes a few references to his dual nationality. It might be that he hasn't been approached by Portugal yet but if he starts to look like future England senior player he will be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lino_Sousa

I know Musah only had a tenuous link to the US but it certainly seems that players that come to the England as older children and that have decent options in regards to dual nationality (Musah, Carvalho etc) are a lot harder to retain than those that were born here or came here from being very young (Tomori, Guehi etc).

It's a difficult question to answer as to if we should invest in player of this type over someone born here. Lets say he does become good enough to play for England and Portugal seniors and we retain him, he would be the exception to the rule so far.

 

I think the other thing at hand here is the quality of nation coming in for you. Portugal are generally top nation at least on par with England - something you certainly can't claim for Ivory Coast or Canada for Guehi and Tomori, and certainly Germany definitely are better. All things being equal if you were Musiala for example you'd throw your lot in with Germany because you have a much larger change of winning something.

Hence we also have a situation like Olise playing for France under 21's despite very limited connection and apparently not speaking the language (though this is really on the extremes).

 

England beat Netherlands 1-0 with a stoppage time winner.

Watched the last 20 minutes, England's passing was truly atrocious, seemed to be adopting some kind of 1870's style where the only way of progressing up the pitch was dribbling it forward. When passing was attempted it was inevitably misplaced. With that said it was a pretty scrappy game all round, both sides giving the other back possession constantly. I am surprised to see apparently Netherlands were under 17 Euro runners up though i'm not sure how many are in this side, they had nice composure building out from the back but their central midfield was just as poor.

From the little I watched Joel Ndala was bright, needs to work on his decision making but he was the main outlet.

 

Some of the final balls could have been better in the final third but I didn’t think it was that bad from what I saw. I was on and off watching to be honest but I thought some of the ball carrying in midfield was pretty good. Nice goal as well but couldn’t tell you who the goal scorer was. I’m not quite sure how this age group didn’t beat the worst team at the U17’s Euros last Summer but that’s youth football for you.

 

Jacob’s assist 🤝 pic.twitter.com/dfrUWZg6gR

— VickyKDB (@VickyKDB_MCFC) September 21, 2022

 

Where’s Tezgel by the way?

 

Leo Castledine with the goal

 

I wouldn’t say he has a much larger chance of winning something with Germany. They are like us, in transition

 

I think he means with their track record they have a much better chance than winning Championships than us so he’s probably in a better place if that’s his end goal.

 

1-1 at half time. Mostly England attacking with Faroe countering. Ballard I think scored the opener.

England 5, 7 & perhaps 8 look the most impressive. Five is Josh Feeney who seems to be wearing a mask.

Checking a Stoke forum, injured and doesn't seem to have played so far this season.

 

England won 2-1 with a late penalty. Again didn't seem the most convincing performance, particularly given the opposition. The team really seems to lack guile and creativity on the ball. I can see how they came unstuck against Luxembourg and crashed out of qualifying.

It will be interesting to see how this team develops however, its notable looking at the squad there's a very heavy age bias still in the selection so it'll be interesting to see if we develop more options coming through as the season progresses. Certainly this group does seem to be lack more technical ability than perhaps our other age group sides.

 

It just seems a weaker age group. No idea why there is a notable drop from 2003 to 2005.

 

Oh dear, comical own goal.

However they ended up turning it around to beat Belgium after also winning against the Netherlands a few days ago. Whilst not the best year group, I'm certain they're one of the best fifteen teams in Europe so really should've qualified last season.

 

1-0 Belgium. Absolute nightmare of a mix up with Feeney heading the ball over Grant who had come out.

 

Saw the last 20 mins of this game. From what I saw, Belgium seemed like the better team but also our players just got bullied off the ball by more physical and athletic players which seemed a bit unusual.

 

Thought that watching the u21s against Italy the other day as well. Seems weird seeing us as a smaller side.

 

He's really good and seemingly positionless, has played all over the place for West Ham's youth teams. Left Chelsea aged 12 I think.

 

Jobe Bellingham making his first league start for Birmingham today.

 

Is he any good or are people only talking about him because of his last name?

 

Hes the spitting image of jude

 

Quality unsavable free kick from Scarles over the wall into the top corner