The paucity of English opportunity thread

English eligible players starting in the Premier League, total per matchday: Season 2020/21

Matchday 1 - 68/176 = 38.6% ( Burnley v Manchester Utd & Manchester City v Aston Villa to be added at a later date )

Matchday 2 - 79/220 = 35.9%
Matchday 3 - 80/200 = 36.4%

 

Cole Palmer starting for city tonight in a very strong line up.

 

Cutting futsal funding could set Gareth Southgate’s team back 20 years, says England’s Doug Reed


Reed has played for England’s futsal team 101 times
TGSPHOTO/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
Henry Winter, Chief Football Writer
Friday October 02 2020, 5.00pm BST, The Times

“Fight for us.” The message to Gareth Southgate from England’s angry futsal players could not be clearer.

Doug Reed, who has represented England at futsal 101 times, warns that unless Southgate fights the FA’s decision to end funding for futsal, the national football team will continue to be hampered by the absence of creative players with the spatial awareness, control in tight spaces and tactical nous nurtured through the small-sided, indoor game of futsal.

“All England’s best football players came from street football — Paul Gascoigne, Wayne Rooney, Jadon Sancho — and that is played less and less as everyone comes through regimented programmes in academies,” Reed says. “Futsal is an organised way to recreate the development of street football.”

Southgate could point to the game-changing likes of Phil Foden or Jack Grealish, but Reed’s point holds true. The FA last week stopping its £900,000 support for the men’s and women’s futsal teams, the development sides and grassroots, is an attack on a philosophy as well as a sport. Does skill matter?

“England produce strong, physical, committed players and you need that at the high level,” Reed continues. “What they miss is those technical players who can decide a tight game with close control and good decision-making. Futsal is not the solution to England winning the World Cup but it can really contribute to [addressing] the weaknesses of the English game.


Lionel] Messi, [Andrés] Iniesta, Neymar and Ronaldo (both) all say, ‘This is the game that developed me, teaching the skills that I use today on the football pitch.’ The more football develops, the more organised are the defences. You get these big blocks. There’s less space. So futsal is only going to become more important in developing football players. Can you create something when you’ve got three or four defenders around you? Neymar, Messi and Ronaldo can.

“This FA decision is going to put England back 20-30 years because all the other nations are investing in futsal to create these players who are suitable for modern, technical football. Spain and Brazil [and Portugal] are really established with futsal. France and Germany are really investing in it. France now have players training full-time from 16.” Wissam Ben Yedder, the Monaco and France forward, has two caps for futsal and nine for football.

In a statement, the FA reiterated that “difficult financial choices” were required given “unavoidable budget cuts associated with Covid-19” and the projected £300 million loss to FA revenue. It emphasised its “duty to support our men’s and women’s senior teams in their efforts to win major tournaments”. To which Reed replies: “I’m sure £900,000 on futsal will bring more returns than £900,000 spent on football seniors.”

Reed is preparing with Helvecia London for next month’s Uefa Futsal Champions League. He played full-time in Spain and Serbia and is very aware of the global response to the FA’s decision. “People are shocked,” the 34-year-old says. “They don’t believe you when you tell them. England! The country that invented football! The richest national federation. They can’t believe the FA are not getting behind this, especially after the strategy launch in 2018. Everyone then thought, ‘Right, England have woken up and they’ve realised what futsal can offer the country.’ ”

It was only two years ago that the FA launched its six-year strategy for the sport, “Fast Forward with Futsal”, accompanied by glowing endorsements from Southgate of how it was “an excellent development tool for young players to transfer the skills they learn to football” and from the then technical director, Dan Ashworth, arguing that “it’s time for England football to benefit from futsal”.

Reed remembers the launch well. “Southgate and Ashworth said how valuable futsal is. I’d really like to say to Southgate now that it’s important that you have futsal as part of the grass roots and ‘the talented football player development’ because these are the players that you and future England coaches need.

“Southgate really rates futsal so I’d say to him, ‘Fight for us.’ We need people with a technical knowledge like him to make clear to the people at the top of the FA how important this game is to football.”

This is a familiar lament among footballers, the absence of dressing-room expertise on the FA board where Paul Elliott, the former Chelsea player, is present but without a vote. Reed graduated last year alongside Elliott, and the likes of Gilberto Silva and Gaizka Mendieta, from Uefa’s Executive Master for International Players — a programme that prepares players for executive roles.

“The FA has a history of not listening to players,” Reed says. “If a player representative had been on the FA board they would have fought for futsal. They know how it contributes to developing football players.

“The budget of £900,000 was too small already. Even though the FA hadn’t invested that much we were starting to see players coming through, signing pro contracts, who played futsal in their development. Max Kilman [the Wolverhampton Wanderers defender] had 26 England caps. Sam Surridge at Bournemouth. You’d think that would be a sign, ‘Let’s invest more.’ Instead they’ve gone completely the other way.

“We had no warning. We just got the call from the FA, telling us. We asked them was it just numbers on a spreadsheet? A lot of the England players are struggling with it. As athletes, our identity is tied up with playing sport. On the call a couple of players asked about well-being and what support will there be on mental health. The FA said they would support us. A few days after they sent an email with some links to mental health organisations and said for more serious issues you should get a GP referral.”

Reed and his team-mates are preparing for a Euro 2022 play-off against North Macedonia. “We’re now looking at how we can fund our own training,’’ he says. He’s spoken to Mark Bullingham, the FA chief executive. “He said they will fund us if we get through but we won’t be taking any of our existing staff except for our head coach. I presume he thinks we’re not going to qualify, which is probably right because we haven’t had any support.

“I want to make clear to Mark how much wearing the England shirt means to us, the sacrifices we’ve made and that the FA’s treatment of futsal has been disrespectful and unfair. We’d like him to realise how big this game is at the grass roots, how many kids are playing it, kids from different backgrounds.

“The FA represent the national game and get funding from Sport England so there should be more transparency on how they made funding cuts. They keep using the Covid excuse. They were saying cuts across the organisation of about 20 per cent but this is a cut of 95 per cent.”

Such is the anger within futsal that a petition — www.savefutsal.co.uk — has been set up and Reed and his team-mates will continue to lobby the FA to change its mind. “There were five nations in Uefa who didn’t have national futsal teams: the Faroes, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Iceland and Ireland. Now England. It’s devastating.” But will Southgate fight for them?

 

Sorry for the long article but some may find it interesting and especially since the main topic of conversation from the seniors thread is focused on a lack of creativity especially from our midfield players I thought it was relevant. I’m not really in the loop with futsal but feels like the FA should be doing more to help develop futsal, not withdraw funding. Anyone got any thoughts on this?

 

Brazilian players have been using it for years. We should be doing everything to keep it

 

Seems like they wouldn't have been funding much grassroots in the first place from 900k.... most this funding cut will be the national team.

 

Futsal is brilliant for younger players to teach them how to react quickly in tight space and one touch pass

shame that it’s being funded

 

English eligible players starting in the Premier League, total per matchday: Season 2020/21

Matchday 1 - 68/176 = 38.6% ( Burnley v Manchester Utd & Manchester City v Aston Villa to be added at a later date )

Matchday 2 - 79/220 = 35.9%
Matchday 3 - 80/220 = 36.4%
Matchday 4 - 80/220 = 36.4%

 

World exclusive: Man Utd and Liverpool driving 'Project Big Picture' - football’s biggest shake-up in a generation.

Full story from @SamWallaceTel https://t.co/2f75VsJZs0

— Telegraph Football (@TeleFootball) October 11, 2020

 

Absolutely stupid idea

 

5 English kids! If I’m going to be critical then not sure how CHO gets in with all due respect, wouldn’t say he’s had the best of years. I would probably say it’s between Davies, Halland and Sancho. Sancho should have won it last year but I think he will miss out to Davies this time around.

 

I don't think Sancho is realistically in the running. I can't see past Haaland, personally.

 

Haaland is the heir to the Ronaldo and messi throne with mbappe

he’s clearly number 1

 

I couldn't agree more. Will be Englands loss.
See London Helvecia are in the October 27th draw..... if it goes ahead.

https://www.uefa.com/uefafutsalchampionsleague/news/0262-1099e0d1e4fc-294b6de82cac-1000--2020-21-entries/?iv=true

Good opportunity to show why funding needs a re-think.

 

Given some of the others names on there, CHO's inclusion is probably justified. Bakker & Fabio Silva have barely played any senior football while Gravenberch, as good as he is, hasn't yet done much either.

 

1317807627385114624 is not a valid tweet id

 

English eligible players starting in the Premier League, total per matchday: Season 2020/21

Matchday 1 - 68/176 = 38.6% ( Burnley v Manchester Utd & Manchester City v Aston Villa to be added at a later date )

Matchday 2 - 79/220 = 35.9%
Matchday 3 - 80/220 = 36.4%
Matchday 4 - 80/220 = 36.4%
Matchday 5 - 81/220 = 36.8%

 

This weeks numbers isn’t too bad however it does seem to get propped up by the usual same teams that seem to have 6 English players plus each week like Burnely, Southampton, Villa, WBA and Brighton. Disappointingly Spurs and Arsenal were amongst the worst with just one English player each. Surprisingly, Wolves have TWO English players starting from this set of games!

 

Not much footage of him about.

 

His path certainly seems unusual, signed from non-league a few seasons ago but has barely played. Interestingly has 25 caps for England Futsal National Team but had to give the sport up once he signed for Wolves.

 

FA threat of tougher restrictions on all foreign signings in January

updated

Mané would not have been able to come to the Premier League in 2014, had the proposed points system been in place
PETER BYRNE /POOL VIA REUTERS
Martyn Ziegler, Matt Dickinson
Friday October 23 2020, 5.00pm BST, The Times

The FA has warned Premier League clubs that their ability to sign overseas players will be hugely impacted in the January transfer window unless they retract their demands to be able to sign young, unproven talent from across the globe.

FA chiefs say that the clubs’ demands would “destroy the pipeline of talent for the England teams”. The governing body must submit its model for recruitment of overseas players to the government by the end of this month, ready for January and a post-Brexit world.

A letter has been sent to all the top-flight clubs from the FA chairman Greg Clarke, raising concerns about the stand-off between the league and the governing body. The letter, a copy of which has been seen by The Times, adds that unless the deadlock can be broken, “The current system for non-Europeans will apply to everyone and that would be hugely restrictive for clubs’ access to players.”

Under the existing rules, non-EU players must have played between 30 per cent and 75 per cent of their country’s international matches over a fixed period, depending on the nation’s Fifa ranking.

The FA has proposed a detailed points system to determine if foreign players can receive a governing body endorsement (GBE) to play in Britain. Points would be awarded for a variety of criteria including transfer fee, wages, club appearances — related to the club’s performance — as well as youth and full international appearances.
The Premier League clubs believe that the bar is being set far too high. They have modelled the proposed points system and say that 40 per cent of non-homegrown players registered in the league — about 120 players — would not have qualified.

Had the points system been in place in 2014, for example, Sadio Mané would not have been able to join Southampton from Red Bull Salzburg because the Austrian league scores lower points than other leagues and Senegal — his national team — less than, say, Brazil.

The clubs also say that the system would allow Jadon Sancho or Jude Bellingham to move to the Bundesliga as promising teenagers but would prevent Premier League clubs recruiting their equivalents from Germany.

Negotiations have been taking place for more than two years, but differences of opinion remain as the deadline looms. Clarke’s letter states that the Premier League wants overseas players to receive points for the selling club’s performances, even if they have not played a game. “The Home Office is quite clear that a player must play to get points, so this will simply not be possible,” he writes.

“[The league] have also requested we include substantial points scored for youth internationals; but the Home Office is not supportive as these players are not internationally established at the highest level. For example, in the proposal a single youth international appearance [for a leading European country] would give the same points as Mohamed Salah receives for his entire Egypt career. That will not be accepted by government.”

Clarke says the FA would negotiate the total points needed to allow a player to be signed if the league brings in rule changes to protect English talent.

The clubs insist that, even with the present access to talent, 70 per cent of players at under 21 level are home-grown. They say Brexit is already going to have an impact, ensuring that English clubs lose the Fifa exemption to recruit 16 and 17-year-olds from European nations.


There are concerns that the likes of Bellingham could leave for the Bundesliga but English clubs couldn't recruit their German equivalents

In the negotiations, the clubs have made some concessions around the loan system. Among home-grown under-21s, there is a proposal to bring in a much more flexible system of short-term loans so that players are not stuck until the next transfer window. There would also be greater financial incentives for lower-league clubs to field those loan players.

The clubs have been arguing that restricting overseas talent will dilute the competitiveness of the development system, arguing that the EPPP academies are working for the national team in producing more technical players.

However, Clarke’s letter to the clubs says that the safeguards for home-grown players need to be more stringent. He adds: “Overall the changes that are requested to our model relate predominantly to young, unproven players and would have virtually no impact on first-team signings.

“We appreciate that there could be cost savings for clubs in being able to sign players before they are established, if they then develop to valuable assets, but we believe that providing the additional access requested would have a detrimental effect on the development of home-grown players. These changes would create the risk of the market being flooded by unproven talent, which is exactly what the GBE is designed to prevent.

“Let me be frank. This is predominately a trade-off between the economic benefits to the Premier League of being able to sign young players from around the globe cheaply before they establish their reputations, set against developing local young players and providing them the chance to play elite level football.

“We have consistently said that we would be willing to lobby government to provide you with additional access to unproven talent if league safeguards could be put in place which ensure the development of and opportunities for young homegrown talent, but no relevant safeguards have been offered to us in two years of discussions.

“If we are unable to agree any new changes, we will submit our current system to the Home Office for implementation in the January transfer window. We simply can’t agree to changes that could, if unchecked, destroy the pipeline of talent for the England teams.”

With the FA and Premier League at odds, it is possible that both parties could submit separate ideas to government at the end of the month.