This has NOTHING to do with Diabetes......

I am just so relieved Arsenal didn't buy Suarez last summer! At least he isn't our embarrassment.

Yes, I agree about England, but then I am not at all surprised - that's why I advised my son just to go to Brazil and enjoy football and that if he followed England all across Brazil it would only end in disappointment. My other son went to South Africa and wasted money on a hotel room and booked flights to Jo'burg which he never needed. Thankfully he had friends to stay with who lived in Capetown, so he didn't waste thousands.

It's no good just 'tweaking' the tactics and making little changes. It needs a complete overhaul. When my elder son (he's 27 now) started playing youth football they started playing 11 a side from age 8 onwards. Things changed by the time my younger son got there (he's 24 now) , they stuck with 7 a side until they were 11. This was to copy the Dutch way of doing things and to concentrate more on ball skills, so that would improve the English game. For my son it was not a good thing.......he was 8th best player in the club, so was either a non-playing sub or pushed over to the B team which were way below his standard. It was also difficult when they got to playing the full game because they had been so used to playing without an offside rule, and the game was always about attacking not defending. The keepers got to be quite good though. The idea of 'copying' Dutch football so that we would be successful too doesn't seem to have been very effective now that these players have worked right the way through the system to the adult game..

Yes we have one of the best leagues in the world and therefore attract some of the best foreign players, but if the English league had less foreign players and more English ones, would that improve the English game? Surely English players are better because they play against some of the best players in the world in our domestic league? I agree we need to look further than the top few clubs and not stick with the same old players regardless of whether they perform or not. But then Scotland weren't too bad in the 70's when a lot of their squad came from one successful English club. It was only their first game and poor goal difference v Zaire (2-0?) which stopped them getting past the group stages in 1974.

So yes I agree our national game is dying. I don't think this will ever change. I would so love to be wrong.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Ivory Coast/Greek game last night and the penalty at the end had me on the edge of my seat. And then Columbia beating Japan 4 -1, wish I had seen that game as well.

My ( hopefully) last words on England :- The hilarious Morecombe and Wise sketch with Andre Previn, when Eric gets hold of Mr Preview and say's

" I am playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order" that came to mind with England...................... having the right criteria, the amount of footballers, the team strip, qualifying, but there's definitely some things that are not in the right order hey ho

Who do you think is in with a real chance now ?

Chile and Colombia?

zand said:

I am just so relieved Arsenal didn't buy Suarez last summer! At least he isn't our embarrassment.

Yes, I agree about England, but then I am not at all surprised - that's why I advised my son just to go to Brazil and enjoy football and that if he followed England all across Brazil it would only end in disappointment. My other son went to South Africa and wasted money on a hotel room and booked flights to Jo'burg which he never needed. Thankfully he had friends to stay with who lived in Capetown, so he didn't waste thousands.

It's no good just 'tweaking' the tactics and making little changes. It needs a complete overhaul. When my elder son (he's 27 now) started playing youth football they started playing 11 a side from age 8 onwards. Things changed by the time my younger son got there (he's 24 now) , they stuck with 7 a side until they were 11. This was to copy the Dutch way of doing things and to concentrate more on ball skills, so that would improve the English game. For my son it was not a good thing.......he was 8th best player in the club, so was either a non-playing sub or pushed over to the B team which were way below his standard. It was also difficult when they got to playing the full game because they had been so used to playing without an offside rule, and the game was always about attacking not defending. The keepers got to be quite good though. The idea of 'copying' Dutch football so that we would be successful too doesn't seem to have been very effective now that these players have worked right the way through the system to the adult game..

Yes we have one of the best leagues in the world and therefore attract some of the best foreign players, but if the English league had less foreign players and more English ones, would that improve the English game? Surely English players are better because they play against some of the best players in the world in our domestic league? I agree we need to look further than the top few clubs and not stick with the same old players regardless of whether they perform or not. But then Scotland weren't too bad in the 70's when a lot of their squad came from one successful English club. It was only their first game and poor goal difference v Zaire (2-0?) which stopped them getting past the group stages in 1974.

So yes I agree our national game is dying. I don't think this will ever change. I would so love to be wrong.

Click to expand...

The Dutch,German, Spanish et al do play a lot of small sided games, but they are taught the 11 a-side as well. We don't! It has now been moved to
u13s, how is someone like a typical pro footballer learn tactics, shape and the offside rule at fourteen?
Take my word for it they look lost and we have no width or wingers. Why teach kids the wrong game? You can use small sided games but you really need them to be playing 11 a-side as well!
We have CBs and mild fielders in abundance, but full backs, L& R mids, even strikers are becoming rare, this is because of the small sized game.
The overhaul should start at pre school through school etc. the grassroots game is crumbling, only very few teams exist in the junior leagues, the FA with it's millions are putting too many barriers in the way that most coaches can't afford to run teams.
We do have talent in our youth and the FA is prioritising them that's why we are having success at youth level, but it is at the cost of all other young pros. The u21 league is a great idea, but it cannot be only clubs that can afford it! All pro clubs should have a competitive u21 team, the reason for this is when youth sign contracts at 18, they only play really poor reserve team football, because squads are smaller, some reserve games are really youth or u18s!
We need really good technical coaches, game management coaches, fitness coaches, special diet coaches etc. and this is for the u10s, they have it in Spain, etc. so why don't we?
I could go on. Until there is a change in direction, things may get better but things will only get worse if we don't invest in our future.

The biggest change needed is in the running of the game in this country, there are too many bodies and committees that run our game, the FAA, the Premier league, the Football league, down the pyramid, the county fa's, the district FAs. You see what I mean?
Is it any wonder that you are lucky to get an FA Cup Final ticket?

Finally, we have to get our tactics right that suit attacking play, for our players, tactics that we play in the premier league, so that the players (most of them are thick as .........!) know what they are supposed to be or what to do, there was a lot of confusion out on that pitch!

It's gonna be hard to qualify for the Euros, let's hope we have learnt!

Really? It's U13's now? I didn't know that. That's mad! It's painfully obvious that it's mad, I am getting cross now!

Yes I am with you on the subject of all pro clubs having a competitive U21's team, although I confess I hadn't thought that much about it until you raised the subject.

Yes, my favourite 'hate' topic.......The bodies and committees, The FA all the way down the line......When my 16 year old son started coaching/managing his brother's U14's team (because the team had folded 3 years previously and no-one else seemed to want to bother), we learnt a lot about this hierarchy and it made me a lot more cynical about the game. I also read the laws myself because I felt I couldn't help out at training and matches unless I knew the actual rules of the game, not the twisted version you hear on TV. We had problems with the county and district FA and even the committee of our own club! Whilst they were delighted that my husband, myself and my 2 sons were willing and able to set up a team from scratch they weren't exactly helpful to us along the way. My son was a good manager even though he was young. We used to all four of us discuss tactics together and usually, though not always, played with wingbacks and a holding midfielder. When we finished at U16's we came joint top in the league. We were told that the presentation of medals was delayed and that we would be advised about this at a later date. We never heard anything despite repeatedly asking about it. Years later we learned that the other team had received theirs. A minor event in the whole scheme of football, but it was unfair. When our team used to complain that refereeing decisions etc. were unfair I used to agree with them , but would end up saying 'yes, it is unfair, but that's football, you have to just accept that it's unfair and get on with it.' It's not right though and it's there at every level still.

Re FA cup final tickets.......Grrrrr, I get so irritated every year when they show someone on TV who has been to every single FA Cup Final since time began.. You just know they are some official at a club who actually does sweet FA and gets rewarded for it. My younger son went with a friend who had 2 such tickets that a club official didn't want for himself. The four of us are members in both the home and way schemes and did not get the chance to buy one for ourselves.

OK rant over. We heard from our son this morning. He has enjoyed his trip to the island and is on his way back to Recife for his final match USA v Germany. I suspect he will spend time with the Americans, he has been teaching them how to chant properly and successfully started off the ESPN 'I believe we will win' chant with them when watching their game on the big screen previously. He is also educating them on the term used........it's FOOTBALL, not soccer.

edit: the island in the last paragraph is Fernando de Noronha, just remembered the name!

It's not as if in American football they kick it much anyway ...

zand said:

Really? It's U13's now? I didn't know that. That's mad! It's painfully obvious that it's mad, I am getting cross now!

Yes I am with you on the subject of all pro clubs having a competitive U21's team, although I confess I hadn't thought that much about it until you raised the subject.

Yes, my favourite 'hate' topic.......The bodies and committees, The FA all the way down the line......When my 16 year old son started coaching/managing his brother's U14's team (because the team had folded 3 years previously and no-one else seemed to want to bother), we learnt a lot about this hierarchy and it made me a lot more cynical about the game. I also read the laws myself because I felt I couldn't help out at training and matches unless I knew the actual rules of the game, not the twisted version you hear on TV. We had problems with the county and district FA and even the committee of our own club! Whilst they were delighted that my husband, myself and my 2 sons were willing and able to set up a team from scratch they weren't exactly helpful to us along the way. My son was a good manager even though he was young. We used to all four of us discuss tactics together and usually, though not always, played with wingbacks and a holding midfielder. When we finished at U16's we came joint top in the league. We were told that the presentation of medals was delayed and that we would be advised about this at a later date. We never heard anything despite repeatedly asking about it. Years later we learned that the other team had received theirs. A minor event in the whole scheme of football, but it was unfair. When our team used to complain that refereeing decisions etc. were unfair I used to agree with them , but would end up saying 'yes, it is unfair, but that's football, you have to just accept that it's unfair and get on with it.' It's not right though and it's there at every level still.

Re FA cup final tickets.......Grrrrr, I get so irritated every year when they show someone on TV who has been to every single FA Cup Final since time began.. You just know they are some official at a club who actually does sweet FA and gets rewarded for it. My younger son went with a friend who had 2 such tickets that a club official didn't want for himself. The four of us are members in both the home and way schemes and did not get the chance to buy one for ourselves.

OK rant over. We heard from our son this morning. He has enjoyed his trip to the island and is on his way back to Recife for his final match USA v Germany. I suspect he will spend time with the Americans, he has been teaching them how to chant properly and successfully started off the ESPN 'I believe we will win' chant with them when watching their game on the big screen previously. He is also educating them on the term used........it's FOOTBALL, not soccer.

Click to expand...

Man U. Recommended it about 3 year ago and it has been rolled in with the EPPP, now clubs have to have 4 different size pitches to play their academy games on.
The junior leagues are struggling because of the massive hike in pitch fees, kit costs, payouts for coaching badges, CRBs, bibs balls & cones and other equipment. Funding for training facilities,and all the other costs incurred. You just cannot cost a season like you were able to. My grandsons pay £30 pre month and £3 per training night(once a week for 1 hour) pitch fees for last season have risen by half again. Say £300 per season, now costs (£450). The junior league my grandson plays has seen half the teams disappear, just due to costs!
In the local youth and Sunday leagues numbers have dropped by over 60% in the last 5 years! Mainly due to pitch fees. What was once a twenty division Saturday afternoon league is down to 5 divisions!
Where do all the premiership superstars begin there career? On a Saturday or Sunday on a park pitch, playing with other 6,7 or 8 year olds. They go onto academies, not necessarily the top clubs and they play and train in their academies, then go pro, where depending on their ability or if he is a good prospect, they get transferred to bigger clubs, and so on! Very few start at the top six clubs!
So through not thinking and experiencing the whole grassroots football scene, it is not targeting the right areas! Where are the superstars in the future going to come from? Will it be impossible for late developers to get in to pro football?
All the organisations within football have their own agenda, and football at lower levels will only struggle!
Wayne Rodney's one month wage is more than the whole budget oft the players, staff and match day expenses of my club for a whole season!!!!
Liverpool get more money for the actual screening of their matches,not the seasonal money, than the whole money paid to both League 1 & 2 !!!

To compete in pro football these days you have to be able to waste money and lots of it, otherwise your wasting your time and you survive and exist, in case, somebody is willing to invest!

semiphonic said:

I'm really sorry but I'm struggling to take any positives from today's (England) game, or any of the three games to be honest. Again a lot of bluff and bluster but with no end product. Yes some of the players showed some ability, and were less bad than other players but it simply wasn't good enough. Yet again. The Costa Rican keeper had to make, what, two saves?? When we did get into the box, there were too many touches or Sturridge fell to the floor looking for a penalty. The subs were totally ineffective.
I think the tournament has proved that English football, certainly the national game, is dying on its feet, there's no ambition from the FA and no idea from the manager. I too will now go back to enjoying the tournament now that England are out.

Suarez is a disgusting and pathetic excuse for a human being, and a total waste of skin. This is the THIRD time that he's done this, the first time was a 3 month ban, the second time was a ten match ban, what now? A season long ban? A lifetime ban? Uruguay kicked out of the tournament and banned from competing? FIFA have an opportunity here to throw the book at Suarez, hopefully they will and hopefully he won't eat it.

EDIT: Taken from the BBC Sport app - "Fifa's disciplinary code sets a maximum ban of 24 matches or two years."

Here is a picture from the Suarez family album of young Luis when he was 6, to be honest the warning signs were there -

View attachment 5605

Click to expand...

There is not enough room on here to post my thoughts!
He should never be allowed to take part in any match until he has been cured of his obvious problem. Liverpool have specialist help for him and Gerard to stop the impulses and everybody thought he had gotten over it! How wrong they were!

I'll just rant (again) if I don't stop.

nosher8355 said:

Man U. Recommended it about 3 year ago and it has been rolled in with the EPPP, now clubs have to have 4 different size pitches to play their academy games on.
The junior leagues are struggling because of the massive hike in pitch fees, kit costs, payouts for coaching badges, CRBs, bibs balls & cones and other equipment. Funding for training facilities,and all the other costs incurred. You just cannot cost a season like you were able to. My grandsons pay £30 pre month and £3 per training night(once a week for 1 hour) pitch fees for last season have risen by half again. Say £300 per season, now costs (£450). The junior league my grandson plays has seen half the teams disappear, just due to costs!
In the local youth and Sunday leagues numbers have dropped by over 60% in the last 5 years! Mainly due to pitch fees. What was once a twenty division Saturday afternoon league is down to 5 divisions!
Where do all the premiership superstars begin there career? On a Saturday or Sunday on a park pitch, playing with other 6,7 or 8 year olds. They go onto academies, not necessarily the top clubs and they play and train in their academies, then go pro, where depending on their ability or if he is a good prospect, they get transferred to bigger clubs, and so on! Very few start at the top six clubs!
So through not thinking and experiencing the whole grassroots football scene, it is not targeting the right areas! Where are the superstars in the future going to come from? Will it be impossible for late developers to get in to pro football?
All the organisations within football have their own agenda, and football at lower levels will only struggle!
Wayne Rodney's one month wage is more than the whole budget oft the players, staff and match day expenses of my club for a whole season!!!!
Liverpool get more money for the actual screening of their matches,not the seasonal money, than the whole money paid to both League 1 & 2 !!!

To compete in pro football these days you have to be able to waste money and lots of it, otherwise your wasting your time and you survive and exist, in case, somebody is willing to invest!

Click to expand...

Really?? Well I've been out of youth football for quite some time, but that's all so ridiculous. Match fees were £2 in our day, and this covered the cost of the ref as well as pitch hire. Training was £1.50 which was more expensive than most because we hired an astroturf pitch which had floodlights for winter training sessions. Signing on fee was £10, but that went straight to County FA. The biggest costs for the kids was any fine for red or yellow cards, again straight to County FA. Yes I've known a few kids who went on to Villa youth football from just local grass root level clubs. One has played for Wales U21 having started at lower level football.

Yes it will be impossible for late developers to get into football and it's such a shame. So all this talk we listened to when our sons were young....you know..... how important grass roots football is......how improved it would be in the future ....was just a load of rubbish.

Yes I hear what you say about TV screening money, that was brought home to me when I went to Orient v Arsenal in FA cup, 2011. The Orient fans were so delighted with the draw because they would get a replay at the Emirates and therefore more money for the club and they were overjoyed about the money the club was already getting for TV rights. I hadn't thought of football in those terms for a few years, having been used to supporting a club with pots of money but no urgency to spend it.

So all of this isn't going to help the obesity rates is it? It's not encouraging our young lads to be active, if only some can afford it. My biggest whinge about kids not being encouraged to play football used to be when you took one to A&E with injuries from footie. It wasn't unusual for them to be told something along the lines of 'Oh, you did that playing football? serves you right' My own son was treated very brusquely when I took him in with a broken toe, badly swollen knee (couldn't walk) and on another occasion with a very swollen finger, which they thought at first was broken too. Now the paramedics when you had to call an ambulance for more serious injuries....they were great.

So much for 'improvements' then, it's a pity we can't go back to the 'good old days'. Now I'm sounding like my mother.

A senior coach from Eire for my local pro team also condemns the lack of control of the amount of playing time that schoolboys play. The clubs have great difficulty about kids playing for schools, county and representative reams, ( non pro).
One of the reasons for this burn out is that for example, he plays academy Sunday, does PE Monday, games and training, Tuesday,school game Wednesday, training,Thursday , training and PE, Friday games in school, representative game Saturday!
Do you see the problem?
This doesn't happen anywhere else.
Abroad, The teams that have academies have their own school etc. so this takes the risk away and the kids are monitored more closely,

Many that don't make it to pro are lacking the hunger and passion, because of the non stop sport, injuries and weaknesses appear!

Until the basics are sorted then what chance of the senior team got?

Yes, I'm with you on the injuries front. I've seen this happen to quite a few talented youngsters.

I also don't rate school football lessons, for my kids, whose teachers weren't really interested in football, they were a waste of time. My son had a school football tournament and I went to watch. The teacher with them went off to ref another game leaving the kids competing without any sort of coach, as an afterthought he asked me to do it. Well this was 5 a side, but in the game I had just watched they were all running like little terriers after the ball, no sort of strategy, formation at all. Even young kids need to know where they should be playing and why. Nearly all the other schools were doing the same. So yes of course schools with the academies makes total sense. So, yes I was glad to take over because I knew I couldn't do a worse job.

So the media need to get real and say it how it is. Stop pretending there is hope when there isn't any. Even if we start to get it right it's going to take a long time to yield results.

Changing tack a little, back to Jimmy Harvey and the posts I couldn't complete properly because I was called away on an emergency. FGR were so good in the Harvey days. When they were playing against Swindon in the FA Cup the 4 of us had already bought tickets to Villa v Arsenal. 3 of us decided to go to watch FGR instead and it was well worth it. FGR outplayed STFC for most of the match and it was such entertaining football. Shame about the result. We went to several FGR away games in the Harvey era and were sad to see him leave.

re FA cup Final tickets - today 3 of us have received a form to join the Arsenal away travel scheme. It's basically an away season ticket. In theory this means that if Arsenal get to any Cup finals we will be the first group to be given the chance to buy tickets. In reality, if we join, it will simply mean lots of long journeys home, a depleted bank balance and will ensure that Arsenal don't get to anymore finals in a very long time. And if they are drawn against Leeds again I will not be watching because last time I saw these two teams play each other, it put me off Arsenal for 6 months and I hated Theo Walcott for his dive for even longer. It was good at the end though with around 1000 of us dotted around in the Arsenal part of the stadium singing 'Marching on together....' with the Leeds fans in the away section.

I wonder if I should just take up knitting?

We don't have an away travel club at Rovers simply because we don't have enough support to fill away ends at most clubs at our level. Though go back 5 years we were taking roughly 20% of our home gate to every away game.
The club supporter coach is often cancelled due to all the southern fixtures and it's worse this season.

Subway have moved quickly to replace Daniel Sturridge from their adverts with Louis Suarez now in the role, seeing him biting into a fresh Italiian!

After the incident last night, FIFA are urging stadia to install jaw-line technology.

Because the Argies are already through, who is gonna finish second? Can Iran beat Bosnia and score enough goals and assume that the Argies will win?

Now that we are politically 'friends' with Iran, wouldn't them going through to the second round.

Or will Nigeria win?

What a great start to the game 1-1 all ready and two great goals. Messi as usual. Back in form!

John Oliver on FIFA and the World Cup.
12 minutes long but worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlJEt2KU33I

Believe the English World cup bus is up for sale,
Going Cheap
Low Milage, only used 3 times