England V Germany Result

England 1 German 4. Bad Result

I do not want to say I told you so.  For years now I have been trying to state that there are too many foreign players in our leagues, especially goalkeepers!

You may not know that I have had a petition website going for nearly 3 years now, trying to get the FA to make every English Professional Soccer Club have at LEAST one goalkeeper in its squad. (I will give the website below to check out)

Judging by England’s performance at the 2010 World Cup, it looks like this problem is much much deeper than the goalkeeping position!

Ironically, people were quite rightly worried about the goalkeeping situation, however I believe David James was England best player in the 2010 World Cup!

People are saying that the England players are not good enough, but the fact is, they are the best players we have in England at present, and like other countries were the manager has the luxury of having the choice, of 3 or 4 goalkeepers, 3 or 4 left backs, 3 or 4 centre forwards etc etc... Fabio has not had this choice!
The defeat by a young German side last night, underlines how far behind England still is!!!

Well what’s my answer?

1: For one I think there has to be a limit on foreign players playing in our professional leagues. Especially Goalkeepers!!! (see my website below)

2. I also think our local council, Local FA’s and numerous sporting funding organisations need to invest in more quality facilities for our youngsters, but more importantly, do not make them that expensive to hire that nobody can use them! (So have venues subsidized)

3. I also believe the local FA’s should stop giving away coaching qualifications. I know they are a business and want to make money, which is fair enough. But I kid you not, my 75 year old mum could pass the FA level 1 outfielder or goalkeeper award. I have seen so many Level 1 or Level 2 coaches over the years who SHOULD NOT BE A COACHING, children. This is very worrying for English football.
Am I saying, stop these coaching qualifications?

No, I am not, what I am saying is make sure its quality coaches we have coming through out coaching system, not quantity!

I am obviously gutted our National team was embarrassed in this World Cup, but could this turn into a positive?

Will the powers that be, now put in a long term action plan to make sure this does not happen again?
Because if our best of the best are getting battered by a young German side or only scratching out a draw against teams we should be comfortably beating, something has to change?

Me personally, I think there will be a lot of talk... but nothing will really change?

But let’s see and hope heh?

Ray Newland
The website I was telling you about is called: www.supportenglishkeepers.co.uk