General Football Nonsense

[Mac76]

I'd prefer an English coach in the same way that in some ways I'd prefer English players at Arsenal. But I'd rather have a good England manager and good Arsenal players.
It's a good point about how few English managers there are at the top level. Of course that translates to how few options there are for our national coach to be English.

I agree, it's more fun in general if national coaches are from the country that the team is representing.

However we continue to struggle in this country to bring through people with the right level of tactical nous etc.

I'm not sure if that's a poor education system, lack of sophistication in the lower leagues (where most English coaches are) or what. English football's still full of Mike Bassetts IMO, which probably feeds through into the quality of training new coaches get when they do their badges

Look at the attitude of that Steve Holland c**t who pissed off Ben White, there's still too much of that mentality

[HCZ_Reborn]

There’s also too much of this self hating English mentality which people seem to embody ever since Brexit

The irony of it, is these people don’t realise just how parochial they sound. That somehow England is this primitive backwater compared to the sophisticated Europeans. Nativism and this supremacist attitude that is bemoaned exists throughout the continent, in fact arguably you can say that it’s more pronounced.

I think it’s this kind of snobbery that provides a barrier to those from working class backgrounds getting on in life in any walk of life, and this is why government and civil service still looks very much like an Oxbridge alumni old boys network

The problem to me is two fold, I don’t think there is the incentive for ex professionals to take on coaching either at home or abroad (people like Graham Potter going to manage in Sweden is an outlier, and before that Woy was the most high profile coach to work abroad). It’s not a failure of formal education, because like with playing the game itself there is something intuitive about tactical innovation.

I think often it’s just safer to take on a cosy media role where you don’t face the scrutiny and pressure

It’s only now we are seeing English players being prepared to try their hand in foreign leagues, with both Jadon Sancho and Jude Bellingham having played for Borussia Dortmund and for those who want to understand the different philosophies of football, I think this may be beneficial (although that said it didn’t do much for Glenn Hoddle)

The other thing is that Premier league clubs I think do have a degree of bias against English coaches and even mid table clubs and relegation scrappers are more inclined to install a foreign coach than take a chance with someone who has done a good job in the Lower leagues. It’s not explicitly anti English, it’s not wanting to take the risk on someone without experience and often it was that the same British coaches would be recycled amongst the clubs - Sam Allardyce, Steve Bruce, David Moyes, Mark Hughes etc.

[Letters]

The big problem with English players or managers working overseas is our utter ineptitude at, or maybe indifference for, learning other languages.
English has become a sort of global language - in no small part thanks to my organisation - so we don't really make the effort.
We have gap year students at our church each year from Germany. They come over here at 18 and their English is all but flawless - we can talk to them like I'd talk to any English person. Compare and contrast with my going to France. I could ask where the beach is but I doubt I'd understand the answer.

[HCZ_Reborn]

The big problem with English players or managers working overseas is our utter ineptitude at, or maybe indifference for, learning other languages.
English has become a sort of global language - in no small part thanks to my organisation - so we don't really make the effort.
We have gap year students at our church each year from Germany. They come over here at 18 and their English is all but flawless - we can talk to them like I'd talk to any English person. Compare and contrast with my going to France. I could ask where the beach is but I doubt I'd understand the answer.

Again there’s no natural ineptitude, we just don’t take it seriously enough to teach foreign languages from an early age

If someone like David Beckham can just about handle speaking Spanish competently (and he could) there’s no reason why others can’t pick up language skills. Plus it can work both ways, I love Robert Pires but the guy was clearly utterly hopeless at speaking English.

[Mac76]

There’s also too much of this self hating English mentality which people seem to embody ever since Brexit

Really?

I see exactly the opposite - bulldogs and flags everywhere, a stupid denial - or almost as bad, an acceptance - of the economic and social damage done because of a backwards-looking illogical sense of not wanting them foreigners over 'ere and 'taking back control' which is nonsense in a global economy

[Mac76]

It’s only now we are seeing English players being prepared to try their hand in foreign leagues

Oh dear...

ever heard of Gary Lineker? Chris Waddle? Michael Owen? Trevor Francis? Paul Ince? Glen Hoddle? David Beckham? Steve MacManaman? Kevin Keegan? Owen Hargreaves? Mark Hately?

Or perhaps our own Tony Woodcock? David Platt?

[Letters]

Again there’s no natural ineptitude, we just don’t take it seriously enough to teach foreign languages from an early age

Well obviously there's no natural ineptitude, there's a laziness or indifference. And it is a stumbling block for us working abroad.
Individual examples like Beckham* or Pires are irrelevant to the general fact they all them foreigners, particularly in Europe, tend to speak better English than we do their languages.
Which is also, he says trying not to talk about Brexit, one issue with being in the EU and freedom of movement. We are a rich nation, so there's opportunities here, and we speak English which makes it easier to find work here.


*Lineker is a better example, he can speak Spanish fluently following his time in Barcelona, but he is smarter than the average bear.

[Mac76]

Well obviously there's no natural ineptitude, there's a laziness or indifference.

yes and it's derived from an in-built superiority going back to the British Empire

I'm quite lazy about languages but when I've been traveling somewhere I do make an effort to at least make an effort and speak some of the basics, e.g. where is something etc

[HCZ_Reborn]

Oh dear...

ever heard of Gary Lineker? Chris Waddle? Michael Owen? Trevor Francis? Paul Ince? Glen Hoddle? David Beckham? Steve MacManaman? Kevin Keegan? Owen Hargreaves? Mark Hately?

Or perhaps our own Tony Woodcock? David Platt?

Suffice to say that I’m talking about the last 20-25 years and was talking about young players trying to make a career for themselves by starting in European leagues, but I forget that you’re such an unbelievable pedant that your first thought would be to jump on this point rather than engage with the topic as a whole.

And so to save you the effort of replying


“Oh typical tantrum response when I call you out for something”

[HCZ_Reborn]

yes and it's derived from an in-built superiority going back to the British Empire

I'm quite lazy about languages but when I've been traveling somewhere I do make an effort to at least make an effort and speak some of the basics, e.g. where is something etc

Where does the inbuilt self-hating middle class snootiness that George Orwell observed in Road to Wigan Pier derive from, do you think?

I think it comes from 18th and 19th century when the hipsters of the time (yes the wallies have always been with us) thought they were cool by declaring their love for French things - literature, cuisine, art and degeneracy. The libertine class who wanted to live like Byron or Shelley but lacked the talent