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FA ensured kids were at home on world stage
IN PARIS A ROAR from Roland Garros drifts in through the window of his home but, because of a broadcasting delay, it is still several seconds before the television shows Rafa Nadal dispatching yet another giant forehand.
Even at 69, former Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier likes to be slightly ahead of the game. In contrast, England’s football team, he says, are still some years behind.
More encouragingly, though, we are catching up.
Houllier should know. He was the man who in the early Nineties provided the philosophy behind the Clairefontaine training centre which, 10 years after its inauguration, provided the platform for France to win the World Cup in 1998.
Six trophies subsequently won as Liverpool manager and a spell at Aston Villa cemented his love affair with English football and although doctors’ orders now prevent him from taking a front-line role, he is sought after all over the globe as a football consultant.
He watched 25 games at Euro 2016, he was at the Champions League final earlier this month and he will be at the Stade de France tonight to check – all diplomacy put aside – that Les Bleus remain just that little bit ahead of their English counterparts.
St George’s Park was modelled on Clairefontaine and five years down the line Houllier is impressed.
“St George’s Park is a great achievement and you will see the benefit of that in five or 10 years’ time,” he said.
“You have a unity of place, a unity of philosophy, a unity of development, all those coaches together…it is a House of Football for England.”
It is just that France have moved on again since the English FA borrowed their blueprint. “Then, we were teaching the coaches how to defend,” said Houllier. “Now the emphasis is on attack.
“There was a time when it was thought that defensive coaching was enough, for the rest you relied on inspiration or creativity. Back then we had Thierry Henry and Nicolas Anelka.
“We find our coaches knew how to defend. So we have put the stress on creativity. It isn’t just down to flair players. We know that you can work on expectations, develop the reflex that when you win the ball you move forward quickly.
“Preparing ways, when you have no time or space, to unbalance the other team.
“Instead of relying on individuals to find a way past defensive units, you can do it collectively using patterns.”
This was a lesson Houllier learned during a break from GARETH SOUTHGATE has revealed England’s success at the Under-20 World Cup in South Korea came on the back of a change in emphasis made by the FA over the types of games played by the England age-level teams.
Paul Simpson’s Young Lions, skippered by Bournemouth midfielder Lewis Cook, lifted England’s first global title at any level since the senior side lifted the World Cup at Wembley in 1966 thanks to a 1-0 win over Venezuela. England manager Southgate said: “A couple of years ago we made a big decision to improve the games programme to give our younger teams better experience of playing teams from around the world.
“At the time it was a bit controversial – at Under-16 level we only ever played the Victory Shield which was Ireland, Scotland and Wales – but we club management, when the French Football Federation welcomed him back to give their national team a second push.
“In my first spell at Clairefontaine it was all about the development of excellent players,” he said. “But when I came back in 2008 I had looked at the Spanish model, which was becoming successful, and the emphasis was on the team. In my second spell we looked felt it was important that those sorts of games are the types of games that our kids get every week at their clubs. We needed to go and play Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and so on.
“In the last year the U20s went out to Mexico – and ended up playing Mexico in their quarter-final. We’ve managed to expose them to a good quality games programme.”
Southgate has now challenged the World Cup winners to establish themselves as regulars