Football Association’s talent pathway

Bold youngsters moving abroad could help the national team, writes Sam Wallace in Moscow

At some point over the next month or so, Gareth Southgate will take his place in the coaches’ meeting at St George’s Park and talk through what he learnt in Russia to those who are in charge of England’s junior teams from Under-15s to Under-21s.

Southgate has always mucked Ryan Sessegnon Age 18

Club Fulham Position Left wing or left-back

Was named both Championship Player and Young Player of the Season for his role in Fulham’s promotion campaign. in with the rest of the coaches – indeed, he appointed some of them in his previous role at the Football Association – and the sharing of information has been one of the major advantages of the FA’S football centre.

The new FA is only really five years old, which will not be some compensation as the English World Cup euphoria recedes to leave a sea of discarded plastic beer beakers and a distant Three Lions ringtone.

England’s World Cup 2018 is over, a glorious chance to seize a place in the final in Moscow lost against Croatia, and now the work goes back to the more prosaic business of building England teams up game by game and tournament by tournament. The English football authorities have been urged to seize the World Cup feelgood factor as a catalyst to confront serious problems in the grass-roots game and accelerate a modernisation in coaching that can help keep the national team challenging for major honours.

Jimmy Ball, son of 1966 World Cup hero Alan Ball and an academy coach at Stoke City, believes that England’s progress to a first major

This month a new group of Under-19s will defend the European crown that England won last summer in that great sweep that included World Cups at Under-17s and Under-20s level. Paul Simpson, who won the latter of those two competitions, will lead the squad to Finland for the eight-team tournament. The best at that level – Jadon Sancho (Borussia Dortmund), Phil Foden (Manchester City), Mason Mount and Callum Hudson-odoi (both Chelsea) – have been retained by their clubs for pre-season tours.

There have been about 20 withdrawals from the squad, which is generally uncommon given the FA’S new bond with the clubs. There is greater frustration directed at Uefa’s scheduling, with July more

Jadon Sancho Age 18

Club Borussia Dortmund Position Winger

Named best player at last year’s European Under-17 Championship, shortly before joining Dortmund from Manchester City. Has already scored in the Bundesliga. semi-final since 1990 is proof of huge progress in youth coaching over this past decade but that now is the time to push even further forward.

With so many children inspired by Gareth Southgate’s team and all the wonderful football from Russia being played on terrestrial television at accessible times of the day, Ball has been especially struck by the recent sight simply of so many young people out playing football in local parks.

The English academies are increasingly setting the standard in Europe but, at the bottom of the pyramid, the Football Association is suited to the Under-17s. It is just the next challenge for a newlyorganised FA.

St George’s Park will be six years old in October. Dan Ashworth, its technical director, has been in charge just five years and the real shift of power from Wembley 130 miles north did not come until after the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. That was when the process of change accelerated, much of it with Southgate as a key figure – first as head of coaching, then Under-21s manager and now in charge of the seniors.

He has learnt from hearing the experiences of his fellow coaches at junior tournaments and from his own at the disappointing Under-21s 2015 European Championship. He was part of a decision to abolish 73

Phil Foden

Age 18

Club Manchester City Position Midfielder

A brilliant, creative talent who starred in England Under-17s World Cup success and is expected to make an impact with City’s first team this season. being urged to widen the talent base by effectively tackling a dearth of quality grass-roots facilities.

“Dad always really regretted 1970 – he thought they should have won the World Cup again and carried on internationally rather than have the bad time they did,” said Ball. “English football didn’t adapt as society evolved. It’s only been these last five or six years where England have had this DNA, had a plan and stuck to it. It’s about knowing where we have come from and honouring that but looking to the future and constantly evolving.

“I can see the progress. It’s a very exciting time, but not one to rest. years of Under-16s’ participation against the home nations in the Victory Shield. It cast the English FA as the arrogant party but it needed to seek out the top-level opposition its players would likely face at a tournament. Instead that year the Under-15s played Brazil, Portugal and the United States in Florida.

Next week the Under-16s will go to Croatia to play twice against that national team in Zagreb, and if there is a bit of spice to it then the FA believes the experience will be more authentic. The Under-17s have games in October against Brazil, the United States and Russia. The plan is to give the boys experience of travelling long distances

to play, of It’s a time to push forward even harder in having players to perform with freedom. Lots of kids have been inspired and there is a huge opportunity in the country but there are some issues at grass-roots level that need to be fixed.”

Amid a postcode lottery of affordable and available local facilities, a multi-tiered system currently exists. At the top are the professional category-one academies who, six years into the Elite Player Performance Plan, have developed enormously. Southgate’s squad was full of players who have benefited from increasingly progressive coaching and it has also been reap-