Many cite the Andy Carroll transfer from Newcastle United to Liverpool at the turn of the year for £35 million as the transfer that set a precedent when it comes to purchasing young English talent. However, some seem to forget history when it comes to the transfer of English players. Rio Ferdinand moved from Leeds United to Manchester United for £31 Million way back in 2002, Wayne Rooney moved from Everton to Manchester United for £27 million in 2004, and Shaun Wright Phillips moved from Manchester City to Chelsea for £22 million in 2005. You could even go back to 1996 when Newcastle United paid a British record transfer fee of £15 million for local boy Alan Shearer; what would that figure be in today’s market?
That brings us onto why clubs seem to pay a premium on English players. It boils down to lack of coaching and development in this country. In nations such as Spain, Netherlands, Argentina and Brazil, clubs put maximum effort into developing their academy starlet's technical abilities with a ball at their feet. England however, is a nation still obsessed with pace and power. I have heard many disgruntled fathers on radio phone ins lamenting football clubs who have turned down their child because “he was too small.” Only once every blue moon does this country sees a young boy with natural raw talent emerge. When such a rare occasion happens, the predictable happens. The big clubs with the big money come calling.
Going back to the nations I previously mentioned. Spain have just coasted their way to the Under 21 European Championships this summer with an accurate and perfectly executed display of passing football, much like their senior counterparts at last summer's World Cup in South Africa. Take a minute to think of Barcelona's starting XI in the Champions League Final. Out of the XI who started, seven where trained and developed at the clubs youth academy. Valdes, Pique, Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro and Lionel Messi, meaning the total money spent on that Barcelona team was at most in the region of £80 Million, with money only having been spent on David Villa, Dani Alves, Eric Abidal, Javier Mascherano and bringing back youth graduate Gerard Pique to the Camp Nou from Manchester United. That's £80 million required to forge what many call the 'greatest club side of all time,' The price of two and a bit Andy Carrolls.
The Netherlands with Ajax are a similar example. How many Dutch greats have emerged from the Amsterdam club? To name a select few; Cruyff, Bergkamp, Davids, the De Boer Brothers, Seedorf, and Van Basten. River Plate, though sadly recently relegated for the first time in the club's history have similar standing in Argentina with the likes of Kempes, Batistuta, Crespo and Ayala. I could go on.
The failings of the English at recent tournaments now seems to have finally cattle-prodded the FA into action with a scaled system regarding pitch size, soon our young academy starlets will not step foot on a full size 11-a-side pitch until they reach the age of 14, a system that has been in place in The Netherlands for years already. However that alone won't just solve the problem. The mentality of the way we train our young ones has to change. The obsession with pace and power needs to be thrown out of the window fast. Barcelona and Spanish football as a whole have shown that football is not rocket science. They have shown that football is a simple game, a team game of simple passing and movement. If we coach our young players to be comfortable with a ball at their feet, to pass, to move off the ball and create space for one another, aiding their development technically and reminding them it is perfectly okay to play a simple 10 yard pass to a teammate, rather than smash it 50 yards downfield, then just maybe we might see more genuine local talent emerge. England are years behind the continent and it will take time to catch up. After all we invented the game as it is today. Unfortunately though, at present other nations seem to be teaching us how to play it.
Just maybe, when we reach a point when we have a constant stream of young, talented and competent footballers emerging from our academies then maybe there will be more to go around. Something that is rare and collectable will always have high value, and sadly that is the current state of affairs with our homegrown players. A frequent emergence of homegrown talent with genuine technical ability might just see the demand and rarity fade and with that the monumental prices. I for one, hope to see the day when the English can go toe to toe with the likes of Spain on the football field without trepidation, when we stop becoming a laughing stock of world football and for once justify the national hype we always seem to generate prior to international tournaments.
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