Are foreign players ruining the English national team?

Harry Kane's doing very well for himself at the moment, but he's at Tottenham.

Before the foreign legions turned up the old English Division One was full of Scottish, Welsh and Irish players - no doubt the stats support a reduction in overall English born players but there's still enough there to make a decent team and all the EPL has done is exchange one foreigner (Celtic) for another sort. So it's the Celtic nations that have lost out more. The final piece of evidence is (1966 aside) the performance of the England national team has been about the same pre and post EPL. The reason imo is a continual flow of poor national team coaches.

Yeah was going to elaborate but that's it. It's not just a football thing either.

English players are generally overrated and overvalued. Case in point: Luke Shaw and Daley Blind. Daley Blind was a part of a title-winning Ajax team, a Netherlands team that went to 3rd place in the last WC and he performed admirably while he also has significant Champions' League experience. He can also play multiple positions - LB, LWB and DM. Cost: 15 million Euro to Man Utd. Luke Shaw had one good season with Southampton, was part of a yet again under performing English National side in the last WC, no Champions' League experience and can only play LB or LWB. He also seems to be quite injury prone. Cost: 30 million Euro to Man Utd. Now tell me, who's worth their price tag?

Hmm there is not a single decade when the Germans haven't either won a WC or a euro since the 80s. In fact in most tournaments played during the last 3 decades they probably reached the euro or wc semis 8 or 9 times out of ten. Perso all my life I have seen the germans as they are now or very close to it. They probably have missed 1 comp or 2 (max) in the last 35 years but that wasnt due to them being rubbish or a bad generation, it just happens. Its probably the only national team who starts all comps in the top 3-4 favorites. Most supporters wish their NT were as good as good as the krauts at their worse.

so till plenty of foreigners (at least 40%)

Peter - An excellent summation of what has happened over the last 60 years in football as produced in England.History tells us that in key positions ,usually playmakers, English teams have always found it easier to source talent from Scotland,Ireland or Wales.with a plethora of names far to numerous to mention here. For a while in the early sixties even clubs in the mighty Serie A found the same source as attractive with players like Charles ,Baker and Law attracted to that country.Spanish football could also be added to that grouping with Kocsis and Puskas lured there in 1957after the Revolution, and the great Di Stefano and Santa Maria from South America. There is no doubt that globalisation has seen evolvement of the game resulting in a change in the demographic as towhereraw talent can be sourced and for a reason we simply have to look at the life style of populations in fast developing countries who now play with electronic gizmos instead of kicking a ball, a much cheaper form of "entertainment". As you say in your last paragraph,Matthews may have been close to the truth in his assessment for a study of coaching history invariably finds "English coaches" at the root of football development all across the width of the game."Coaching" as a profession was seen as a threat to those in charge so many students of the game and how to teach it to others were banished from British shores and had to ply there trades elsewhere.Innovative coaching can be traced back to many exiled English coaches with perhaps Hogan recognised as the "father" of the genre. It could be argued that over the last 50 years Australian football has been treading the same path as the English football hierarchy with strange decisions emanating from the top that has seen our representation in World Cups up to 2006 as 1 in 1974, the formation and subsequent failure of the country's first national football competition,leading to an almost catastrophic formation of a single professional league which,being controlled by a man of vision,we can but hope will continue to flourish and progress but do we not at this time face exactly the same problem as England when the vast majority of the HAL's top players are being sourced from overseas. Food for thought is it not????????Keep up your good work. Cheers jb.

Have a look at history. England's international team? More or less a joke since 1966. **Don't mention 1953-1954! England qualified for the 1970 WC because they were the defending champions. They failed to qualify for the 1974 & 1978 WCs. They qualified in 1982, only to be knocked out in the 2nd round (2 matches, both 0-0 draws; says it all). During this period, English clubs won the European Cup 6 years in a row, 1977 to 1982 inclusive (LFC 3; NF 2 and AV1.). Those six winning teams consisted of 71% Englishmen, 24% Scotsmen, with the remaining 5% from Ireland, Northern Ireland and Wales. I can recall watching some of those matches on TV with my Dutch buddy who, being Feyenoord Reserve GK c1960, at 16 years of age, before being railroaded to Oz for certain indiscretions, was much more savvy about football matters than I. As he pointed out, the English club teams were extremely well organised, far more so than their European opponents. This superior team organisation compensated for the lack of individual skills displayed by the English players. Man for man, they would have simply been outplayed. The international arena was, and still is, a different dynamic. Not possible to develop teamwork to the same degree as club teams training 4 or more times a week, for 10 or more months a year. So the individual skill factor comes in to play at the international level. And England loses out. Why? There are many more stats that can be put forward, but they will only cloud the issue. Such as the English player component at LFC plummeting dramatically (4 in 1984, and only 2 in 1985) in favour of Scotsmen and Welshmen. This change was not beneficial, so one can only wonder. ** 1953-1954. Days of infamy for English football. England had never ever lost at Wembley to a European side. The occasional blip v Scotland was the only blemish on this proud record. Then, on one dreary December day in 1953, the "Mighty Magyars" aka Hungary, strolled out to the field, with their seemingly pudgy and overweight captain, Ferenc Puskas leading the way, playing "keep up" with a football. Met with derision up in the British Press box! How absolutely embarrassing! 95 minutes later (only 5 minutes half time in those days), England 3 Hungary 6! Yes! Hammered 6-3 at home! A few months later, a return match was played in Budapest, and you will have difficulty In accessing details of this match. Now, after being hammered 6-3 at home, one would have thought the best football minds would have been hard at work, endeavouring to turn this result around. If, in fact, they were, they failed dismally! The final score in Budapest? Hungary 7 England 1. Yes, that is not a typo! Hungary led 3-0 after 19 minutes. One can only assume they relaxed after that in order to avoid a the embarrassment of a double figure score. Read the autobiography of (Sir) Stanley Matthews, possibly the best ever English footballer. He was absolutely scathing of the "blazer brigade" in control of English football. I suspect nothing much has changed over the years.

Mitchell, with all due respect Germany has never been rubbish not in the last 30-40 years that I have been following football at least. I don't think anyone dictated anything to all bundesliga teams, they just evolved with football. They knew what worked before, they know what's working now. When they had a Littbarski they had no problem putting him on the field, they were not against technical players, they just had better/different type of players.

Goes back to the insular point I mentioned above. The attitude is no one else can teach them anything, and the attitude that the EPL is the best league. Clearly it isn't. Being overpaid is probably another issue

More English players should be looking to the continent. It's very rare they do though.

There not, the bring in massive money into English soccer that helps these clubs invest in junior academies, and they still crop up talented locals and do play them. And the hype and interest the EPL creates can only be good for English soccer. With out all the money coming in, all those top coaches England have had over the years, and facilities like there football headquarters could not be paid for, it's a top training facility that the national teams of all age groups use etc.

Agree with every word Melbourneterrace. Easier to blame those pesky foreigners than accept that there are huge internal problems.

Not so "fantastic" youth development and not such a "well of talent" if so few are good enough to play first team football...

I've commented on this issue before, and IMO it comes down to a combination of a lack of licensed coaches at youth level and the British player rule. The rule basically enforces clubs to have a certain number of players in their squad (might be 8) that were trained in England for four years before they are 21 (this is also why you see top clubs now signing 15,16 year olds from overseas as they count as english trained by the time they are 20-odd). The problem with this rule is that it doesn't enforce clubs to play English trained players. The result is that the best English talent are swallowed up by the top few clubs (why wouldn't they sign the best available), then play reserve football during critical early years of their career when they should be gaining senior experience. The solution is to either force clubs to start a minimum of 3 English players (which has obvious benefits but is unlikely to happen), or get rid of the british player rule for at least the top 6 or 7 clubs. This would enable top clubs to buy best available players, and not poach the best young English talent off smaller clubs where they will play regularly. Then, once they have had a few seasons of senior football under their belt - sign for a top club if they are good enough to start. My two cents.

Wasn't it at Upton Park? Sven also claimed to be totally unaware of the sporting rivalry between England and Australia. He said afterwards that had he known it was such a big deal he wouldn't have fielded separate experimental line-ups in each half. Whatever his reasons it was a dire performance from England.

My bad ... the third and fourth leading scorers are English

I've always felt that in recent years there is a gap between the perceived national will to do well and the support of the EPL clubs. Look at our own Mile (Mike) Jedinak taking time out mid season for his country. Yet England doesn't even go on tours as a team anymore and who can forget the Loftus Road farce where the senior players asked to be kept on to salvage the game v Aussies at 2-0 but Sven seemed to be tied to promises given to club bosses. If the English want success as much as they claim they will have to have everyone on board from top to bottom. I remain unconvinced that this is the case when the crunch comes.