The Future of England

As the "Golden Generation" of English football is coming to a close and making way for the young stars such as Welbeck, Carrol, Ox, Wilshere, etc. and the German and Spanish machines (amongst others) are doing big things in the scene right now, I (as I'm sure some of you) am contemplating the effects of certain correlations between the strategies enforced in the youth squads and the adult squads.

Spain (just like Barcelona) seems to focus on replicating the formations and strategy of their adult team in their youth which makes it easy to call someone up when they get to the right age and another player gets old, out of form or injured. Another factor that plays into it is that after a while, the player will more likely than not end up Barcelona or Real Madrid. The recent acquisition of Jordi Alba is an example of this. It seems like anyone who is rising in Spain starts in their youth squad and goes through the Barca or Madrid youth system and then regardless of what they do or where they go for the next 5-10 years, they can be summoned on a whim and fall in line. Germany in some ways is similar but with a larger reliance on their excellent and efficient youth system.

This is obviously not the only factor because teams like Netherlands, Portugal, and Brazil do well without migrating they're players to certain club teams. My question is what does England need to do to get itself to match it's FIFA ranking and be considered an actual quality team and system? From what I've seen, it seems like our youth system isn't that bad at all. We seem to do well in youth tournaments. What could be responsible for what happens in senior squad tournaments. The recent showing at Euro's was pretty good but it wasn't very quality in the midfield or up front. The idea will be to get Walcott, Ox, McEachran, Wilshere, Welbeck, Carrol to form some team chemistry before they're in their 30's worrying about form and if they are in their last tournament. Would consolidating the teams the play for in the EPL do that? Would it involve them switching leagues (I doubt that since most of the international players who play outside their country come to the EPL, Serie A or La Liga)? Does it really just come down to an organized national manager? Maybe all of these need to be maintained in order to produce a winning, impressive squad. We will have to wait and see.

Daniel