ARJEN ROBBEN

Article by Damian Nicolaou

Let us start with a comparison of two footballing nations. England’s population is nearly 61 million, whereas the population of the Netherlands is just over 16 million. As in Holland, football is the most popular sport in England; the most widely played and watched, and as the number one sport, the most gifted athletes naturally gravitate to it. England is probably the richest football nation in the world, the cream of the world’s football talent gravitate to clubs such as Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and North London giants Arsenal and Tottenham. Even legendary names such as Ajax and PSV are considered by players as mere stepping stones on the way to bigger and better things.

And yet, since 1966 the Dutch national team has won the European Championship and twice appeared in the World Cup final. In the same time period England has never got past the semi final stage of a major tournament. So how is that possible?

Arjen Robben’s former mentor, Peter Jeltema thinks he knows. “Dutch soccer is based on technique and tactics,” he says, implying that English football is not, an observation which is borne out by even casual observation of the England team in action. Two other fundamentals of Dutch youth coaching are that children are allowed to have fun and encouraged to express themselves as individuals.

Unfortunately in England self expression and having fun are not high on the priority list, winning is all, and yet this mentality has resulted only in successive generations of technically inferior players and a national team incapable of challenging at a major tournament, even qualifying is an uphill struggle.

Another factor could be the culture of blame seen everywhere in this country. Even technically accomplished young players have fear coached into them. Because of the emphasis on winning at all costs, even naturally gifted youngsters will opt to boot the ball clear rather than play it and risk making mistakes and incurring the wrath of the screaming mob at the sideline. Once this fear and mentality has been coached into a young player it is impossible to remove, they will default to these modes of behaviour every time the pressure is on, as evidenced once again by the habits of the national team.

Perhaps though there is another reason, could it just be that the Dutch clubs put more money into youth coaching than the English, knowing that they can’t afford to import great players and must rely selling to bring in a steady stream of income to keep afloat? No. English clubs pour millions into their academies.

At this point it is interesting to compare England with Africa where financial resources are minimal and conditions poor. But somehow Africa is churning out increasing numbers of confident, skilled footballers with the ability and self belief to think and play their way out of any situation. How can this be? One coach, who has had experience of both African and English football, concludes that the African players, through lack of coaching, have just been allowed to develop naturally: “They’re not as bothered about making mistakes. Maybe we coach them a little too much in this country and don’t allow kids to come up with their own solutions. We don’t let them trust their instincts.”

Hopefully the FA’s long awaited ‘root and branch review’ of football will lead to the long needed restructure of football coaching in this country. There is a lot to be learned from the Dutch and African experiences, and if the English spirit was mixed with the best of these alternative approaches, we might witness a generation of world beaters in the not too distant future.

About the Author

Damian Nicolaou is a copywriter with London based viral advertising and marketing agency Lightning Bug.

With football coaching courses available in North London, Ministry of Football is a fun, dance music based football coaching system. All Ministry of Football coaches are FA qualified.