The 'English' Football Stereotype....

[lev_yashin]

Jonathan Wilson's book has already been mentioned, but also worth a read are a couple of books by David Winner, so I suggest 'Those Feet: A Sensual History of English Football' and 'Brilliant Orange'. If you fancy something more academic then have a look at Richard Giulianotti's 'Football: A Sociology of the Global Game, there's a chapter on the emergence of tactical systems and national playing styles.

 

[Soulboy]

Regrading the "failure" of English clubs in Europe..

Since 1968, in the 43 years since, take away the six years when we were banned... in the 37 years we have been competing for the Champions League/Cup... English clubs have won it 11 times. That's almost one in three years an English club wins it.

Add in the handful of losing finalists, and you've got, getting on for, an English club competing in the final every two years or so.

Add in the fact that something like a dozen English clubs have won European trophies, and I woulkd suggest far from being a failure, we are actually the most successful European nation in club football.

A bit harsh just to compare from 1992 considering we had been banned for such a period of time it took us quite some time to make a mark again on the competitions. And bear in mind that even in recent years, such average clubs as Boro and Fulham have made European finals suggests to me, at least, that we are not doing that bad and I would think that come the final this year we will have another English club competing for the trophy.

But, to be fair, that was not the point of my original post! It was more to do with the belief that while Barcelona are truly the greatest club side on the planet, their "style" of play would not necessarily fit into the English game, and that, for me, the rags style supercedes them in a league such as ours.

So while Mancini may have a view on how to win in England, I stick by my view that we should replicate the rags style more than Barca's if we want to succeed in our league.

Oh, and as for me thinking that tactics are unnnecessary... I'm sure I never said that!

 

[fbloke]

Regrading the "failure" of English clubs in Europe..

Since 1968, in the 43 years since, take away the six years when we were banned... in the 37 years we have been competing for the Champions League/Cup... English clubs have won it 11 times. That's almost one in three years an English club wins it.

Add in the handful of losing finalists, and you've got, getting on for, an English club competing in the final every two years or so.

Add in the fact that something like a dozen English clubs have won European trophies, and I woulkd suggest far from being a failure, we are actually the most successful European nation in club football.

A bit harsh just to compare from 1992 considering we had been banned for such a period of time it took us quite some time to make a mark again on the competitions. And bear in mind that even in recent years, such average clubs as Boro and Fulham have made European finals suggests to me, at least, that we are not doing that bad and I would think that come the final this year we will have another English club competing for the trophy.

But, to be fair, that was not the point of my original post! It was more to do with the belief that while Barcelona are truly the greatest club side on the planet, their "style" of play would not necessarily fit into the English game, and that, for me, the rags style supercedes them in a league such as ours.

So while Mancini may have a view on how to win in England, I stick by my view that we should replicate the rags style more than Barca's if we want to succeed in our league.

Oh, and as for me thinking that tactics are unnnecessary... I'm sure I never said that!

May I throw the word co-efficient into the mix as well please?

Thanks.

The reason I bring that up is because, by some weird fluke of coincidence English teams were allowed back into European competition at precisely the time that they had 'bottomed' out interms of the number of places allowed to them by UEFA - weird that eh??

Since then English very quickly become prominent in terms of the number of places allowed to them due to co-efficients (or whatever magical mathematical formulae are used) and that is down simply to the success of English club in the competitions.

Also, as far as an English style of play goes I would suggest that students of the game watch Liverpool play (with Hansen at the back) and then watch Forest play in the European Cup and note how different those two clubs were in style.