Why dont England players have any balls

A lack of sport in schools definitely has something to do with it, as well as a lack of grass roots funding. Does anybody know if any of the sky money for the premiership and league football goes to grassroots?
 
i agree that we do just lack the natural talent. i think the biggest problem is not the funding but what sports we fund. we seem to put mone into many smaller sports, so instead of being ggreat at 5 sports we are alright at 20 (example). i also agree we dot have a gpood structure at bottoom of tree but that is due to funding being spread ot instead of focused
 
I think the real problem is not a lack of balls, but a lack of ability. The biggest problem English sporting stars have is a biased media who over-hype these guy's abilities and talk them up.

The South Africa Rugby match is a case in point. I watched the game and didn't think England played that bad! SA were simply excellent. To play 80 mins and not concede a few kickable penalties is amazing! Everything they did oozed class and they made the most of their chances. Yet what praise did they get in the media? That's the problem. Its easy to blame players for a lack of balls/bottle/attitude (or whatever), its not so easy to admit that the opposition were just better and that you could learn from them! England won't do well until there's a bit of honesty and objectivity regarding sporting performances.
 
I agree that there isnt the foundations for bringing through geniune talent that other countries have but that really only adresses why we dont have enough top level sports people coming through.

What I dont understand is that the top level sportsmen we already have dont have the desire/heart/balls what ever you call it. A typical example is England vs Germany taking penalties, in any penalty shoot out any sane person would put their money on the Germans to win. They typically seem very cool headed and have a belief that they can do it and normally will do so, same with the Aussies in cricket.

Perhaps as many have said, we just arent good enough but we like to think we are better than we really are so elevate our expectations.
 
marl said:
The South Africa Rugby match is a case in point. I watched the game and didn't think England played that bad! SA were simply excellent. To play 80 mins and not concede a few kickable penalties is amazing! Everything they did oozed class and they made the most of their chances. Yet what praise did they get in the media? That's the problem. Its easy to blame players for a lack of balls/bottle/attitude (or whatever), its not so easy to admit that the opposition were just better and that you could learn from them! England won't do well until there's a bit of honesty and objectivity regarding sporting performances.
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That is fair comment, we dont seem to give the other side the credit, although deep down we know they played very well.
 
population count for anything?
against most of the better countries, we have a much smaller population. if, for example, 1 in 1000 kids is good enough to go on and play international football in all countries, other countries will naturally have more kids in total.

more people playing for the top spots promotes more competition, making them even better.
 
Not sure about that population argument. I think our population is very similar to Italy (who won the world cup!) and its bigger that Argentina. In fact out population is huge compared to Greece, who happened to win Euro 2004.
 
Morba said:
population count for anything?
against most of the better countries, we have a much smaller population. if, for example, 1 in 1000 kids is good enough to go on and play international football in all countries, other countries will naturally have more kids in total.

more people playing for the top spots promotes more competition, making them even better.
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Not really when you consider how many people live in Australia and see how many different sports they seem to excel at.
 
These kind of threads always make me laugh.

You are one of the best football nations on Earth.

You are one of the best rugby nations on Earth.

You are one of the best cricket nations on Earth.

StooM said:
The biggest single issue I think sportsmen (and women) from this country have is that they believe that they have a god given right to win...
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Hammer. Nail. Head.

It's in the English mentality to believe you should be the best in the world (comes from the time you virtually ruled the world).

Sometimes you should be happy with what you have got :)
 
Apart from darts snooker motorsport and erm erm oh yea rifle shooting in the olympics were not too bad at boxing though sometimes.
 
TiZoR; said:
english cultcha sucks, thats why we suck in every sport we play.
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That mentality doesn't help (although there is no doubt a dose of sarcasm in that post)!! Quaterfinals in the last few major football tournaments, current (thought not for much longer :p) world rugby champions, ranked joint second in test cricket shows we don't suck. I guess sport plays such a bit part in our culture that we expect to be winning more than we do. We do seem to lack the killer edge that, say, the Aussies do though.
 
On the point of Australia there are huge differences in domestic setup. State cricket exists purely to supply the national team with players. English Counties are BUSINESSES and are therefore quite happy to employ Kolpaks and overseas players. They, like English football clubs and English rugby clubs (Both League and Union) really have no need to invest heavily in English players because it is much easier to use our financial clout, which we have over everyone else in the world, and simply buy the players 'ready made'.

You can blame the weather, you can blame the 'natural talent' (what BS that is), you can blame 'lack of balls' (what a load of crap again) .. at the end of the day the development structure in place to produce English players seriously lacks in comparison to other nations and as a result we don't have a steady production line of quality players.

I laugh when people talk about Brazil and how its because the kids are poor and that it is the only way out of poverty. No, its because domestic clubs in Brazil have no choice other than to seek out local, domestic talent and nurture it because that is the only choice. They can't pick up the phone and have Mr Glazer fork up £50 million for a few signings. When you put 180 million people, a domestic game that requires domestic players and effective coaching and training together, is it any wonder that the end result is Brazil produces a lot of very good players? Or do people still believe that its 'natural talent'? They can't put a country together like we can but somehow they're good footballers? Bull ..
 
Brazilian players have a combination of two good natural talents for this game, and the result is unique:D

some portuguese blood ( with our "natural" tecnhique and imagination) and a lot of black/african blood (with their natural phisical power and stamina)

the black brazilian players are not in reality pure blacks,instead they are " mulatos", the result of a lot of miscigenation between the portuguese "masters" and the african slaves ,they brought from Africa to Brazil
(I now this is not political correct to say ,but is the reality:D)
if you look at their names,they always have da Silva, dos Santos, do Nascimento, etc in it ( Pelé-Edson Arantes do Nascimento:)

so,they have very good and unique talent for this sport IMO


( like "pitt-bulls" need to have various genes from various dog´s races,in order to be what they are) eheheh
 
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