SOCCER ANGLES:Clubs in Britain are growing concerned about the lack of young talent making the grade and have taken the European scouting route, writes MICHAEL WALKER.
THEY WERE once the boys all right. Not so long ago Liverpool, England and the rest of Europe were all teased by the excitement that surrounded two teenage lads from Le Havre who had starred for the French national teams at under-13 and under-15 level before leading France to the world under-17 title in 2001. The prospect had more than Gerard Houllier salivating.
They are both 24 today, but almost all of the accompanying fuss has died. It is not quite a case of where are they now when it comes to Anthony Le Tallec and Florent Sinama-Pongolle, but sadly for them it feels inconceivable that they will ever again be the subject of eager anticipation.
In a week in which the latest Le Havre prospect, Paul Pogba, has become the possible cause of a legal action by Manchester United, the memory of the giddiness surrounding Le Tallec and Simama-Pongolle should act as some form of caution.
Pogba, who was 16 in March, is the centre of a different kind of noise. Whereas when Liverpool swooned before Le Tallec and Sinama-Pongolle, they did so with €6 million in their hands to persuade Le Havre to part company with their treasured pair, and loaned them back – and thus help pay for the sort of structure that must in part have found Pogba years later – according to Le Havre president, Jean-Pierre Louvel, United used their money to sweet-talk Pogba’s parents.
“They tempt the parents,” Louvel said. “In the case of Paul Pogba it was fairly simple: €100,000 for the father, €100,000 for the mother and a house.”
These are specific accusations and United’s reaction has been in the form of forthright denials, from chief executive David Gill and from Alex Ferguson. It could end up in court.
It is hardly the first time we have heard such allegations. From the beginning of professional football there have been rumours of inducements paid to clubs for players and as the game developed, to youngsters. The competition in Britain for these boys was always fierce, it’s just that there used to be a whole lot more of them than there are now.
The relative lack of talent is one of the reasons why United know of and are interested in boys like Pogba, or the Da Silva brothers from Brazil. They have felt the need to broaden their horizons because of the lack of bodies appearing on theirs. United, like all clubs, have been curtailed by the introduction of a 90-minute radius in England which, as Ferguson has said often, would mean David Beckham would not have been a United player.
But there are other concerns. Beckham learned the game in east London but as far back as May 2001, youth coaches from United, Ajax, Barcelona and Bayern Munich met in Geneva to discuss what they felt was an increasing problem in their societies: the decline of street football and the decline of the street footballer.
These were the types we have all seen. The reason Don Revie sat in a car outside Eddie Gray’s Glasgow school in 1964 was because he had heard of a player of stunning talent, not one reared in an “Academy”, one raised on the streets of a football-obsessed city in which mass car ownership was two decades away. Revie’s car was a rarity then.
Four decades after Gray, when Wayne Rooney appeared from the estates of Toxteth one of the phrases that came with him was that he was “the last street footballer”. It is a depressing thought.
When you see Jack Wilshere sway around the Arsenal field like Liam Brady once did, the Rooney claim might require a re-jig, but there is something in it. The boys who once learned their trade on hard surfaces and in tight corners, who were educated by this to the extent that Jock Stein said his youth players needed “coaxing, not coaching”, are now “nurtured” on soft-grass Academy playing fields. They are taken in as young as eight and presented with the colours of a club that a generation earlier boys fought to wear. There is too much too young, lots of them are not good enough, they get rejected and then do not have the old school/youth club network to fall back into. Football loses them.
Trevor Brooking worried aloud again this week about the falling numbers and the falling standards. Some disagree, but many don’t and what they see is an expansion by the likes of United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City in European youth scouting. There is an added frisson that comes with the “discovery” of a foreign boy, but when those scouts see Le Tallec playing for Le Mans today, or Sinama-Pongolle battling for a place at Atletico Madrid, they will remember that for all the teenage fuss, there are no guarantees.
All eyes on Spurs, City
THIS IS a weekend in the Premier League that we could come to reflect upon later in the season as a moment when we woke up to Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur, or one when we realised how far they have to go.
Manchester City host Arsenal while Tottenham have Manchester United at White Hart Lane.
Regardless of any reservations people have about what has happened financially at City, or over Tottenham's long-standing ability to implode, two home wins would send a tremor through the top four.
The top four might just become a top six, which would at least provide some novelty.
Messi may miss out
WE MAY soon have to cry for Argentina. At the last World Cup I had the privilege to attend the Argentina-Mexico match in Leipzig. It would be in the top five matches I have seen live.
It was simply fantastic football, the only downside being that Mexico, who gave as good as they got, were eliminated. Argentina, meanwhile, went on to face Germany in Berlin.
The Argentinians were the favourites then after Brazil’s glum efforts and it seemed they would blow away the hosts’ enthusiasm. But in a penalty shoot-out, Germany won, and a feeling this week is that Argentina have still not recovered.
Diego Maradona was in the stands in Leipzig and Berlin, a cheerleader. This week he has been in the dugout as Argentina lost first to Brazil, then to Paraguay. There is a real chance Lionel Messi and the rest may not make South Africa. The focus is on Maradona, but it should be on a World Cup finals without Argentina.
