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well your are right with what you are saying, you are still talking about a handful of kids in the early 00's being told to play like that. Far more at grassroots wouldnt be getting it on the same level. Players I have worked with that were involved with 17s and 20s side hadn't had that from a very early age. 1 of them actually mentioned recently the massive difference in ability between this years u20 side the his one in 2015. I think since 2011 WOF kids are hopefully now being encouraged to play possession based from and earlier age as the coaching course work is starting to filter down to every player not just a handful of player who were lucky enough to have it prviously.
Anyway hopefully the u20 side is just the start and we can see the same type of football being player by all teams going forward as all these k9ds come up though the ages.
I guess its one of things that are debatable, I can think of an awful lot of players who we should have allowed to play the way they had been taught. Ive moaned about this for a long time, I have believed for a long time that we have had players capable of pass and move football but we havent had the long term thinking to keep pushing that approach from juniors through to seniors.
Even back when Gerard Davis, Sean Douglas, Heremia Ngata, Aaron Lines, Ivan Vicelich, Raf de Gregoria etc were in the AW's that we were capable of less long ball more passing. I know those players arent the sort to dribble around three opposition players do a rabona and score with a spinning volley but they and others received the ball correctly and efficiently and could pass into space and to team mates. I still remember the Mexican crowd cheering the AW's as they strung 10 or 11 passes together while going forward against Brazil in 1999. Sadly for whatever reasons which we disagree on the age group teams were made to lump it forward, hit and hope.
I think its a function of lower league British coaching mentality that led to that (btw I was born in the UK)
I reject the idea that our age group sides werent capable of pass and move football, they may not have won games doing it but then they didnt win games going long either. The trouble is we werent learning to play with the ball at our feet and so there hasnt been enough progression in our football style. Again hopefully Buckinghams U20 side might be when the coaching staff catch up with the players progress and actually have a little faith in them instead of blaming the players ability to cover their own inabilities as coaches.