Telegraph: Carra - England must act now

As I watched England entrenched on the edge of their box, desperately clinging on against Italy, I was thinking: "What does this remind me of?" writes Jamie Carragher.

It did not take me long to work it out. It was like a Championship side playing at a top Premier League club in the FA Cup.

A performance where qualities such as pluckiness and courage get banded about and the gulf in quality between the teams is tolerated because of their different pedigree.

This is what English football has become. Our limitations laid bare to the point where so long as the "bulldog spirit" is on show the players have done all that has been asked.

It is never going to be enough to win a major tournament. At the next World Cup we will be having the same post-exit discussion about our inability to retain the ball and do anything more than try to stop the opponent rather than impose ourselves on them - and it will be doubly difficult in Rio.

The 38 per cent possession statistic against Italy as England exited Euro 2012 was damning and embarrassing. We will never beat a top nation in a tournament playing like this.

Steven Gerrard had cramp after 70 minutes and Scott Parker had to be replaced, feeling the effects of a gruelling four games. We would have been on our knees had they had to play another two fixtures.

We all know what the problem is. We are technically inferior to the international super powers.

Our domestic league is considered the best, but I would put us in the third tier of international football, well below Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Germany and Italy.

Ideas are thrown around every two summers. We need to sort out the "grass roots". What do people actually mean when they say this? It is such a broad term.

Do youngsters need top coaching at an early age? Of course they do, but we may have to acknowledge that our problem is cultural.

In this country, parents want their children to "get stuck in". Traditionally, our best footballers are powerful, strong types, such as Gerrard and, in this tournament, John Terry.

We never produce a No10 such as a Mesut Özil because they may not shine in their youth if the emphasis is on finding those who will fly into tackles.

Spain has always produced playmakers like Xavi, and the Dutch and Portuguese flying wingers such as Arjen Robben or Cristiano Ronaldo. Our stars have been more tough, powerful midfielders or defenders who win the ball. Unfortunately, we do not breed enough players who keep it.

Fighting spirit is not a negative quality and should remain part of our identity, but we need far more and it has become a question of radically changing our priorities.

Spain are the example in terms of ball retention, the extraordinary ideal we aspire to. There needs to be some realism, though.

Can we really expect to do what they do even better? The English system has never produced a Xavi or an Andrés Iniesta.

We should watch and learn from them, but recognise what is genuinely attainable. It feels like we are always wishing we had been doing what others have done years after they have done it, so we are always playing catch-up.

After Euro 96 I recall everyone saying we had to copy the Ajax Academy. Two years later the obsession was Clairefontaine in France.

Now it is La Masia in Barcelona. Sometimes, a country has its moment and in recent years it has been Spain, but that does not mean it can be replicated in another country. You have to assess how the game is evolving and act accordingly or you are always years behind.

The real reference for English football is Germany, because we produce players of similar strength, power and organisation.

Where they are far superior is in technical excellence. I see no reason why our future generations cannot be nurtured in the same way. Germany responded to their failure in 2004 by focusing on their youth centres and the result is there to see now.

What we must not forget is that ultimately it is about the talent of the players. Sounds straightforward, but you hear so many people suggesting a good coach can turn an average youngster into a world-class player. It is delusional.

We have to ensure youngsters with talent want to play football, enjoy it and embrace the system we put in place. There are so many distractions these days that the hard part is finding the players in the first place. All a good system can do is guide them.

Bad coaching can ruin potentially good players, but even the best coach in the world cannot turn a poor player into a world-class one.

I have my own experience of youth academies, benefiting at Lilleshall and Liverpool. The quality of coaching, particularly when I worked with Steve Heighway, added that extra 10 per cent to make sure I progressed.

I have always felt I would have been a professional footballer whether I'd had such a great coach or not, but the academy was essential in ensuring I had the opportunity to make the most of my ability.

That is all St George's Park or any club academy can aspire to. If it does not come from within, no player is going to make it.

I have spent a lot of time in Poland with Gareth Southgate, who is a contender to be the Football Association's next technical director, and I was encouraged by his ideas.

He is passionate about shifting the priority away from a culture which sees a football match as "going to war" and instead emphasises ball retention and technical ability.

He also supports a winter break, which is now a necessity as a mental as much as physical break from the slog of the Premier League.

The main focus for the FA is creating a system to allow an easier transition from youth to senior football. Our reserve league is not good enough. The gulf between that and the Premier League is massive.

This vital last step has almost been disregarded with all the focus on academies. The FA and the Premier League need to work together, rather than engaging in power games.

Amid all this, there is a contradiction at the top. We want a more attractive, passing game, but the FA appointed a head coach with very clear tactical ideas based on counter-attacking football.

I hear many say it needs to evolve in the World Cup qualifiers. The tactics will not change and, as I said at the start of the tournament, it would be unfair to criticise Roy Hodgson for that. Everyone knows his methods.

For the immediate future, it will more of the same, trying to fight off those strongest nations showing the grit and determination we pride ourselves in.

Behind the scenes, however, the radical restructuring must start today to ensure the next generation can aspire to something more. If not, we will all be making precisely the same observations at the end of the 2022 World Cup.

Source: The Telegraph