Re: Serie A Thread - 2012/13 Season
i appreciate your sympathy guys, but don't worry about me. if there's anything this experience taught me, is that i'm not much of a fan.... football fans get sad or angry even when their teams lose a single insignificant game...... my team got relegated and i honestly couldn't care less. if i'm a fan, i must be a lousy one
and even if i were sad, just looking at andre's avatar would be enough to put a big smile on my face
abou said:
Do you think Italy's defending school has gone backwards or is it just that other schools of defending have caught up with them?
it's the italian school that has gone backwards. most definitely. to be honest i haven't noticed any real improvement in the english school, over the last 20 years. the average english defender still can't tackle, nor mark. they still can't put their feet right when marking a player, they still can't force an opponent to shoot with his weak foot, they still can't time their movements (and tackles) by watching at their opponents waist.
english
defenses improved a lot over the last 20 years, because the players are much more tactically aware..... but 1 on 1, english defenders (
individually) are still as rubbish as they ever were, because they still aren't taught anything about technique, when they're youngsters (wich is something evident from the way they play).
u mentioned "excellent defenders". keep in mind though, that in order to evaluate a school u can't look at the "top of the class". excellent defenders, by definition, are not average. and only average players actually represent the quality of the school they belong to.
quick example: rio ferdinand is not a product of the english school, because if he were, if that kind of quality was actually nothing but the byproduct of the english school, then england would have plenty of defenders as good as ferdinand. ferdinand became the defender he is today because of his talent. sure he worked on his talent, and his coaches helped him becoming what he became..... but their contribution was minimal.....it was rio who did most of the job (better yet, it was his innate talent who did most of the job). rio ferdinand could have been born (and learned to play football) in romania, russia, italy, portugal, france... it wouldn't have made much of a difference. because pure talent always emerge, no matter the environment.
that obviously applies to every great player (no matter the role or the nationality). for years people have been glorifying the italian school because of nesta, cannavaro, maldini, baresi, bergomi, wierchowood... i always found that hilarious. how could anybody believe those world class players became so good because of our trainers and teachers is just beyond me...if nesta was nothing but the result of our school, how come we only had 1 nesta?
the truth is there's no trainer or teacher in the world who can develop a common youngster into a nesta. if there ever were such a trainer, then u would know his name...... everybody would, as he would be world-wide famous and all the top clubs in the world would be willing to pay any price in order to hire him (can u imagine an academy who can produce a nesta? WOW! such trainers would cost more than ibra and messi put together).
the italian school was indeed amazing.... but not because of nesta or maldini. those were particularly talented players and it was their unmatched talent wich got them so far. the italian school was great because the average italian defender was an excellent defender compared to the average english, french, german and spanish defender. that's why.
that's where u have to look if u wanna evaluate academy trainers and football schools trainers: average players. because that's where u can actually appreciate the impact of a good teacher. where there's no great innate talent, that's where u can really measure the actual contribution of a good football education to the growth of a player.
having said that, if u wanna evaluate the english school, forget about ferdinand, forget about lescott, forget about cahill or dawson, as none of them represent "the average english defender", the common product of the english school. u must look at upson, bramble, taylor. they are a reliable "quality-gauge" of the english school. theese players aren't really more technically evolved than the average '80s defender. they're more tactically aware, sure (and that is already enough to make them better players than their predecessors), but, technique-wise, they're just as rubbish as those who came before them.
the real change happened in the italian school instead. 20 years ago the average italian defender had barzagli's technique (well, almost
) and a player like chiellini, who is kinda the italian version of terry, would have never made it to the national team (i'm not implying terry is, or was, as good as chiellini. what i mean is that chiellini has, just like terry, a below average technique, wich is unusual for an italian international player).
today instead we have our own "terry" in the national team and the average italian cb is much closer to the average english cb than to barzagli.
it's much shorter also
Milan would be in the exact same situation again.
