Courtesy: The FA.com

A time to reflect

By Graeme Dell

Wednesday, 05 September 2007

Hi again, I’m finally back after four weeks away for the World University Games in Thailand and despite being exhausted, it’s straight back in to it. We finished eighth in the end, which I have to say I was delighted with, especially having won our Group in style but with the disappointment of not winning a game in the second phase. Maybe that was a step too far for us with so little time to prepare.

With less than two months to put a squad together having eventually received funding in May and with no pre-tournament prep, if you would have asked me at that time if I would take eighth place I would’ve bitten your hand off.

It’s a tough ask to get the players re-motivated after losing a quarter-final through our own mistakes and then having to play two further games for placings with little else at stake. However, they probably played their best football of the tournament in game five but once more missed four good chances in the first half. The sheer brilliance of Japan then steam-rollered us 5 –1, their pace, athleticism and ball delivery was breathtaking and would have been at home in The Championship.

Our final game was an end-to-end encounter against Uruguay, losing 3-2 through defensive errors but once more we showed that we could score goals, which was our deficiency in 2005. This time around we conceded more goals in the second phase which was a mixture of tiredness and individual mistakes but a mental learning experience nonetheless for the players.

Our girls also did well and beat China in their seventh place play-off game which I went to watch and was very impressed by. A brace by Bristol City’s Shelley Cox sealed the win and just redemption for their group defeat by the same opponents. A seventh place for Laura Harvey was once more an over achievement in a good standard competition with little time to prepare. Having narrowly lost 1 – 0 to France in the fifth place game, where the French fielded several senior international players, Laura and her squad can be satisfied with a job well done for their first time around.

Yet again, these Games have brought home to me a number of things, it’s a learning environment for us as coaches too. Maybe England’s lack of success in international football is due to the lack of understanding by us as coaches of the degree and extent of physical preparation.

We all need to experience new things and develop our knowledge although experience and ability counts for nothing unless you can deliver when it matters and that’s the same for athletes, coaches and administrators alike. This time around we lacked time to prepare and consequently failed to take our opportunities when they arose.

I ended the trip with a freak training ground accident which left me with a cracked rib. If you’ve ever had one, you’ll know how painful that is but it also taught me a lesson or two!

I was back into things straight away last week with a visit to Wembley as a guest of our main Futsal sponsor Umbro to watch the Seniors against Germany. I had a great social evening and it was good to get away from the work aspect for once, although we chewed over some of their plans for the season. England v Germany fixtures are always special but the result soon dampened that and maybe indicates how much more we have to do in player development terms to get the same depth in numbers at senior level as other nations.

This last weekend was what it’s all about for me, back at Lilleshall with the F30 players. This was the first get together with the 2007/08 group and despite losing four to injury on Saturday, we had a good purposeful day on Sunday. I’ve developed a series of ‘educationals’ for the off court element and we inducted them on a structured weights programme recently. Physical strength plays a massive part in Futsal and we have to be better at the off-court stuff if we’re to improve on it and this is just one element.

We ask a lot of the F30 lads and those who will stay on the programme will be those who go away and work at their own physiological development. I work on the principle of awarding responsibility to the players – let them take some form of control but ensure you agree what the outcome will be.

Players need to be given that responsibility and to feel that they have to deliver and not let down those who have invested time and effort in them. This can help make them better and therefore in some regards, attitude is more important than ability.

Simply understanding the game isn’t enough at international level and these lads have now been given a structured weights programme which will aid their speed, balance and agility levels.

I now need to get my head around naming a squad for our trip to Turkey next month where we play the hosts, Holland and Azerbaijan in a four nation friendly tournament.

That’s it for now,

Graeme.



Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com