Greenwood and Gazza revisited?

This weekend we witnessed the final games for the England football and rugby teams. Both groups of players have been away from home testing themselves against some of the best players in the World. As far as the rugby team is concerned they lost a three test series 2-0, gaining some comfort for a 14-14 draw in the final game against South Africa.

For the football team it was defeat in the quarter-finals of the European Cup, to Italy.

The similarities of the two national sides are worth considering. Both have relatively new coaches trying to impress their own styles on their side. Both, sadly lack creative and dominant players, the like of which is vital to be able to compete on a world stage.

Lets look at the football team first. Two banks of four players protecting the goal, with two isolated strikers is not the best recipe for attractive football. What alternatives are there, however?  If you were to name the three most creative players in the top English premiership teams you would struggle to find too many English qualified players. Tottenham have Modric, Bale and Adebayor, or even Van der Vaart. Chelsea have Drogba, Torres and a host of others, Manchester City have Alonso, Balotelli and Nasri. Its only when you include Wayne Rooney in the Manchester United trio that you can select a player who starts regularly for his club, as a key international.

Mirror that process with the rugby team and you consistently see the core players in the top teams, fly half, centre, fullback, scrum half, number 8, flanker and hooker more often than not being sourced from other countries, and,   at a point in their career when they are looking for a source of money and a gentle passage into retirement.

While the rugby team are trying to redress the balance by introducing a salary cap and we are seeing English fullbacks coming through, it will be a few seasons yet before they can have the right young talent to choose from. They need to be clever as well as muscle bound and the professional game is not doing much to aid that process.

So we have to be realistic at the moment and not expect our sides to be world beaters, although with the Rugby World Cup in England in 2015 it would be good to see a semi-final place as a realistic target. At that stage anything can happen.