Article:
England not the place to nurture talent A very interesting lead from Eurosport.com about youth development woes in England. As the English u-21's fall out of the European championships having failed to get out of their group. The writer bemoans the lack of creativity in the english player.
"It was not even so much the results themselves that are so unpalatable, but the manner of them. The young players, just like their senior counterparts, seemed to run out of ideas all too quickly. It seems that creativity is just not in the English footballing culture. If you look at the Premier League, the main creative sources in most teams are foreigners"
He blames this lack of creativity on the extreme pressure to win at an early age that is endemic to english soccer.
"They have not been raised in an enjoyable environment where they are freer to express themselves, as youth football is set up in most of the top nations around the world. The fear of failure is just too great. " I feel that the pressure to win is really high in US Youth Soccer as well. What can be done to help developing players to not succumb to the creativity killer - the fear of failure?
