Man U,
Going back to athleticism v. training, obviously we need both. The problem is your examples. RVN is not overly athletic but he is bigger than anyone we have up front AND he does play on a superior team. TActically, Netherlands is what it is about in my book. Total football where everyone can do everything. That is the way our youth should be trained (to me the individual skill and flair are incorporated in this. Watch a Coerver training session some time). The other example you gave was Ronaldhino. He is listed at 5'11", 176 lbs. Look at our starting midfield when Dempsey doesn't play. Ronaldhino has something like 20-30 lbs on all of them. DMB falls over when tackled. Ronaldhino does not.
And I say this when I have a ten year old son with crazy individual skills but is the smallest on his team and only weighs 60 lbs. Unfortunatley, in this day and age, you can't have a team full of smurfs.
