Sunday 18 August 2013

Pulis for the FA?

Tony Pulis is sadly no longer a manager of a Premiership Team - which will mean an increase in the number of players diving/ needlessly shouting and abusing referees. The BBC has a good interview with him, where he points out the need for English football to get to the point where it isn't trying to copy a model in one country or another. This makes perfect sense, because, for one reason, we're slow and bad at copying - just look at how long it took us to put in place a system to match France's Clairefontaine training ground for national players. It was also something which Clive Woodward instilled into English rugby before it was able to win the world cup - to move from trying to match the best to being the team the others wanted to copy. But Clive Woodward also recognised that this needed to be done one step at a time. First catch up with the other teams, and only then can you be in a position to become the team which is ahead of the curve. Still, it's a better clarity of vision than I've ever heard from the FA...perhaps it is time for Tony Pulis to take hold of the reins of football development at the FA?