Observing one of Simon Clifford’s training sessions can be like watching a Japanese game show. It’s the middle of January and a dozen or so 18-year-olds are running along the side of Leeds’ Roundhay Park Lake up to their waists in freezing cold water. The surface underfoot is uneven; every now and then the boys fall face-down into the water. At the end of the run, there’s no let-up. Clifford, a former school teacher, is barking at them to do press-ups with their feet on the bank and their arms in the water. They do so willingly and seem determined to complete the repetitions. You’d struggle to find a fitter set of teenagers in the country.

The team they play for is Garforth Town, a club owned by Clifford which, after two promotions in three seasons, will be playing in the Unibond Northern League next season, one below the Conference North.

Eight rungs higher on the English football ladder, and the Premiership is in rude health. Acknowledged by many as the best league in the world and flush from a new £1.7 billion ($4bn) TV deal, the world’s best players continue to sign for England’s top clubs. The national team has a brand new Wembley Stadium where it can strut its stuff – but look beneath the surface and speak to many involved in the game, and they’ll tell you that English football is on the verge of a major crisis.

“In 10 years time I can see the national team struggling,” says Trevor Brooking, the FA’s director of football development. “We’ve lost a lot of ground in the past five years because the lack of a co-ordinated approach. We all need to pull in the same direction, but at the moment that’s not happening.”

Trevor Brooking is a big fan of Simon Clifford and his efforts to introduce some much-needed technique training to youngsters in this country with his revolutionary Brazilian Soccer Schools. But will it be enough to save English football?

Clifford would like to think so and to show us how he’s going to do it, he invites FourFourTwo to one of his Futbol de Salao classes. Unlike the boot-camp training in Roundhay Lake, the schools offer more intricate ball training using a Futebol de Salao ball, which tries to re-create the skills of Brazilian footballers. That evening, Clifford is taking a class with 20 eight-year-olds and what he shows us is fascinating stuff. There’s very little team play, but plenty of drills with a variety of names. The children attempt “The Ronaldinho”, “The Emerson” and “The Rivelino” – a series of tricks and flicks with a smaller, heavier ball. “Don’t join the orchestra until you’ve mastered your instrument,” is Clifford’s mantra. “The idea of the smaller ball is that because it’s heavy you can’t just lump it to get out of trouble. You have to play a short, clever pass, or dribble it. I’m not saying it’s the best way to train kids, but England doesn’t seem to be producing players who can dribble or pass. Technique complemented by extreme fitness is what I believe in.”

It was good enough for Pelé, Zico and Ronaldo, who began their careers playing Futebol de Salao, and Clifford has proved it can be used to successfully coach children in England. There are nearly 80 Brazilian Soccer Schools in the UK (320 worldwide including one Down Under), and 1700 players who have trained at the schools are currently playing in the junior and senior ranks of pro clubs in the UK, with several also playing at international level. Manchester City defender Micah Richards is one such graduate.

It’s with the money’s he’s earned from his Brazilian Soccer Schools that Clifford was able to buy Garforth Town in 2003. His plan is to fill the team with players trained the Brazilian way – and reach the top of English football.

That bold ambition aside, speak to Clifford about youth development and he despairs of much of what is going on in the English game today. The 1997 Charter for Quality, written by the then FA technical director Howard Wilkinson, who introduced the academy system, is as good a starting point as any. “Wilkinson said that kids should only train in the academies,” says Clifford with a hint of frustration. “The thought was that PE teachers at schools weren’t qualified to offer quality coaching. But in some cases this meant the amount of training dropped from 10 hours a week to three. It was a major step backwards”.

The biggest bee in Clifford’s bonnet is the quality and quantity of practice and coaching youngsters receive in England. After befriending Middlesbrough midfielder Juninho in 1995 he started to understand why Brazil produces more footballers than any other nation and, as he soon discovered, it was nothing to do with simply playing on the Copacabana.

“Brazil produces more players because the kids are practising three, four hours every day. Juninho used to despair of the training techniques at Boro,” says Clifford. “So much so that we use to go to a gym in the afternoon for more. But we couldn’t tell anyone, otherwise Bryan Robson (Boro’s then manager) would have gone mad.”

Clifford has spent much of the past 10 years driving the Establishment mad. Never more so than during his short spell as head of sports science at Southampton. Clifford was brought in to work individually with the club’s promising youngsters like Theo Walcott and Gareth Bale, but despite some encouraging feedback from the players, he found himself at odds with the first team manager Harry Redknapp and his assistant Dave Bassett. “They thought I was working the players too hard,” explains Clifford. “Then Martin Cranie, who had just broken into the first team, pulled a hamstring in training and I got the blame because I’d also been coaching him.” Clifford’s abrasive attitude meant confrontation was never too far away and after two months and 11 days, he left the South Coast under a cloud.Like his hero Brian Clough, Simon Clifford was born in Middlesbrough and is an outspoken maverick. He makes a lot of bold statements – “In the future I will own the England team” – and rash claims – “no-one has done as much as me for the grass roots game” – but despite the posturing he talks an awful lot of sense. He’s also willing to give credit where credit is due. When it comes to his hometown club, Middlesbrough, Clifford believes their academy, under the guidance of Dave Parnaby, is setting a rare, but good example of how to develop talent. “Dave’s not a big mouth like me,” says Clifford. “He’s a very humble, hard working guy who is producing great kids.”

He certainly is. On May 7, 2006, in the final match of the season against Fulham, all of Middlesbrough’s starting XI were born within 30 miles of the Riverside. “I’m fortunate,” says Parnaby, whose youngsters won the FA Youth Cup in 2004. “The chairman Steve Gibson and chief executive Keith Lamb have never wavered from their commitment to youth development. The managers, like Bryan Robson, Steve McClaren and now Gareth Southgate have also been ommitted. We’ve also been lucky in that we’ve had a stable league position so we could take a few chances. We’ve also played in Europe, which has meant a big squad that’s given youngsters a chance.”

But far from being satisfied with his lot, Dave Parnaby, like Simon Clifford, is downbeat about the direction youth development is going in this country. “There needs to be a major review,” says Parnaby forcefully. “The academy system has given us much better access to young players. But some clubs don’t have the right staffing levels, the quality of coaching or the right facilities. Standards have been eroded, but it all comes down to money.”

At the moment, the Premier League and FA give just $24 million to help fund the academies and centres of excellence in the Football League; that’s $350,000 per club. Other grants are available, but it’s no wonder that some of them aren’t up to standard.

“For me the model club is Crewe,” says Parnaby. “They have a great commitment to youngsters, a great manager, are well-organised and committed to playing in the right way.”

But even Crewe chairman John Bowler believes the Cheshire club’s commitment to youth is coming under pressure. Bowler, who has been chairman of Crewe for almost 20 years, believes rising costs and falling revenues are having a real impact in the League. He thinks that academies and centres of excellence – smaller, cheaper academies – will be the first things many clubs cut back on: “We are finding it harder and harder to carry on with such an extensive youth program.”

Bowler is fortunate to have had Dario Gradi as manager of Crewe for the past 24 years. Along with Manchester United’s Sir Alex Ferguson, Gradi was the longest serving manager at a single club. On July 1, Gradi, who has overseen the development of players like David Platt, Neil Lennon, Danny Murphy and Dean Ashton, became technical director at the club, and his new role will see him even more immersed in youth development than ever. His latest success, striker Luke Varney, has just been sold to Charlton for £2 million ($4.7m) – which will be re-invested in player development and as far, as Gradi is concerned, proof that the academy system works.

“We’re still producing good players,” Gradi enthuses. “We’ve now got the best boys playing against the best boys on fantastic facilities. But you have to trust that the players you produce are good enough. You never know how good a player is until you throw them in, but the top clubs don’t like taking risks any more. If you’re a youth team player at Manchester United, you’ve got to be a wonder kid to make it. Even their transfer policy is more cautious. The days are gone when a club like Liverpool would buy a player from us like Danny Murphy. These days the player would take the same route as Dean Ashton, for example.” Ashton moved to Norwich from Crewe for £3 million ($7m) in 2005 before securing his move to West Ham 12 months later.

But having the same manager for 24 years has allowed Crewe to implement a long-term vision. Sadly, long-termism is a scarce commodity in English football. “I was once watching our under-14’s playing a match,” explains Gradi. “I saw the first team manager of our opponents, which was a Championship club at the time, and I told him how glad I was to see him taking an interest in the kids. He said ‘Oh, I’m not here for that, I can’t get involved at this level, I won’t be around by the time they’re ready for the first team.’” Such is Gradi’s experience and knowledge of youth development, you could spend all day talking to him, but his final point raises another concern about the 1997 Charter for Quality.

“The main reason the top clubs aren’t interested in the academy system,” Gradi concludes, “is that they don’t like the one hour restriction because they can only develop players from their own patch.”

This rule was also introduced by Howard Wilkinson, and meant clubs were restricted to taking in players who live fewer than one hour or 90 minutes from the academy.

It was meant to stop the top clubs from poaching the country’s best youngsters, but has led to clubs (Arsenal in particular) being forced to look worldwide for the best players. The London club employs 28 full-time scouts who are working all over the world. You only have to look at the squad to see that very few have come from north London.

“Arsene Wenger bemoans the fact that he’s not allowed to look for players in England’s football heartlands,” says Philippe Auclair, L’Equipe’s London-based correspondent. “Most children’s football is played in the North West and the North East, but it’s out of Arsenal’s reach. That doesn’t mean to say Arsenal are neglecting their youth academy like many people say. In fact, Arsenal have produced more English players than any other club in recent years.” It’s a bold and surprising assertion, but on close inspection, Auclair’s view holds water. Ashley Cole, Stuart Taylor, Steve Sidwell, Matthew Upson, Jermaine Pennant, David Bentley are just a few names of players now plying their trade elsewhere in the Premiership. Of those players, only Cole was deemed good enough for regular first team football for the Gunners, while Sidwell is also at Chelsea now, albeit via Reading.

“Arsene doesn’t have anything against English players,” Auclair continues. “He’s just not convinced they all have what it takes to play at the top. But he likes English players, and Justin Hoyte is one who has a great future at Arsenal. His younger brother Gavin will be even better.”

So the problem seems to be that while clubs like Crewe, Middlesbrough and even Arsenal are producing plenty of good English players, good enough for the lower reaches of the Premiership and below, they’re not producing enough “great” players who will become future stars in the Champions League, England internationals and World Cup winners.

The problem is that with the influx of foreign players to the Premiership, the bar has been raised. Who’s the best player from Germany? Michael Ballack. Portugal? Ronaldo. France? Thierry Henry. How about Holland? Arjen Robben or Robin Van Persie. All played in the Premiership last season. English clubs need to keep up.

Dave Parnaby certainly believes Middlesbrough could be doing much more. “Are we producing enough skilful players?” he asks of Middlesbrough and English football in general. “That’s a tough question. But I don’t think we have enough youngsters playing eight-versus-eight, which is better for developing technique. Manchester United have come up with a four-versus-four programme for their eight to 11-year-olds, and it’s great – but United have the staff, the cash and the facilities to do it. We’d love to do that here and maybe that needs reviewing, but it costs money.”Access to players is another thorny subject, and while Dave Parnaby thinks he has “great” access to players, Southampton’s former youth coach George Prost believes access to certain age groups in England is limited and damaging.

Solve it, says the Frenchman, who was head of Marseille’s academy for seven years, and England’s 40-odd years of hurt will come to an end. “At Southampton, I had exactly the same access to the under-17s, 18s and 19s as I did in France,” says Prost, whose under-18s won the FA Premier Academy League in 2006. “But it’s the golden age – the under-13s, 14s and 15s – that England are missing out on. This is the age where tactically and technically they are the most receptive, but in England they only have two sessions a week. In France it would be five times a week. If this age group trained five times a week in England, you would be world champions in five years. I’m serious.”

Prost goes on to explain other factors that work in England’s favour. “French teenagers are crazy and undisciplined,” he explains in his typically colourful French accent. “But English lads are brilliant. They are self-motivated and they have a natural fighting spirit that French lads don’t have. The facilities are fantastic too, so for a coach, it’s a dream to work in England.” That said, after five years on the South Coast, Prost is leaving Saints to return to France. He cites “personal reasons” – but reading between the lines, he’s had enough of battling to get access to players he believes he could turn into world beaters. “In England, education is the most important thing,” Prost says in a deflated manner. “The FA needs to challenge this problem. At Marseille, I had a partnership with the directors of all the schools and colleges to make sure we got the players every day. It’s like this all over Europe.” Except in England, of course.

Prost is scathing about many of the attitudes in the English game. “Maybe because England invented the game,” says Prost, “the coaches don’t feel they have anything to learn. But the best coaches are curious and travel the world to pick up ideas.”

One such English coach is Steve Wigley, who worked with George Prost at Southampton as academy director. Most remember Wigley for his ill-fated 14-match tenure as the Saints’ first team coach in 2004, but there are few who have as much experience at coaching juniors. As well as his time at Southampton, Wigley worked with Paul Hart at Nottingham Forest’s academy and with England’s under-21s.

“I’ve spent a lot of time in Holland and France,” says Wigley. “And for me the best players need to be playing with and against each other regularly. That brings out the best in them because of the competition. In France they have regional centres where the best players come together to practise.” Wigley points to the Manchester United youth team of 1992, which boasted the likes of David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and Ryan Giggs, and believes that the more quality players you can get together on the same training pitch, the better. The West Ham youth side of the same period, which featured Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard, is another example of how competition within a group can help accelerate progress.

“In England, take the South Coast,” Wigley continues. “At Southampton, I might have had three or four really good players in the same age group at any given time. Portsmouth would have three or four, Brighton one or two and Bournemouth one or two. All those players would’ve improved if they’d come together in a regional centre, but it doesn’t happen here.”

What also doesn’t happen in England is the release of the club’s best young players to compete in international tournaments. When Steve Wigley worked with the country’s under-21s, he noticed a clear ambivalence on the part of the clubs when it came to tournaments like the World Youth Championship and other youth tournaments. “We played against Portugal when Ronaldo was only 17. He was playing for Sporting Lisbon’s first team at the time, but he played against us in May and then went on to play for Portugal U20s in Toulon in June. That was seen as acceptable, but that wouldn’t have happened in England.”

In 2003 Everton manager David Moyes refused to allow 17-year-old Wayne Rooney to play for England under-20s in the World Youth Championship in the United Arab Emirates. Instead, England fielded an under-strength team with Michael Chopra and Eddie Johnson up front and were knocked out at the group stages after defeats to Japan and Egypt. Compared to Spain, Holland, France and Portugal, England’s record at international youth level is poor. “I think if you don’t start winning those tournaments, it’s harder to win one further down the line,” says Wigley ruefully.

If you wanted a comprehensive list of the problems with youth development in England, you could write a book – a thick one. But as well as financial, organisational and structural problems in the system, talk to the people in the know and they’ll also tell you there are deep-seated cultural problems that need resolving before progress can be made.

David Winner’s book Those Feet: An Intimate History of English Football offers a clear picture of how English football developed out of a desire to prove one’s manliness. The Victorians essentially saw football as a rough and tumble sport in which namby-pambies weren’t welcome. Blood and sweat were a minimum requirement. Not much has changed in the intervening 150 years, and historically English football has always viewed creativity, delicacy and individuality with the utmost suspicion. Just ask Charlie George, Rodney Marsh, Glenn Hoddle and Matt Le Tissier, among others, whose sublime skills and penchant for playing entertaining football didn’t go down well with a succession of England managers.

“Look at a player like Ronaldinho,” says Dario Gradi. “When Brazilians practise, all they want to do is caress the ball, do keepy-ups and tricks. I try to get my boys to do this, but as soon as my back is turned they smash the ball in the back of the net!” Gradi seems to be suggesting that English players have some kind of flawed DNA when it comes to skill and inventiveness. “We had a player called Rodney Jack,” explains Gradi. “He could do anything with the ball, but he’s from the Caribbean.”

Dave Parnaby also believes there needs to be a “cultural revolution” in England if progress is to be made. “The North East is a vibrant area when it comes to youth football,” says Parnaby. “But there are a lot of ugly aspects to organised football. We’re struggling to recruit referees because of abusive parents on the sidelines. The coaches of youth teams often say that winning isn’t important, but when there are two youth teams, one in Newcastle shirts and the other in Middlesbrough shirts, winning is everything. Kids don’t play on the streets anymore and they’ve always got a coach, a parent or a referee telling them what they can or can’t do. That’s no way for them to develop skills.”

Simon Clifford believes Futebol de Salao can help do that, but above all else he thinks the biggest cultural change that is required in this country is the eradication of what he calls a “culture of sloppiness”.

“A lot of managers don’t like players to do extra training in case they get injured,” Clifford says, speaking from his bitter experience at Southampton. “But the fitter the player, the less chance there is of them getting injured.” You only have to look at England’s disastrous World Cup campaign last year to see how such attitudes have contributed to failure. In Germany, Frank Lampard and other senior players complained that they weren’t doing enough training because coach Sven-Göran Eriksson was worried about injuries.

In Clifford’s time at Southampton, he claims the younger players also wanted to do extra sessions, but the idea of extra work is often frowned upon in the English game. “Theo Walcott, Dexter Blackstock and Leon Best all enjoyed the extra work I did with them,” says Clifford. “Nathan Dyer went out on loan to Burnley and after a month he rang me to say he wasn’t training enough. But it seems in this country if you put in the extra work you get called a ‘busy bastard’. That seems to be a well-used term in football. Boxers and other
athletes all do extra training, but it’s uncommon for footballers in England.”

However, some clubs are getting their players to put in the extra hours – and, as Clifford demands, do extra work on individual skills. Manchester United has hired a dedicated skills coach, Dutchman Rene Meulensteen, who works with the club’s youngsters and has also had a positive effect on Cristiano Ronaldo this year. Tottenham has another Dutchman, Ricardo Moniz, doing a similar job – but not all clubs are so enlightened.To see what the best of English youth football has to offer, FourFourTwo went along to the final of this year’s FA Youth Cup between Liverpool and Manchester United at Old Trafford. Half an hour before kick-off, and Sir Matt Busby Way is almost as busy as it is before a Premiership or Champions League fixture: evidence, if it were needed, of the massive interest in youth football on these shores.

Inside the stadium, most of the lower tier is full, and later on the official attendance is announced as 28,000. But whether it’s the expectant crowd, the nerves of playing in a final, or the edginess of a big North West derby, the football on offer leaves a lot to be desired. United’s number 10, Chris Fagan from Dublin, looks very promising. The striker has got pace and passion and regularly drops deep like Wayne Rooney, causing Liverpool numerous problems.

But in terms of poise, touch and class, only one player really stands out above the rest – Liverpool’s number eight. His name? Astrit Ajdarevic. He’s not English of course, but a Swedish junior international. It’s depressing for English football to think that of all the players on show, maybe the two with the best chance of making their first teams are Irish and Swedish.

After being 2-1 down from the first leg at Anfield, Liverpool score the only goal of the night at Old Trafford, making it 2-2 on aggregate, forcing a penalty shoot-out which the Merseysiders win 4-3. It’s Liverpool’s second successive FA Youth Cup triumph, and for their coach Steve Heighway, his last match as head of the club’s academy. He’s stepping down from the job after 19 years in which he groomed a host of players including Robbie Fowler, Steve McManaman, Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard. Heighway’s reasons for leaving become clear a week later when he lashes out at Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez in an article in The Times.

“In my view, I’m the best coach of 17 and 18-year-old players at this club,” he said. “But I no longer get the chance to do that. That’s crazy, that’s mad. It’s to the detriment of the young players at this club.”

Heighway’s main bone of contention is Benitez’s view that some of the youth players should leave the academy and join Liverpool’s reserve team, but Heighway believes reserve teams are a waste of time and that his best players should either stay with him at the academy or go into the first team, as Michael Owen famously did. The former Liverpool winger also urged football to engage in a serious debate about the damage being done to young players because of “outdated reserve football”. There needs to be a debate about a whole lot more than that.

Many of the people FourFourTwo has spoken to in the past month have talked at length about the numerous problems in youth football and have offered plenty of solutions – some obvious, some radical. But who is listening? Many of them are putting their faith in Richard Lewis’s review of young player development, hoping that something concrete will come from it. It won’t. The review has been conducted by the FA, The Premier League and the Football League and is intended to examine the framework and funding for young player development. But ask Sir Trevor Brooking about the review, and you can see why there’s little reason for optimism.

“In early 2006, we [the FA] asked the Premier League and the Football League if we could revamp youth development,” says Brooking with frustration. “They said no. We finally agreed to commission a review, between the three of us, but it was decided that it wasn’t going to be a football person who would do it.”

Richard Lewis is chief executive of Rugby Football League. It’s thought that Brooking wanted a football figure like Graham Taylor or David Pleat to head the review, but the Premier League and Football League were concerned the findings might not be in their best interests. Therein lies a fundamental flaw in how English football is governed. “We’ve got governing bodies like the Premier League who are regulating themselves,” says Brooking, who admits he has no idea what, if anything, will come of the Richard Lewis review. “Nowhere else would this be acceptable, but instead we have a situation where the football leagues are often working against the governing body. I’d like the FA to have more control of youth development, but it isn’t easy.”

Brooking is at least trying to have a positive affect, particularly in the five to 11 age group, an area largely ignored before 1997. The FA has just appointed two national and nine regional coaches in this age group, while a further 66 skills coaches for five to 11s are also now working in 12 counties. Brooking believes this age group shouldn’t just be playing football, and must be offered multi-skill, multi-sport programs at schools and clubs. Otherwise, many youngsters won’t have the co-ordination to make it as professional footballers. Indeed, a Department of Education study found that 60 percent of 11-year-olds are physically illiterate; they simply don’t possess the ABC of physical movement: agility, balance and co-ordination.

“English players aren’t good enough,” laments Brooking. “Look at the Premiership: only 40 percent of the starting line-ups are genuine home-grown players. In Italy, it’s 70 percent. People say the new UEFA regulations on home-grown players will help, but they won’t. The UEFA quotas can all be filled with foreign players. I can see a situation where all our academies are packed with future World Cup winners… but none of them will be English.”

While countries like Holland, France and Spain implement their well thought out, meticulously planned youth schemes, English football is still talking about what to do. Riddled with conflicting interests, contradictions and problems, youth development seems to be going in circles.

The professional clubs are unwilling to have their academies audited, so standards vary and quality control is non-existent. The Premier League is even more unwilling to spread its enormous wealth down to the grass roots. The game’s governing body appears toothless and incompetent.

“There’s no leadership in this country,” says Simon Clifford. “Who’s in charge? Is it the Premier League? The Football League? The Football Association? Nobody knows, so nothing gets done. I just do my own thing. We’ve achieved an awful at Futebol de Salao, and we’ve done it all without a Football Foundation grant or any assistance from the FA”. Clifford also has Socatots, a football-specific play program for children from six months to five years old. He’s a busy man.

“I just get on with it” says Clifford. “Everybody else just seems to talk about youth development. But will we still be talking about it in four or eight years time? Because if we are, I honestly think England will be struggling to qualify for major tournaments by then.”

As alarming as that may sound, it’s a view which is shared by many in the game today. From radicals like Simon Clifford, to establishment figures such as Sir Trevor Brooking, to experts in youth development like Dave Parnaby, they all believe that if something isn’t done soon, English football and consequently the national team will pay a very heavy price. Could the last English player to leave the dressing room please turn out the lights?