(Source: Goal.com)
At 9 o'clock Beijing time tonight, England will welcome Iran, the first opponent of this World Cup, at Khalifa International Stadium. Against opponents who have never qualified for the World Cup knockout round, Southgate's side will surely go all out to get off to a good start.
The "Three Lions" is led by Harry Kane, with many stars such as Raheem Sterling, Rashford and Foden listed. According to the latest statistics from the Swiss Football Observatory, the total value of the English team players is as high as 1.499 billion euros, leading the round of 32. Among them, the talented star Bellingham became the most expensive player in this World Cup with a value of 202 million euros.
Compared to the World Cup in Russia four years ago, the England team with Kane as the core is more mature. On the stage of the World Cup in Qatar, they are eager to prove themselves.
01 Is it a "male lion" or a "sick cat"?
Although England have a 150-year history of football, at first they scoffed at the World Cup. In the three World Cups before World War II, England, which prides itself on being the "football hegemon", refused to participate, believing that the game was meaningless.
It was not until 1950, after World War II, that England was willing to put aside its arrogant posture and go to South America to participate in the World Cup. England at the time had star players such as Stanley Matthews, Ramsey, Billy White and Tom Finley, and was seen as favourites. After beating Chile 2-0 in the opening game, England are even more confident of winning the title. However, in the second round of the group stage, they showed their horses' feet. After being scored first by the United States, England had no choice, and although they took the initiative on the field, they were never able to break through the opponent's door. In the end, they lost 1-0, breaking out the biggest upset of the tournament. They then lost to Spain and returned home after three matches.
After suffering a crushing defeat in their first World Cup trip, England have participated in three consecutive World Cups, reaching the second round of the group stage twice and stopping the first round once, with tepid results. It wasn't until the 1966 World Cup on home soil that England finally showed its fangs to the outside world.
In this World Cup, the host England team made it all the way to the final under Bobby Charlton, and they faced the Federal Republic of Germany in the final match. In the final, thanks to a hat-trick by Jeff Hurst, England won extra time and won the World Cup for the first time, which was also the only World Cup title in England's history.
Perhaps the Englishman himself did not expect that the victory on his doorstep was only the team's final highlight. Since then, the English senior team has not had any more honours. Whether it's the World Cup or the European Championship, England are almost always listed as favourites to win the international competition, but they miss out on the title every time. This also led many fans to ridicule the English team's nickname "Three Lions" as the "Three Meow Army" to satirize the English team, which began to weaken as soon as the tournament arrived.
But in recent years, with the continuous emergence and growth of talented stars, England has also gone further and further in the competition. Reaching the last four of the World Cup and finishing runners-up in Europe last summer, the young England team are proving that they are worthy of the title of traditional powerhouse. At the World Cup in Qatar, "bring football home" is no longer a slogan.
02 The world's No. 1 football league
As currently the most watched sports league in the world, the Premier League is televised in 212 regions around the world, with a potential audience of around 4.7 billion people. The high revenue, high viewing and solid historical foundation of the Premier League make the Premier League a well-deserved world number one league. In the 26-man squad of England for this World Cup, except for Bellingham from Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga, the other 25 leagues are all from the local Premier League. Among them, a total of 17 are from the Premier League's BIG6 (Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham) teams.
▲ Manchester City's 22-year-old young player Foden (right) will be a sharp knife in England's striker. (Source: Xinhua News Agency)
As the world's largest football league, the clubs of the Premier League attach great importance to the investment and construction of their own youth training, and some giants' youth training investment can even reach 100 million pounds a year. Here, each team has its own youth training center, which divides young players aged 9-18 into six age tiers, imparting the theoretical knowledge that best suits them at different stages of growth, providing the training method and intensity that is most conducive to the growth of physical function.
In addition, most of the small teams in England's second to fourth tier EFL leagues (Championship, League One, League Two) also have their own youth training bases, mainly responsible for youth football popularization and training in the local community. Bellingham, who currently plays for Borussia Dortmund, made his debut for Birmingham City FC in the Championship. But in general, the talented players produced by these small teams are often taken by scouts to the youth bases of major Premier League clubs in the age group of 12-14 years old, where they will receive more systematic and professional guidance.
At the same time, the Premier League also launched the "Premier League Elite Player Development Programme" (EPPP) in 2012, aiming to develop more and better local players. The goal of this programme is to produce well-rounded and outstanding footballers by providing a world-class education through a range of inspiring and innovative teaching. The programme is divided into three phases: basic development (under 9 to 11 years), adolescent development (U12 to U16) and professional development (U17 to U23).
To further enhance the professionalism of the EPPP programme, the Premier League has set up a dedicated education department to support the technical, tactical, physical, mental, lifestyle and welfare development of all Academy players. The Premier League is also responsible for providing formal education to all players aged 16-19, and the Education Department also monitors and monitors the clubs' full-time, hybrid and part-time training models to ensure that players' academic progress is maintained and the protection and well-being of young people are enhanced. In 2020, the Premier League also launched the Elite Coaching Programme (ECP), which provides world-leading education services to young players.
The completion of the EPPP project not only breaks the inherent talent selection model, enhances the circulation of talents, but also promotes the flow of capital to grassroots youth training, increases the construction of grassroots football-related hardware facilities, and builds more stages and opportunities for young players to show themselves.
(Source: Premier League official website)
In recent years, England has seen a boom in talent, and the stars of hope when national youth teams at all levels win the competition have achieved considerable growth, largely thanks to the success of the EPPP program. In 2017, England won the FIFA U20 World Cup and the U17 World Cup. A large number of young homegrown players have gone from youth to professional competition, showing their talents on the highest stage such as the Premier League. In this World Cup squad, Foden from Manchester City, Marcus Rashford from Manchester United, Mount from Chelsea, Kane from Tottenham, Alexander-Arnold from Liverpool, Saka from Arsenal and others were all selected, all of whom joined the club's youth training at the age of eight or nine and became the mainstay of the club along the way.
03 Can a male lion awaken?
The average age of the England 26ers squad is 26.46, which is a bit younger than the other favourites. Although as many as 12 people in this list participated in the last World Cup, the new talent that has emerged in the Premier League in four years is inexhaustible, so England still maintain the young squad this time. Looking at the average age of England's third line, almost every position on the pitch is guaranteed to lead the old with the new, and the 29-year-old Kane, the 32-year-old Henderson and the 32-year-old Walker are all representatives of the style and experience of the English national team.
It is worth mentioning that not all of the England squad for this World Cup are from England, and some players still have exotic blood. For example, the team's main winger Raheem Sterling, who is from Jamaica in the Caribbean, another winger, Saka, is of Nigerian origin, and two players of Irish origin - Dry Rice and Cliff Grealish. These players provide the English team with a richer range of tactical options and plays, especially the two black players, making up for the lack of explosive players on the wing.
▲ Sterling. (Source: FIFA)
From the current situation, England's sluggish performance after the European Championship has undoubtedly cast a shadow on the road to winning this World Cup. Manager Gardo Southgate has been criticized since last year's European Championship, and the strength of Sancho, Tony, Tomori and others have not been selected for the national team, which has also made many English fans dissatisfied. As the BBC commented on: "Although the Three Lions have the strongest squad in nearly two decades, whether they can break the spell depends largely on Southgate's tactical arrangement and the mentality adjustment of the whole team." ”