Following the media frenzy over Wayne Rooney, Barney Ronay looks at teenage players who have acquired star status without even stepping on to the pitch
“Just 16, with brutal power and terrifying pace. The man-boy has nerves of steel and fears no one. He is Wayne Rooney. He is… A PHENOMENON”
French players and managers are already all the rage in England. Now they are exporting their behind-the-scenes coaches as well. Ben Lyttleton reports
July 14, 1998, was one of Francisco Filho’s most memorable days in his 28 years at the Institut National du Football, based at Clairefontaine. “It was two days after France had won the World Cup,” Manchester United’s new Under-17 coach said. “Gérard Houllier told us he was leaving for Liverpool and Aimé Jacquet’s first words were: “We need to further improve our training.” He didn’t even mention what had happened two days earlier. I was taken aback, but that’s an example which illustrates the success of French training methods.”
Andy Lyons asks Nottingham Forest manager Paul Hart about the way young players are brought up in England and the pitfalls of blooding them at an early age
With Howard Wilkinson now departing as England’s technical director, how successful would you say his reforms have been?
In terms of getting clubs to focus on producing young players, I think he’s been pretty successful. The criteria laid down to become an academy, including the fact that all players have to live within an hour and half’s travelling time of the club they join, I think was neccesary. It depends which end of the scale you’re at. If you’re one of the bigger clubs, then I don’t know whether they would see it as restrictive for their recruitment. But for me it’s been the right thing. We had three Notts boys last year represent England at different levels.
There are more Latvians than you might think in English football – it's just that very few are actually appearing on the pitch. Daunis Auers numbers them off
Rather unexpectedly, the late 1990s saw an exodus of the best Latvian footballers to England. It was actively encouraged by the spectacularly unsuccessful (yet annoyingly optimistic) former manager of the national side, Gary Johnson. It all seemed a bit odd because, despite a promising start to Euro 2004 qualifying, the national side is essentially crap and the eternal champions, Skonto FC, have never set Europe alight. Indeed, Latvian football in general has a Venables-like tradition of glorious failure: Skonto 2-1 up at Barcelona with a few minutes to go in qualifying for the 1997-98 Champions League, only to lose 3-2; outplaying Scotland in the first 2002 World Cup qualifier only to lose to a last-minute Don Hutchison goal; having an 86th-minute winner against Sweden in the first Euro 2004 qualifier wrongly disallowed for offside. I could go on. But I won’t.
Titi Camara was the catalyst for Harry Redknapp's departure from West Ham, and Glenn Roeder isn't too keen either. Darron Kirkby looks at the brief highlights
In his first 20 months with West Ham, Titi Camara played only 485 minutes – and just 94 of them were at home. Perhaps more than any other player, Titi’s bearing on the club’s history is completely disproportionate to his on-field contribution. Five months after he joined for £1.7 million, the man who signed him, Harry Redknapp, was out of a job. The most regularly aired reason put forward for his departure was that the board had lost faith in his judgment after Redknapp had squandered what little of the Rio Ferdinand money he had been given on the likes of Rigobert Song, Ragnvald Soma and, above all, Titi Camara.