Spurs should be buying more Spanish youth
The Premier League has long been a league where youth is not given it's chance. The number of English players is diminishing as cheap ready-made foreign imports are developed quicker overseas and bought.
We live in a now world, everyone wants everything now and waiting for youth to develop is for many not an option. The theory is fine but if it affects points people turn against it, for a club to stick with it takes courage.
Abroad, without the Premier League money, it is vital that clubs produce players and sell them on, it's how they survive so players are introduced and therefore develop with first team exposure at a faster rate. In Spain the youth are brought up with a team ethic where here we are more individual based, we look for a player to make the difference. Spanish clubs create a team that makes the difference.
Mauricio Pochettino played in and coached in Spain, transforming the Espanyol youth academy while he was there. They had to sell players every window to stay afloat so working with the youth became even more important. I have long held the view that we should have a tie up with a Spanish club and that we should send our youngsters abroad during their development to get early first team football.
Chelsea now buy players and loan them out to foreign leagues as an investment or to produce players for themselves. We are using the loan system better than we were but there is more we can do and we should also look at exploring the Spanish youth academies.
We have talked with Barcelona and continue to look at their youngsters, we had a tie-up with Real Madrid but that was surrounding coaching information. Italian clubs regularly dip into Spanish academies to buy players but you don't see many come to the Premier League, Cesc Fabregas being a notable exception.
Spanish players are taught from a very young age to keep possession at all costs, technical and ball skills are valued over physicality and athleticism. Over here it's different, if you look at the birthdays of boys picked up by clubs in each year you'll see it is the physically more mature who get selected. The little guy, born at the wrong time of the year gets overlooked, not in Spain.
We are currently looking at buying Pedro Obiang who Sampdoria took from Spain along with Argentine Mauro Icardi who is wanted by Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool but has just committed his future to his current club Inter Milan. Sampdoria picked Icardi up for £264,000 (US$406,528 - AUS$526,202 - €360,080) in 2011 and sold him for £10.56 million (US$16.26m - AUS$21.05m - €14.40m) in 2013, he is worth well over double that now. Obiang was picked up for less than half the Icardi fee and it is thought he will make a decision on his future this week with Spurs or West Ham his destination.
We have Harry Kane, we have Marcus Edwards coming through who Barcelona are watching closely and have noted as a player who is going to have a big future. We scour the world for young talent, we don't bring many from Spain, yet they have the footballing education we need in players. The Spanish are taught not to hoof the ball, common in England.
It is only recently that youth coaching in this country has changed. It used to be all ages played on a full size pitch so the only way 7 year old could get the ball to the other end was boot it and chase. The Spanish play youth football on smaller pitches so their players come through having been taught to pass not boot. That will take it's time to work it's way through our system. A 7 year old five years go is still only 12 and it'll be 10 years before he has worked through an academy system. It is already in the Spanish psyche to pass and play possession football.
Keita Balde Diao is another striker who Liverpool are very interested in, after Lazio snapped him up from Barcelona he smashed 47 goals in a season for their youth side. At 20 he is now starting to get opportunities in their first team but it's thought he will go on to be a quality striker.
Spanish and Italian sides sign players from South America because they are allowed to buy players with third party ownership, in England we are not. As a result we miss all the young talent that comes from the region and end up looking to buy it when they have already started to make their name, by which time it's too late.
It will be difficult to turn that around, we try but without success, Spain is a little closer to home and it's a market we should study closely.
Related articles: Developing Youth
DeAndre Yedlin gives Pochettino a problem
We live in a now world, everyone wants everything now and waiting for youth to develop is for many not an option. The theory is fine but if it affects points people turn against it, for a club to stick with it takes courage.
Abroad, without the Premier League money, it is vital that clubs produce players and sell them on, it's how they survive so players are introduced and therefore develop with first team exposure at a faster rate. In Spain the youth are brought up with a team ethic where here we are more individual based, we look for a player to make the difference. Spanish clubs create a team that makes the difference.
Mauricio Pochettino played in and coached in Spain, transforming the Espanyol youth academy while he was there. They had to sell players every window to stay afloat so working with the youth became even more important. I have long held the view that we should have a tie up with a Spanish club and that we should send our youngsters abroad during their development to get early first team football.
Chelsea now buy players and loan them out to foreign leagues as an investment or to produce players for themselves. We are using the loan system better than we were but there is more we can do and we should also look at exploring the Spanish youth academies.
We have talked with Barcelona and continue to look at their youngsters, we had a tie-up with Real Madrid but that was surrounding coaching information. Italian clubs regularly dip into Spanish academies to buy players but you don't see many come to the Premier League, Cesc Fabregas being a notable exception.
Spanish players are taught from a very young age to keep possession at all costs, technical and ball skills are valued over physicality and athleticism. Over here it's different, if you look at the birthdays of boys picked up by clubs in each year you'll see it is the physically more mature who get selected. The little guy, born at the wrong time of the year gets overlooked, not in Spain.
We are currently looking at buying Pedro Obiang who Sampdoria took from Spain along with Argentine Mauro Icardi who is wanted by Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool but has just committed his future to his current club Inter Milan. Sampdoria picked Icardi up for £264,000 (US$406,528 - AUS$526,202 - €360,080) in 2011 and sold him for £10.56 million (US$16.26m - AUS$21.05m - €14.40m) in 2013, he is worth well over double that now. Obiang was picked up for less than half the Icardi fee and it is thought he will make a decision on his future this week with Spurs or West Ham his destination.
We have Harry Kane, we have Marcus Edwards coming through who Barcelona are watching closely and have noted as a player who is going to have a big future. We scour the world for young talent, we don't bring many from Spain, yet they have the footballing education we need in players. The Spanish are taught not to hoof the ball, common in England.
It is only recently that youth coaching in this country has changed. It used to be all ages played on a full size pitch so the only way 7 year old could get the ball to the other end was boot it and chase. The Spanish play youth football on smaller pitches so their players come through having been taught to pass not boot. That will take it's time to work it's way through our system. A 7 year old five years go is still only 12 and it'll be 10 years before he has worked through an academy system. It is already in the Spanish psyche to pass and play possession football.
Keita Balde Diao is another striker who Liverpool are very interested in, after Lazio snapped him up from Barcelona he smashed 47 goals in a season for their youth side. At 20 he is now starting to get opportunities in their first team but it's thought he will go on to be a quality striker.
Spanish and Italian sides sign players from South America because they are allowed to buy players with third party ownership, in England we are not. As a result we miss all the young talent that comes from the region and end up looking to buy it when they have already started to make their name, by which time it's too late.
It will be difficult to turn that around, we try but without success, Spain is a little closer to home and it's a market we should study closely.
Related articles: Developing Youth
DeAndre Yedlin gives Pochettino a problem
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