Belgium’s Approach to ‘Small’ Players
Very good article on how Belgium have nurtured ‘late-developers’ which has resulted in them producing some of the current best players in the world.
It is a problem seen far too often in English youth football – the system favors the players born in September to December.
Physical comparisons of the players born in May to August can sometimes mean they are left behind as the ‘bigger’, ‘stronger’ and ‘faster’ players naturally look better in games.
How often do we hear ‘he’s too small’? In our opinion it means clubs miss out on top players who, if they gave them time, could develop into something special i.e. Lionel Messi, Zola, Paul Scholes, Iniesta etc.
It is good to see some English clubs are identifying this as an area that needs addressing and coming up with new ideas to remedy it. Lets hope others follow suit and don’t just rely on the easy, quick option of buying ready made foreign players.
Should there be something done at the junior amateur level as well? Teams of children with similar physical attributes instead of school year groups? We’ll see. For the England national teams’ sake lets hope so!!