The Naturally Talented Delusion

"Natural talent is an innate or inborn gift for a specific activity, either allowing one to demonstrate some immediate skill without practice, or to gain skill rapidly with minimal practice."

Much like when one is of a religious faith, there is no real empirical evidence to suggest that it is true. That's why we use the word "faith". Natural talent is perhaps different to natural ability. Natural ability means that one has a propensity to be able to do something better due to their DNA. Natural talent, by some vantage points, can be considered an oxymoron. Talent usually requires some form of practise, where as natural implies the opposite. In a complex and diverse sport such as football, there is no way that natural talent can be a thing. That's not to say that some players may have a natural propensity to develop muscle better than others, or that they may be taller, have more fast twitch fibres and thus be able to accelerate quicker, but such factors are only small, tiny, minute advantages. The rest is all down to technique and decision making. There's nothing natural about that.

Like a lot of the misinformation within the conventional wisdom of football, it probably stems from grossly overestimating certain factors. We'll start by looking at relative age effect.

Stealing from Wikipedia, relative age effect is used to describe a bias, evident in the upper echelons of youth sport and academia, where participation is higher amongst those born early in the relevant selection period than would be expected from the normalised distribution of live births. The football selection season in England follows the school year, which is from September until August. A child born on September 1st is a year older than a child born August 31st the following year, yet they end up in the same class and the same team. At the age of six, it makes the first child 17% older than the second child. That's an extra year of growing, and an extra year of skill development. With that comes height, strength, posture, agility, balance, coordination, speed, and cognitive processing. If you were to have an advantage in all those areas, simply because you were born twelve months earlier, you'd appear to be naturally talented when compared to your peers in the same group.

Other countries in Europe do it from January to December, putting them in line with the UEFA youth competitions.

Wow. Look at all those naturally talented January players. Amazing. There are professional footballers born in the other parts of the year. We know this. It's not a cast-iron rule that you will only make it if you are born towards the beginning of your season. It's just like another kind of privilege. Those that are born towards the start of the season will look better from the early ages than those born towards the end. This means they are more likely to be picked up by scouts or accepted into better teams. This exposes them to better coaches, more competitive training, and tougher opponents. Such experiences are not afforded to those that don't make the grade from an early age.

Such an excellent comic, and so poignant. Let's not take away the hard work Richard would have put in along the way. One does not achieve success without hard work, but we all know that's not the point being made here (surely? I've read the comments sections on this comic's post) is that Richard kept getting opportunities that were unable to be afforded to Paula. We are all products of our environment. We're dealt different hands at birth, and relative age effect is one advantage that then leads to many other advantages along the way.

A blogger on the site Blueprint Tennis has discussed similar themes before. Many like to attack the 10,000 hours rule. The term "rule" is used loosely. I have written about this several times, so here's a brief recap:

• 10,000 hour rule is not a rule.
• The amount of time taken to achieve expert level in any given skill will depend on the complexities of the skills required to learn. Your skill may only require 4,000 hours, or it may require 10,000 hours.
• Some skills are age specific. You will not become a world class gymnast without intense training from a very young age. The physiology of an older gymnast, or a child starting out too old, will simply not allow it. A skill like chess which is more down to tactics and decision making than any such technical skill (is the way you move the pieces with your fingers a skill?) can be mastered at an older age.
• The 10,000 (or whatever) hours are pointless if you are practising poorly, working on the wrong things, or are not giving it your all. The quality of practice is similar in importance to the quantity of practice. One great training session does not make you a champion, and 10,000 poor training sessions will only make you consistent at being terrible.
• Expert level also depends on the level of competitors. Hundreds of millions of people play football worldwide. Even with a lifetime of devotion, the chances of reaching the top are slim. Compare that to a new sport that is not professionalised like ultimate frisbee (super rad!) with less competitors, it's a shorter journey to the top. Case in point, the people that were not good enough at any other sport at my college joined the ultimate frisbee team. They ended up coming third in the world championships.

10,000 Hour Haters.

It's the power of practice. And remember kids, it's not practice makes perfect, it's practice makes permanent. Practise the wrong things and you'll be bad at it. Everything to do with success has an element of consistency. Remember, as Aristotle said; "We are what we repeatedly do, therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit." And one more for luck; "Under pressure, you don't rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training. That's why we train so hard."

Of course, the dissenters are not yet convinced. Not even flinching. Don't worry, there's a long way to go yet. Continuing with skill development, it can take well over ten years of training to be able to competently execute most football skills. And outfield players do not peak until they are twenty-eight years old. There's so much learning and growing to be done.

Typical of the kind of stats displayed for each player on Football Manager.

Seems quite in depth, right? Any decent coach will tell you that's by no mean an exhaustive list. Each of the terms are far too broad. Let's analyse. Take crossing. It seems fairly simple. How well can a player cross? According to this, Lionel Messi is rated as 14/20. Decent enough. Do I now feel confident in knowing what to expect from him if he's in a crossing position? Absolutely not. He may be great at cut-backs, but awful at whips. He might be able to send one in from deep, but not be able to float one from near. Are we talking about inside foot, outside foot, laces, or toes? Driven, floated, whipped, bent, drilled, chipped, curled etc. It also tells us nothing about his decision making. The crossing technique might be good, but does he do it too early or too late? Can he pinpoint his target, or does he consistently search for dangerous areas? Each of those crossing techniques is very hard to master, and few players can do them all. We also have to compound the technical ability with the tactical understanding and decision making. How can a player be naturally talented when there are so many skills that require learning and intense practise? How can a player be naturally talented, when even after the technical skills are developed, more importantly they need to develop the game intelligence to go with it?

Naturally talented might be a misunderstanding of good technique. I've heard a lot of dads explain boys (girls are never naturally talented, as the are not supposed to play football) as naturally talented. I don't see it like that. I see it as a boy that has, either through good posture or good coaching, developed a really smooth and effective technique, and has worked on that technique to incorporate it into muscle memory, making it appear like a natural response to the game around him. With no evidence, we're going on hunches, and misinterpreting good, solid, developed technique as being naturally talented.

Are there even enough strands of DNA to have all these skills programmed into from birth? People are not born to play football. We've been playing football as a species for little over 150 years. Footballers have been celebrities for about forty years. There's been not enough time for natural selection to take place, forcing us to mate based on potential footballing ability. Our survival does not depend upon being good at football (mine does), and as such, we're not choosing mates like this. like with animals and selective breeding. These days, when people are experiencing the joys of children with multiple partners, it's very much unselective breeding. The muscle memory involved with the different kicking techniques of a size five football are not being passed down from parents to kids, nor are the cognitive solutions to tactical situations that would create game intelligence. As football changes every ten years, my dad would have passed onto me being able to pass back to the goalkeeper, and him being allowed to pick the ball up. My Grandad's dad would have passed onto him goalkeepers being able to pick the ball up anywhere in their own half. There's no evolutionary advantage to be gained from being a good footballer.

I'm being a bit silly, but it's just not happening. If there were such a thing as natural talent, then we would see the children of successful players also becoming successful players. That's so incredibly rare that one could be forgiven for thinking it's entirely down to this myth of skill development and hard work. If we pretend for a moment that there is such a thing as natural talent, then surely Johan Cruyff would have passed it onto his son. We can then pretend that Jordi Cruyff was naturally talented. So why did he fail as a footballer? Why did he amount to so little? Could it be that any natural advantage passed onto him through his DNA is actually so insignificant when compared to the actual important things that contribute towards the development of top players?

So what is it then, that makes a footballer naturally talented? They're not born with the ability to pass and shoot. We know that. Mental skills are largely learnt, though some can be passed down through genetics. Is it something to do with athleticism? Is that what we're on about when we describe a footballer as naturally talented? What we mean is that they appear to have more speed, strength, and coordination. Okay. I can kind of see that. Let's make a comparison between the beast of Romelu Lukaku and the slight frame of Lionel Messi. Lukaku is twice the man Messi is, yet Messi is an infinitely more talented footballer. And that's the key word. TALENT. He developed his skills to an insane level. That's not difficult to understand. There is no magical force. There are no midichlorians. PEOPLE PRACTISE MORE AND DO BETTER PRACTICE. REPEATEDLY. OVER DECADES. And when questioned about his strength, Lukaku said he used to run to school every day, and do a large number of press-ups. His frame would have been given to him by genetics, but it was Lukaku himself that added the muscle. Then again, I believe it's only the English and the Americans that are impressed by that anyway. Messi, Iniesta, and Xavi would have been discarded at an early age due to their size if they were English.

As I have talked about in previous blogs, it's nothing more, nothing less, than the coaching, environment, and opportunity afforded to young players that makes them who they are. Football is too complex in terms of skills and decisions to have any such natural abilities. The only natural elements are things that can work against people. For instance, height is not that important, unless you are really short. Speed isn't that important, unless you are really slow. There will be the occasional header where the far taller player will win it easily, or the really fast player will race to the ball, and no one can stop him. Those advantages happen a few times per game. Just recently, with Portsmouth, we had an exceptionally fast winger. It was like an adult racing against children. I saw her give both the opposition winger and full back a head start, and still got to the ball first. We've adjusted our team to make use of this a few times. But if her speed were truly that important, we'd be winning 10-0 every game, and she'd be getting all the assists and goals. We still need to be able to create space for her, deliver the correct pass to her, and for her to time her run right, receive the ball appropriately, make the correct decision to dribble, pass, shoot, cross, and to execute that skill effectively. Per game, her rapid speed will probably give us somewhere between three and seven opportunities to create an attack that we wouldn't have had otherwise. It sounds like a lot, but when you consider it's a ninety minute game, it's only a small advantage. Still an advantage, but if she was either tactically stupid, or couldn't kick a ball, then her speed would be useless.

Is speed natural? To a very, very minute point. It's 99% down to practice. And a fast player with no skill is just a 100m sprinter that wears shinpads. Or Theo Walcott.

This article is easily one of the best I have ever read about football. The author is John Bolster working for Howler Magazine. Many Americans who don't know the game ask "What would happen if America's best athletes all played soccer?" Well, since they would know nothing about tactics, and would have a complete lack of relevant skill sets, despite their size, strength, and speed, they would be destroyed. Do you really think the New England Patriots would beat Barcelona at football? They'd struggle to get the ball off my U13s. As Cruyff said; "You play football with your head. Your legs are only there to help."

We'd all like our players to be stronger, tougher, and faster, but this can never make up for skill and decision making. If two teams were equal in terms of technique and tactics, you could then bet on the more athletic team. What this question does is it displays a gross misunderstanding of the skills required to play football, and grossly overestimates the physical element. I'd rather have a tall goalkeeper than a short goalkeeper, but I'm going to pick whichever one makes the most saves.

If we're going to examine kids that are around seven years old, we will note that some fit the vague description of naturally talented. What we're seeing here, which can sometimes be described by relative age effect, could also be from experience in other sports. Until the age of seven, it doesn't really matter what sport they're playing, as long as they're active. Their brains can't understand tactics yet, so that's not a problem, and most skills are so basic for competency at that age, they can be learnt in a short time... providing that they have agility, balance, and coordination. Before, I have used the example of the seven year old boy that came to play football for me in Mexico. He'd not played football before, but he took off like a natural. He'd been an avid swimmer, and was very sporty. He started off behind the other boys initially, as they had a basic understanding of the game that he didn't, as well as a skill set. But he could run, speed up and slow down, change direction, jump, and stand on one leg. Within weeks, he no longer looked like a beginner. And because he loved being active, and not specifically football, he did more sport in the week than most other players, and yet would still find time to kick a ball around for fun. Compare him, with prior sport experience, to the other beginners at seven, with no sport experience, and it's easy to see why he slotted into our football team with ease, and the complete sporting novices just didn't take to football. There was nothing natural about it. Even at such an early stage, experience counts for so much.

If we were to do an example right now, I am twenty-seven, and my girlfriend is twenty-five. Neither of us play badminton. If we both started competing, who would win? It should be even, as we're both beginners, but that's not true, due to all the transferable skills from other sports. I am far more sporty and athletic than she is. She was a girl raised in a Catholic society in a second world country. Women there are not yet people. And as such, she played very little sport. On the other hand, I played football from the day I could walk. I go to the gym most days, and have tried many other sports either through school or recreationally along the way. One could quite easily assume that there would be no contest. I've had no badminton lessons. What I would have is the ability to move quicker with my footwork, far better hand-eye coordination, the ability to recognise space and read visual cues such as body position, and to make quick decisions while moving. I'd probably make many unforced errors, because I am a badminton novice. I'd hit the net and miss the shuttlecock. She still wouldn't stand a chance though, because she'd be doing that and more. So are these kids we're scrutinising naturally talented, or have they just been more active at a fundamental stage?

Author Josh Kaufman talks about skill acquisition. "The first 20 hours - how to learn anything."

Skill acquisition, although we have to consider the needs of the learner, it's more down to the way the message is conveyed. Who remembers learning languages parrot fashion, with no real application to the real world? If you want us to speak foreign languages, then let us speak and interact, not copy tenses. It's the equivalent of dribbling around cones in a straight line. What does that actually teach you about football? It's down to the coach or the teacher.

The 10 Principles of Rapid Skill Acquisition:

1. Choose a lovable problem - when you become so curious about something that other things fall away, at least temporarily. Over the next month, I will apply RSA to learn Drupal, a web-publishing platform, from the ground up. I already use Drupal in my work at H-Net, but I want to have a better grasp of how the backend functions to troubleshoot technical problems.
2. Focus your energy on one skill at a time. Instead of trying to brush up on language skills, learn Python (a programming language), and Drupal, I am only focusing on Drupal.
3. Define your target performance level. Visualize what you'd like to be able to do when you have acquired the skill. I want to be able to build a Drupal site from installation on a server to the finished product and be familiar with additional plugins I can use to improve the site.
4. Deconstruct the skill into sub skills. For example, I already know how to install a content management system (CMS) on a server through file transfer, but I need to learn how to create a MySQL Database for Drupal as part of the installation process.
5. Obtain critical tools. For example, for yoga, you would want to have a mat, comfortable clothing, and a bottle of water. To learn Drupal, I need my laptop, a fast internet connection, and a resource book or two.
6. Eliminate barriers to practice. This one is really important! During the time you practice, turn off the TV, sign out of email, and at least silence your phone.  Close all other browser tabs and turn off all social media sites and apps if working on your computer. Let others know you’ll be unavailable (unless there’s an emergency, of course) for at least 90 minutes. Plan ahead. Finally, address any emotional blocks, such as fear, doubt, or embarrassment by talking through your anxieties with a trusted friend and establishing an accountability system for practice time (not for perfection!)
7. Make dedicated time for practice. Schedule it on your calendar and set a reminder. If it’s difficult to find a time, keep a time log and choose to eliminate low-value uses of time (checking Facebook for an hour during planned work-time, for instance). Make time for at least 90 minutes of practice a day.  Commit to practicing for at least 20 hours.
8. Create fast feedback loops. Look for tools like computer programs or training aids online. Ask other grad students, family, or friends who know what you’re trying to learn to serve as coaches. Capture devices like video cameras can give you a sense of how you're performing. Integrate as many feedback loops as you can into your practice. While I’m learning Drupal, I have a couple of guides that walk through steps and provide examples of what my work should look like at each stage. I also know several people who understand how the backend of Drupal works who can help if I get stuck.
9. Practice by the clock in short bursts. Try using the Pomodoro technique: Set a count-down timer for 25 minutes. Once you start the timer, you must practice until it goes off. Take a five minute break to stretch, clear your mind, and then get back to it! Shoot for 3 Pomodoros a day.
10. Emphasize quantity and speed. Don't focus on practicing perfectly! This is going to be a hard one for us, but it, too, is very important—maybe even the most important step to help us get past some of our common mental blocks.

A final note: Relying on willpower to overcome distractions is fighting a losing battle. We only have so much willpower at our disposal each day, and it's best to use that willpower wisely. Use it to remove soft barriers to practice. By rearranging your environment to make it as easy as possible to practice, you'll acquire the skill in far less time.

Written in this article by Ashley Sanders about Kaufman's book.

I smile better than she does.

Let us imagine a scenario. Two identical twin girls, Anna and Belinda, want to start playing football at the age of five. For whatever reason, the parents insist on their own individuality, and so take them to two different clubs. Rovers, where there are level two coaches with youth modules, who rotate positions and share playing time  is where Anna goes. Wanderers, a club where they are struggling for volunteers, and so is run by a dad with no prior coaching experience. who believes in winning at all costs, possesses strange motivation techniques such as shouting and questioning commitment, and loves showing a bit of PASHUN!!! is where Belinda goes.

 Anna has skills broken down for her in ways that are easy to understand, and plays fun games that provide plenty of repetition and decision making. She's encouraged to think and enjoys being with her new teammates. Belinda begins the session by running laps because her and her U6 teammates are not deemed fit enough by the coach. Most of the session is spent waiting her turn to dribble around cones while being screamed at.

In the games, Anna has been able to play in two different positions, understands when it is her time to come off, and doesn't mind taking a turn in goal since the team believes in fairness. Belinda doesn't get much time on the pitch because she wasn't very good at dribbling around the cones. She has the chance to go in goal, but when she did so before, she made a very silly mistake, and was shouted at, so left the game in tears.

I ride camels better than her.

Anna is starting to develop a love for the game. When it's not too cold outside, she goes in the back garden and runs around with a ball. She doesn't see it as football, but as time with her friends. She has asked her parents for a real football shirt for their birthday. Belinda has asked for books. Belinda doesn't join Anna in the garden, and in her last training session, asked to go to the toilet three times. She didn't play in the game at the end, saying her knee hurt, despite there being no mark, and nobody seeing a collision.

A year later, and Anna seems like a naturally talented player. She has good posture, has improved her speed, can talk confidently with her teammates, and has learnt how to turn, dribble, and pass. Belinda persisted for a while, but it was clear she was not enjoying it. Her parents took her out of the Wanderers team to join Anna's Rovers. Thanks to the brilliant rules of some youth leagues, Belinda wasn't able to play with Anna and her new teammates for the rest of that season, as she'd already played for Wanderers. Belinda is starting to enjoy training more, but has found it hard to break into a group of friends that are already established. She's one of the weaker players in the team, and the other players don't pass to her in training because she keeps making mistakes. She's very sad she doesn't get to take part in the games, and can't understand why.

I watch ice hockey better than her.

At family gatherings, the uncles, cousins, and grandfathers are always talking to Anna about her football team. Her dad has told them about the goals she scored, and how she has really started to learn plenty of skills. She can join in at the park and in the back garden when they all play together. Belinda isn't as good, and feels embarrassed. She gets a little jealous of the attention that Anna gets. She wants to quit football, but feels like she might make her family unhappy. While playing by herself, the ball comes over to her, and she attempts to kick it back, but misses completely and falls over onto her bum. At that moment the grandfather pipes up with "You can see which twin got all the football genes!"

It's likely that many can relate such a story. Poor Old Granddad. He has no idea about child development and skill acquisition, and has not see what his two granddaughters have been doing in training and games. He's taken a snapshot of their ability, and with his misinformed opinion, come to a wildly inaccurate conclusion. Others within earshot may potentially nod their heads and agree. Anna might believe she has a gift, and Belinda might believe she is naturally inferior. Remember that we need to praise effort, and not talent. This is the growth v fixed mindset.

According to the author of the brilliant book Mindset, we have to be careful with this, as she wrote in this TES article;

Set a high bar and help students reach it.

• 1. Lack of focus on outcomes

We are now seeing some educators piling on the praise for effort regardless of whether learning and progress have taken place. Our goal should be to teach students that effort is a means to learning and progress. The goal is not simply to make kids feel good about their lack of progress.

When students try hard but fail to progress, we can begin by appreciating their effort, but then we need to sit with them and say, “Show me what you’ve tried, and let’s figure out what you can try next” or “Tell me exactly what your thought process was when you did it this way, and let’s see if there are other ways that you can try.”

The teacher and student can then take steps to collaborate on how to move forward more effectively. In fact, successful teachers and tutors hold all students to high standards but help them to move toward those standards.

Students need an arsenal of things to do when they are confronting difficult work, not just brute force. Simply telling children “Try harder and you’ll get it” is often misleading. A growth mindset is not just about praising effort regardless of outcome: if students persevere with ineffective strategies, they may end up feeling particularly inadequate.

• 2. Praise isn’t just for when students struggle

A parent recently lamented to me that it was hard not to praise her child’s wonderful accomplishments and only praise her when she was struggling. I told her that of course she could praise the wonderful accomplishments, but she should tie them to what the child did – the strategies she used, the effort she put in, or the information and input she sought. We want students to understand that a good process leads to good learning. Any notion that growth mindset applies only to situations where a child is struggling is incorrect.

Of course, I understand that educators want to take the emphasis off outcomes like test scores. So do I. But I don’t want to take the emphasis off learning and progress. I want students to enjoy and to relish their learning and progress. With educators’ help, I want students to find their schoolwork meaningful and I want them to take pride in their growing skills and understanding.

So, praise the effort not the outcome? Let’s change that to: praise the effort (as well as the strategies, focus, perseverance and information-seeking) in relation to the outcome – with particular emphasis on learning and progress. True, it may not roll off of the tongue quite as easily, but it will certainly help our students more.

Talent is not a gift, it's a skill. These talented and successful players have worked very hard at honing their skills. You can say they may have been lucky with right time and right place, and had a favourable scenario. What you can't say is they didn't work hard when the opportunity arose. Naturally talented footballers have somehow become a thing, without it ever really being thought about. People seemed to have assumed that these amazingly talented humans must have had some kind of genetic gift. That's the only plausible explanation. Kind of like explaining everything by the use of gods. There's a moon god that comes out at night, and it's the sun god that makes our plants grow. We can explain away without much thought. Since we don't know what it really is, a nice easy explanation (which is also hard to prove) will suffice. For those without curiosity, the soundbite is enough. In some ways, it can also be a defence mechanism. "I worked hard enough to be a professional footballer, but I just didn't have the genes." Ridiculous, really.

I'm struggling to find any real evidence either way. There's not that much written about it. I suppose this myth is down to perpetuated collective wisdom, and has never been held up to scientific scrutiny because it is too broad a subject. One can be born with a more advantageous trait, as we discussed earlier, such as speed, but speed doth not maketh the footballer. Is it a convenient falsehood that surmises some form of innate superiority? I don't believe the footballers themselves think that. They know the hours of hard work, the commitment, the determination, and the sacrifice they put in. To describe it as a genetic gift is insulting to the player, their coaches, and their parents. No footballing parent will tell you about their successful son staying in bed until three every day eating crisps, and then smashing it on the football pitch without ever going to training. It does not happen. It's a myth that has come about from people that don't actually know what they're talking about.

Talent means there is a skill involved, and skills are not innate, which is what makes them different to reflexes. Skills are learnt, whereas reflexes can be developed, but many are natural. So the meaning of natural talent, at least in the way the users try to use it, doesn't actually mean that at all. By talent, they mean physical trait, like speed, strength, or coordination. What kind of advantage one is given of each attribute at birth is debatable. So instead of natural talent, people should use the phrase genetic trait or physical attribute. There's nothing natural about skills and decision making. The only thing natural about it is that you are not born incompetent in some way, like through a disability. As long as you have the tools, you can develop the skill.

Ergo, these natural talents genetic traits can give a slight advantage. In a sport such as sprinting, it is more noticeable, as that is measuring a limited number of factors. We only need to consider acceleration and maintaining your top speed. We can go further into running technique, such as stride distance, upper body position, arm pumping, and scrutinise the takeoff, but there's only a limited number of variables. Thus any slight advantage becomes even more noticeable. Like the marginal gains in cycling. Far easier to have such a profound effect in cycling because it is a one dimension sport. The skill is repeated over and over again, there's no real decision making apart from when to overtake. Cycling is more down to stamina and resilience. Can you keep going (physical), and will you keep going (mental)? Having a lighter seat or a more streamlined helmet can shave nanoseconds off a time. Football is too complex and multi-faceted for these things to have any real impact.

Referring back to Blueprint Tennis, the author asks the question Why do people love to believe in natural talent? Read the article. It comes down to four points; it's romantic, starting early builds skills and expertise that are unexpected for somebody so young, acquired skills feel automatic, and also the multiplier effect (think back to Anna v Belinda, and how just by having a more favourable start, Anna became a much better player).

A second article on the topic by the same author states that; there is a direct relationship between practice and performance, and top learners learnt their skills at the same rate as everyone else (they just spent more time learning, so would accumulate more knowledge).

As I keep saying, football is too complex for one of these genetic traits to make any difference over the many years that players will spend learning. If we put it in terms of a head start, it's about a foot in a 10k run. On top of that comes things like the coaches you have, parental support, the environment you play in, the opportunities that come your way, the luck (more realistically, avoidance of bad luck like injuries) and overwhelmingly, the quality and the quantity of your practice. It's not your genes.

Here's a reading list for you homies:

Outliers
Mindset
Talent Code
Gold Mines
The Bolt Supremacy
Bounce

When Does Ridiculous Become Xenophobia? Why is there a bias or a preference towards Britishness?

Throughout this piece, the terms "English" and "British" are not interchangeable. When I write English, I mean English. When I write British, I mean British. There's obviously a lot of overlap, and many other nations don't understand how our nation has four nations within one nation. Nevertheless, I wish to examine why so many fans and pundits insist on this concept of Britishness when it comes to coaches, what that actually means, and at what point do we cross the line from ridiculous and stupid to perhaps prejudice and xenophobia? Is there any evidence that would suggest we should stick with Brits?

I have looked into, in a previous article, just how important the coach is (in terms of WHO the coach is). The conclusion was that as long as they are not completely incompetent, then their own abilities rarely come into play, due to the large stew of ever changing variables that can affect the success of a team. There remains in the consensus of ageing pundits, armchair fans, and pub enthusiasts that British is best. Why? We once may have had the world's largest empire. The world was conquered again in the 1960s by British musicians. English has pretty much become a universal language. We did win the World Cup in 1966, and the Premier League is one of the most expensive and viewed leagues in the world.

Sounds pretty cool, right? I'm certainly swelling up with British bulldog pride. But what have we done since then? In 1992, when the top division of English football was rebranded as the Premier League (and Premiership), it sparked a revolution, changing football as we know it. What's even more amazing, is that to this day, no English manager has won it. It's a fact that is seldom mentioned by Paul Merson and the like when they ask "What does he know about the Premier League?" I have failed and succeeded both at home and abroad. Whereas being the foreigner, you can be at a disadvantage, not immediately knowing the language, players, teams, and customs, that's not too big of a barrier. Most of the world speaks English anyway, and there are plenty of very successful translators in football (Mourinho). On the other hand, being the outsider, you come in with fresh ideas and a new perspective. For instance, if we pick Mexico, and say there's a league of ten teams, that means nine coaches will be failing, doing things the Mexican way. Why not come in with your ideas and perceptions from your country, and apply them?

This Guardian article demonstrates some great work on the subject. Essentially, foreign managers are worth fourteen more points than British managers over a thirty-eight game season. That's a substantial amount. It also shows that club chairmen are quicker to fire foreign managers than they are British ones. As this is going to be a data intensive piece, let us begin with the current Premier League standings.

Premier League table with the head coach's nationality. On the right includes other head coaches this season.

As the table shows, there are currently no English managers in the top half of the English league. The first British entries are Tony Pulis and Mark Hughes at 8th and 9th. Eddie Howe is leading the way for the English in 11th place with Bournemouth.

Since the inception of the Premier League, as we know, no Premier League title has been won by an English manager. And thus, we require a second table.

Nationality of Premier League winning managers.

Evidently, Sir Alex Ferguson's achievements make him a freak of nature. He has won thirteen out of twenty-three titles to date. He retired three years ago, making it 13/20. 65% of Premier League titles belonged to just one manager. That's insanely good. Judging by the way things are going this season, it looks like there will be another Italian on the list. Unless Chelsea seriously slip up, that will make four titles for Italy, from four different managers.

Many dissenters might think that Ferguson's success might prove my point to be false. I believe it does the opposite. As a player, Ferguson never played in England. In fact, his first job in English football was manager of Manchester United. So what did he know about the Premier League? Dalglish is a living legend of Liverpool fame, but he will always be King Kenny to us Rovers supporters for his title winning season. The only one of the Premier League winning managers to have played in the Premier League was Roberto Mancini, making five appearances for Leicester City in 2001 at the age of thirty-six, and not once did he complete ninety minutes. In addition to their lack of English playing experience, Dalglish and Ranieri were the only ones to previously manage an English club before winning the league. Dalglish being in charge of Liverpool in what was the First Division, before the Rovers job, and Ranieri, the only one with Premier League experience, being at Chelsea over a decade before winning the title with Leicester.

Let's just reiterate this for the very important point it makes. Only one manager to win the Premier League had actually played in it (Mancini's five games at Leicester) and only one manager to win the Premier League had previously managed in the Premier League (Ranieri, spending four years at Chelsea, eleven years before managing Leicester). There is a slight caveat that Mourinho spent four seasons at Chelsea from 2004-2007, winning the title twice, and then came back in 2013 for three more seasons, winning it once. The point remains though. Their collective Premier League, or even football league playing and managing experience, was extremely limited. This begs the question... what did they know about the Premier League?

This wouldn't mean that football, is simply just... football... would it? It can't be the same game in all these other countries... right? Eleven versus eleven, on a grass pitch of similar size and dimensions, with a spherical ball, and two goals of the exact same size. Hmmm. I'm starting to think that cultural differences, perceived or otherwise, count for very little.

Let us go back to the first table of this piece, and in addition to nationality, we're going to look at Premier League experience.

Premier League, with nationalities and Premier League experience. Any season taken part in, whether fully completed or not, counts as one season that was experienced by that manager. The stars show clubs with manager changes.

It's surely obvious, but there clearly is no correlation between Premier League experience and success within the Premier League. It's the first season for both Guardiola and Conte, and the first full season for Klopp, having started late with Liverpool in the season prior. Those who know the Premier League; Mourinho, Wenger, Hughes, Pulis, Allardyce, and Moyes, aren't found near the top competing for the prizes. Before Big Sam went into Palace, the space was occupied by Premier League veteran Alan Pardew. One would definitely consider Pardew part of the Premier League merry-go-round, having managed a total of 302 games, with four teams in the league, over the last twelve years, having some relegations, promotions, and cup final losses in those times. Leicester City's position this season is largely down to Claudio Ranieri, whose Premier League experience we discussed earlier.

Swansea went through American Bob Bradley for his first spell in the PL, replacing Italian Francesco Guidolin, who lasted less than a year. Now they've opted for Paul Clement, taking his first spell in Premier League management after amassing one of the best CVs of a football manager not to have played the game. The events at Hull City pretty much sparked this piece. The summer was a strange one with Steve Bruce not getting the England job, and reportedly being annoyed at a lack of transfer funds, meaning he left Hull during the pre-season. Bruce has managed 392 Premier League games at Birmingham City, Wigan Athletic, and Hull City, going back as far as his first season in 2002. The club brought in experienced assistant Mike Phelan, who had been coaching in England since 1995, and had fourteen years with Manchester United, befor his first attempt at management. Both Bruce and Phelan won the Premier League as players at United. Now, they have Marco Silva in charge, who played his entire club career in Portugal. He's been managing since 2011, with only one season outside Portugal, at Olympiacos in Greece, before landing the Hull job. It might be too early to tell, but reports on Silva's work at the club look like this;

What impact has Silva had on the club?

He’s come in and he’s turned things around almost immediately. He’s brought in seven new players, including Lazar Markovic, and in fairness we haven’t seen too much of them yet, but any signings are good signings at the moment.

I think in terms of the whole club there seems to be a lot of confidence and optimism around the place; from the fans to the players, everyone seems to be positive.

In interviews the players talk about the work ethic he has come to Hull with. He’s always on the training ground, working hard and so far it’s paying dividends.

With the exception of Fulham away in the FA Cup, performances have massively improved and he’s getting results – we’ve just beaten Manchester United and we hammered Bournemouth.

But what does he know about the Premier League, right? It seems like that might actually be inhibiting of success more than anything. Perhaps too much Premier League experience brings with it biases, tunnel vision, dumbing down, even brain washing. There was outrage and bemusement at Silva's appointment. The same with Bob Bradley. Why wasn't Ryan Giggs given a chance? He knows the Premier League inside out! That doesn't mean he's a good coach or an effective manager. Something many simply don't understand.

The Premier League merry-go-round, this revolving door of the mediocre, has been occupied by the same names for a number of years. I was amazed to find out that Hughes and Pulis had been in the league for so long. Not only those two, but Sam Allardyce, Steve Bruce, Harry Redknapp, Alan Pardew, David Moyes, Roy Hodgson, Martin O'Neil, Mick McCarthy, Neil Warnock,  and perhaps even the likes of Tim Sherwood and Steve McClaren can be included in there. You get the point I'm making. Distinctly average, and underwhelmingly the same.

The book Inverting The Pyramid discusses in detail, the tactical trends of football since football first began, way back when. The influence of the British coaches seemed to fade away some time around the 1930s. The other countries had learnt about all they could from the travelling Brits, and then began to cultivate their own ideas. Nowadays, looking at modern coaches, we discuss the tactics of Klopp, Guardiola. Conte, Mourinho, Zidane, Emery, Villas Boas, Ancelotti, Sampoali, Van Gaal, Pochettino, Enrique, Tuchel, del Bosque, Low, Rangnick, as well as many more. The British coaches don't really come into contention. When sites such as Spielverlagerung and Outside of the Boot decide to do their in depth tactical analysis, there's not a whole lot to be found of any kind of British influence. Even in the Championship there are plenty of foreign managers. The current top three are Spanish, Irish, and Dutch, in the form of Rafa Benitez, Chris Hughton, and Jaap Stam. Going down the league we'll find the German David Wagner, the Italian Gianfranco Zola, and the Serbian Slavisa Jokanovic.

"But Will, you've told us before that it's often hard to make such comparisons due to the many variables that are considered here." Well yes, and as a rule of thumb, the manager will only have about 15% influence on the team. Unless there's a freak of nature like Alex Ferguson, or someone completely incompetent like Steve Kean, the manager is only worth about two or three league places. Club owners are seeking foreigners to influence that 15%, and as the Guardian showed, they can be worth around fourteen points per season in the Premier League. When looking to make comparisons, we need to seek situations where only the variable we wish to measure has changed. That's hard to do in football. Foreign managers do better in the same jobs than British ones. So how about with the England team? I think there might be enough data for us there to examine foreign coaches compared to English ones.

Removing England managers such as Allardyce, to have had minimal games in charge, below are the win percentages for England managers.

1. Fabio Capello 66.7%
2. Alf Ramsay 61.1%
2. Glen Hoddle 60.7%
4. Ron Greenwood 60%
5. Sven Goran Eriksson 59.7%
6. Roy Hodgson 58.8%
7. Walter Winterbotton 56.1%
8. Steve McClaren 50%
9. Bobby Robson 49.5%
10. Don Revie 48.3%
11. Terry Venables 47.8%
12. Graham Taylor 47.4%
13. Kevin Keegan 38.9%

The two foreigners to have managed England both have impressive win percentages. Two thirds of England games under Capello were wins (What did he know about the Premier League?) Sven came in at 5th place, finishing above eight English managers, and marginally below three others (1.4% behind 2nd). Both Sven and Capello lead successful qualifying campaigns. Sven qualified three times out of three, and Capello two out of two (although it was Hodgson who took the team in Euro 2012). So with foreigners in charge, England will win around 60% of matches, and will always qualify for tournaments. It's the English who have let us down.

World Cup winning coach Sir Alf Ramsay was in charge of six campaigns with England. One was obviously hugely successful. That was followed by a third place finish in Euro 1968, and a quarter-final defeat to that amazing Brazil side in the Mexican World Cup of 1970. Under Sir Alf, England missed out on tournaments in 1964, 1972, and 1974. Ron Greenwood, Steve McClaren, Graham Taylor, Don Revie, and the legendary Sir Bobby Robson were all responsible for one failed qualifying campaign each.

Since England began appointing managers, there have been thirty-one international tournaments, and eight have been failed qualifying campaigns. Roughly, that's one quarter. Specifically, that's 74.19%. To take this further, English managers were in charge of twenty-six of those qualifying campaigns. The two foreigners took five with a 100% success rate. With English managers in charge, the qualifying success rate is at 69.23%. This presents a rather worrying statistic. That's a 30.77% difference between English and foreign. When it comes down to win percentage, Capello and Sven achieve a 63.2% score. The English managers combined achieve a 52.6% score. Again, the foreigners win, and by 10.6%. To simplify, the foreign managers qualify for 10/10 tournaments, and win around 6/10 games. The English managers qualify for 7/10 tournaments and win around 5/10 games. These are important numbers.

When viewing English domestic cup competitions, the first foreign manager to win the FA Cup was Dutch coach Ruud Gullit with Chelsea in 1997. Since then, only Manchester United with Alex Ferguson of Scotland (twice) and Portsmouth with Harry Redknapp of England (once) have won the FA Cup for the Brits. Going back to 1991, only three Englishmen have won the FA Cup as manager; Redknapp in 2008, Joe Royle with Everton in 1995, and Terry Venables with Spurs in 1991.

The League Cup winning managers look fairly similar, though a tad better for the Brits. Since 1991, the cup was won sixteen times by Brits, including Alex Ferguson, Martin O'Neill, Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness, George Graham. Only five of those sixteen were won by English managers; Ron Atkinson (91, 94), Roy Evans (95), Brian Little (96), and Steve McClaren being the final one in 2003.

We can take away a few stats instantly here. Out of twenty-seven trophies won by Scottish coaches, twenty of them were won by Alex Ferguson. Truly remarkable. Overall, there have been seventy-three titles won, and Ferguson's twenty has him as winning 27.4% of trophies competed for since 1993. Considering this is now the fourth season since his retirement, it's even more remarkable. Out of all those trophies, only six have been won by English managers, at 8.2%.

Can you believe that? Since 1993, English managers have only won 8.2% of the big English trophies. Zero English managers have won the Premier League. One must ask, what do these English managers know about the Premier League? Why is there a consensus that English teams, or even the English national team, must stick with British managers? When combining the accomplishments of the British managers, they still make up less than half of all the successes, at 48% of trophies won. What would happen, if, for argument's sake, we looked at these stats without Alex Ferguson's achievements? That's seventy-three trophies, minus his twenty. For whatever reason, these competitions never happened. That leaves us with fifty-three competitions completed, Without Ferguson's trophies, the Brits combined have only won 28.3% of the above competitions.

 It gets scarier.

This table shows the accumulative efforts of countries that have produced a trophy winning manager in the top three competitions of English football since 1993. From 22 different football nations, only 10 have ever won anything. Before 1993, it was just Brits winning all the prizes.

A quiz from the Mirror just after Bob Bradley's appointment at Swansea City. I scored 19/22, with the three missing in red.

British coaches make up a combined number of 150 to have managed in the Premier League. At the time of this quiz, there had only been 206 permanent appointments since the Premier League began. British managers have made up 72.8% of all Premier League managers. English have made up 52.4% of Premier League managers. Let's just reiterate that one more time. English managers have had over half of the jobs in the league, and yet have never won it. Britain has produced 150 PL managers, and only two of them have won the league, both Scots, Ferguson (13) and Dalglish (1). You're more likely to experience success in England as a manager if you come from Portugal, France, or Italy, than if you come from England.

Being a British manager appears to be far more of a disadvantage than the actual advantage many pundits and fans would have us believe. These numbers are distressing. It looks to continue again this season, as the Premier League will be won by a foreigner that is new to the league. The League Cup has already been won by a foreigner (Portugal), who beat another foreigner in the final (France, in his first English season). The FA Cup will be won by a foreigner, as the semis look like this; Italy v Argentina, and France v Spain. That would make for a brilliant final four of any World Cup.

Clearly, as a country of football managers, we are absolute morons. So far, there has been nothing to suggest that this disdain towards foreign managers and their talents has any grounding in reality. Perhaps British managers have done so well in Europe's other top leagues, and that's why such a reputation has persisted? Well, no. In the modern era, Steve McClaren's Dutch league title with FC Twente in 2010 made him the first English manager to win a major European League since Sir Bobby Robson won the Portuguese league in 1996 with Porto. Still, these aren't top five leagues (England, Spain, Germany, Italy, France). Brits aren't winning those titles.

English sides like Liverpool, Nottingham Forest, and Aston Villa had a lot of European success in the 1970s and 1980s. Joe Fagan was the last English coach to win the European Cup/Champions League, back in 1984 with Liverpool. Since then, the only Brit to win it has been Alex Ferguson on two occasions with Manchester United, in 1999 and 2008. Bob Paisley and Carlo Ancelotti are the only managers to have won it three times. Paisley won all three (1977, 1978, 1981) with Liverpool, and Ancelotti won two with AC Milan (2003, 2007) and one with Real Madrid (2014).

Table showing managers to have won the European Cup/Champions League more than once.

As you can see, two English, one Scot. There's also four Spaniards, three Germans, and three Italians. So where's this idea of British superiority coming from?

Table of nationalities to win UEFA club competitions as managers.

The above table includes all of history. Remember that an Englishman hasn't won the Champions League since 1984, and with Alex Ferguson out of the game, does it look likely that any Scots will pick up from where he left off? It's the same in the other competitions. In the UEFA Cup/Europa League, we have to go back to 1984 when Englishman Keith Burkinshaw lead Tottenham Hotspur to the trophy. The Cup Winners Cup, which ended in 1999, had three British managers lift the trophy in the 1990s; Bobby Robson with Barcelona in 1997, George Graham with Arsenal in 1994, and Alex Ferguson with Manchester United in 1991. We really are clutching at straws to be able to justify any kind of superiority complex. Just how has this reputation persisted in the face of such a drought?

Is there perhaps a link with players? Even though we know playing experience at a high level does not necessarily equate to being a successful coach at a high level. From the last ten Champions League finals, I have had a look at the starting lineups. That gives us 220 players from 36 different nationalities. That's a remarkable statistic when one considers that the finals since 2007 have been contested by teams from only four nations; Spain (7), Italy (3), England (6), and Germany (4). 220 players of 36 different nationalities, competing within teams from only four different nations. Such is the dominance of the big leagues, and yet, a clear demonstration of how global our game is.

Only eight countries were able to supply double figures worth of players to these ten starting lineups. That means that on average, there was at least one player of this nationality on the pitch.
Spain - 37
Germany - 28
England - 23
Brazil - 18
France - 15
Argentina - 15
Italy - 12
Netherlands - 11

I think that says a lot about the slowing down of talent production in Italy. Mourinho's Inter Milan side that were champions in 2010 did so without an Italian in the starting lineup. There were four one nation finals; England once (2008 Chelsea v Man Utd), Germany once (2013 Bayern v Dortmund), and Spain twice (2014 and 2016 Real v Atletico) meaning that some years, the lineups would be heavily represented by that nation. For these ten finals, English players represented 9.6% of the talent on show. Frustratingly though, there hasn't been an Englishman on the pitch at a Champions League final since Chelsea's triumph over Bayern in 2012. Credit to the French and Dutch for producing so many Champions League quality players, even if their clubs aren't making it. Even more credit to the Brazilians and Argentinians, whose clubs don't compete in this competition.

Looking inward, this article from Sky Sports provides us with some figures of the Premier League. Perhaps the most global league on the planet.

Leagues in Europe showing the highest percentage of foreign players.

This is quite frankly ridiculous. Even our second division is half foreign. Sure, Germany and Italy have a high percentage of foreign players. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. Especially as those two nations regularly compete for honours at World Cups and European Championships. What strikes me is the high percentage of foreign players in England and Scotland, the lack of success of our clubs and countries, and yet there remains an insistence on British superiority. Why?

When we separate Englishness from Britishness, this Telegraph article provides us with even more to be concerned about. By the end of the 2015/16 season, only 31% of starting players throughout the season were eligible to represent England. That means that on any given weekend of Premier League football, with ten matches and 220 players on display, only 70 of them will be able to represent England. Even sadder is that when Roy Hodgson picked a provisional twenty-six man England squad for Euro 2016, only half of those players had ever played in a major final.

Graph showing percentage of Premier League players eligible to represent England.

There were some key dates along the way.
26th December 1999 - Southampton v Chelsea - Chelsea became the first Premier League side to field an all foreign starting lineup.
14th February 2005 - Arsenal v Crystal Palace - Arsenal became the first Premier League side to name an all foreign sixteen man match day squad. Wenger has since named a squad without an English player in it 149 times.
23rd January 2011 - Blackburn Rovers v West Bromwich Albion - After several substitutions were made, the game reached a point where all twenty-two players on the field represented twenty-two different nations. The Premier League's most cosmopolitan match.

Twenty-two nations from four continents. But what did any of them know about the Premier League?

Incidentally, the last time there was an all English starting eleven was the same year Chelsea fielded their all foreign eleven. That was for Aston Villa as they played Coventry City on the 27th of February 1999. Coventry won that game, and their goals were scored by foreigners.

Did you know that foreign players were banned from playing professional football in England from 1931 to 1978? This Sporting Intelligence article states; "Relatively rare foreigners in that period played either as amateurs, students, prisoners of war, colonial Britons with familial ties, or only after living in Britain for two years for non-footballing reasons." Wow. That's either unknown or completely forgotten. There definitely is still racism in football, and as those people grow old and leave the game, it's happening less and less. We're exposed to different cultures all the time in our every day lives, and for most of us, we don't care about the nationality, only the abilities of the player. This season with my Aldershot boys, at U13 level, we've had Irish, Italian, South African, Dutch, Ghanaian, Greek, and Welsh. With Southampton Ladies before we had Swedish/Irish, Spanish, South African, Turkish, and a Canadian coach. Places as far away as Kuwait we had Lebanese, Palestinian, Canadian, Egyptian, French, and if I remember correctly, even a Saudi.

I have never cared. Looking at that list of Rovers players above, I had shirts with the names Samba (Congo), Givet (France), Pedersen (Norway), and Santa Cruz (Paraguay). They did the business for the team I love. Why would I care about what it says on their passport? Something I've touched on in other articles is Englishness. We have a view of what an English player is or should be. Superlatives like strong, tough, committed, resilient, fearless come to mind. John Terry, Terry Butcher, Bobby Moore, Vinnie Jones (although he represented Wales), Dennis Wise. You know who I mean. Diving and feigning injury is what those sissy foreign players do.

There are hundreds of Ashley Young diving videos on YouTube.

Here's a video of Serbian Nemanja Vidic, known for his Englishness.

Another player that typifies pure Englishness is French born Congo international Chris Samba.

I swear it's a myth. And a ridiculous one at that. Let's just recap what we have learnt so far:

• No English manager has won the Premier League.
• Only 2 British (Scottish) managers have won the Premier League, Dalglish (1) and Ferguson (13)
• Only one Premier League winning manager had played in the competition (Mancini's five games on loan for Leicester at the age of thirty-six).
• Only one Premier League manager had managed in the Premier League before winning it, which was Ranieri's time at Chelsea over a decade before winning it with Leicester.
• Only two managers had managed in English football before winning the Premier League (Dalglish at Liverpool and Ranieri at Chelsea).
• Only two managers to win the Premier League had played in England (Mancini's five games, and Dalglish's legendary Liverpool career).
• There hasn't been an English team in the Champions League final for five years.
• English players make up 9.6% of Champions League final starting lineups.
• The Premier League is made up of over half foreign players, and is continually becoming more and more each season.
• No English manager has won a top five European league since before the Premier League began.
• English managers are the fourth most successful in European competitions.
• English managers have not won the Champions League/European Cup or Europa League/UEFA Cup since 1984.
• Since 1984, only Scottish Alex Ferguson has won a major European trophy, in 1999 and 2008 (if we're not counting the now defunct Cup Winners Cup, won by Robson (ENG) 99, Graham (SCO) 94, and Ferguson (SCO) 91)
• Foreign managers have never failed to qualify for a major tournament with the England team, whereas English managers only have a 70% qualification rate.
• Italian Fabio Capello has the best win percentage of all England managers.
• Capello and Eriksson's combined average win record is around 10% better than English managers.
• Even World Cup winning manager Sir Alf Ramsay only qualified for three out of six tournaments he was in charge for.
• Since the Premier League began, only two English managers have won the FA Cup (Royle 1995, Redknapp 2008).
• The last English manager to win the League Cup was Steve McClaren in 2004.

Here's me and my foreigner, although in this photo I'm the foreigner.

Prior experience of the Premier League or English football means practically nothing. Speaking English as a first language appears to give no real advantage either. On the face of it, one could easily just brush it off as racial prejudice. I think it's even more stupid than that. What can be more stupid than racism? Not much really. I don't think the pundits on the TV and radio are racist. They are stupid, ignorant, lazy, and misinformed. Yes, that does lead one down a path to racism, but I don't personally think they'd ever knowingly discriminate based on race. Although many were surprised at the amount of sexism behind the scenes (Keys and Gray). If we take Paul Merson as an example, and we remember that racism is stupid, in a roundabout way, I think he is too stupid to be that stupid.

So is it stupidity or xenophobia? Let's find out.

Confirmation Bias - Also confirmatory bias or myside bias, is the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses.

A bit like when a foreign manager fails. "See, I knew it! Doesn't know the English game!" Compared to when an English manager fails "The board sacked him too early. It was a difficult task and they should have given him another transfer window."

 
Cognitive Dissonance - The mental stress experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values. Humans strive for internal consistency, and try to reduce the discomfort of cognitive dissonance by attempting to justify their behaviour by attempting to add or change parts of the conflicting cognition, as well as avoiding situations that are likely to increase such discomfort.

Listen to two weeks of the same show on TalkSport, and as they only ever discuss the same five topics, you will eventually have discovered plenty of times when the presenters and pundits have said something that conflicts with a viewpoint that they have previously expressed. It doesn't quite fit into everything else they believe.

Dunning-Kruger Effect - A cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is. It is attributed to metacognitive incapacity, on the part of those with low ability, to recognise their ineptitude and evaluate their competence accurately.

This one could be explained by all those people that think Guardiola had it easy at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, and that also think they could successfully manage the England team better than all those failures. How hard can it be?

The three ideas from applied psychology can help us go some way to understanding why this preference exists in the minds of some football men. Foreign managers will fail, and when they do, we have the ready made excuses of;

• He doesn't know the league.
• He doesn't speak the language.
• English football is just different.
• He doesn't have the players he did at his old club, where it was much easier.
• The Premier League is a more competitive league than what he's used to.
• The league is more physical than he was expecting.
• He doesn't know the language.
• He needs to bring in a British assistant who knows the league.
• Those ideas don't work in the Premier League.
• Cold/wet/windy Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday in Stoke,
• That league only has two teams, unlike the Premier League, which is a fight in every game.
• Culture shock.
• Can't deal with the cold.
• Can't handle the media attention.
• The fans are too passionate that it's intimidating.
• He's unsettled living in a new country.

There's many more. I have discussed at length before the sheer ridiculousness of such statements. We've heard them, and more, countless times. They present a combination of half-truths, generalisations, and stupid rhetoric. In some of them, there may be nuggets of truth, and I shall explain. In some, they are evidently wrong, like needing to know the league. The Premier League is a global league. Most football fans watch it. They have the basic knowledge of it. That's enough. Mourinho knows football. He knows it very well. I doubt he's paid much attention to the WSL. Apart from his time at Chelsea, I would guess he's had very little experience with women's teams. Do you think a WSL team would turn down the chance to have Mourinho as manager because "He doesn't know the league?" Absolutely not. What he doesn't know, he'll work out quickly. What's important for him to do his job, he will find out. What did he know about the Premier League? What did Wenger know about the Premier League? What did Conte know about the Premier League? I knew nothing about the Hampshire Futsal League or BUCS football, yet still won those leagues at the first attempt. In the grand scheme of things, it's probably not even worth a tenth of a percent.

Language is another one. It's more important than league knowledge. If league knowledge was actually a thing, why would Premier League teams keep buying foreigners? Bobby Robson was successful in Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands. He didn't speak those languages. He had translators. Fabio Capello, England's most winningest (stupid American phrase) did not speak English when he first took the job. Watford manager Walter Mazzarri does not speak English and communicates to his players through translators. It's a cheap shot, and an easy scapegoat. When I first worked in Mexico, I found it very hard to communicate with the youngest players. They had no idea what I was on about, and I could do very little with them. It was a mess. Language and communication is important. We soon solved the problem. A dad, captain of the men's team, with a good understanding, and a top bloke, began translating my instructions to the boys. I knew enough Spanish to know he wasn't telling them something else entirely. With seven year olds, you don't have time to think and translate in your head.

Adult players will try to meet you half way. And since adults have a far better understanding of football, they can often get what you mean through contextualisation. "Three teams. Blue, red, green. Blue and red have ball. Green want ball. Eight versus four. Possession." Most players and coaches will understand what's going on here, if working with twelve players in a 20x20 box. Going back to the Premier League top four, Conte learnt English last summer, Pep still struggles occasionally, and spent six months learning German before moving to Bayern, Klopp apparently knew English already, and Pochettino hardly spoke English when he first joined Southampton. It's a hurdle, definitely, but it's a very small one to get over. Effective communication is important. Most managers know that if you can't do something, you bring in someone who can.

It's hardly like British managers have it easy from that point of view anyway. Coaches like Mourinho and Van Gaal were polyglots, as they had worked in many countries, with all sorts of nationalities. How long do you reckon it took Ji Sun Park to understand Ferguson's thick Glaswegian accent? Bare in mind that Carlos Tevez spent years in England and never learnt English. His trophy cabinet is rather full.

Me and my foreigner again. Although in
this picture, we're both foreigners. Hmm.
Perhaps foreigness is down to perspective
and is therefore a pretty stupid concept
anyway.

Then there's this English philosophy. I'm not sure how English a team's playing style is when the manager is foreign, and most of the playing staff are also foreign. Still, it persists. It's hard to shake such a reputation. The Premier League is viewed as fast-paced and tough. Yet we know the Bundesliga is faster due to their counter-attacks, and one could argue La Liga is tougher due to their yellow cards (tactical fouls in the attacking third). So we're largely basing this on subjective opinions. The football in Europe's top five looks remarkably similar these days. That could be something to do with the fact they're all so closely linked, with a multitude of coaches and players moving from one to another. Clearly, it doesn't take long for foreign managers or players to come to England and figure out the Premier League.

Is it because we like to stick to our own? Or we wish to see our own do well? That's natural, but wishing is something entirely different to making an exclusive club. Shirts sell rapidly around the world when a player from a certain country moves to a big team. Morten Gamst Pedersen playing in the Premier League made him the second most popular man in Norway. Norwegians must have loved seeing his goals against Manchester United. We all do that. We like it when someone from our town, our school, our team, our country does well. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Just don't use it to create a barrier. Don't promote your own ahead of others when no such justification for your perceived superiority exists. Isn't that a little bit like what racists do?

I would argue that it's more of a threat intellectually. Racism, homophobia, and sexism still exist in football. We're slowly tearing down those walls. What I believe this to be, is that it is a challenge to the norm, and the accepted ideas. We have our opinions on what is right and wrong, good and bad. That's based on years of hard work, trial and error, experience, and observation. "I'm English, I know the Premier League, I know English football." Such a statement suggests that someone is incredibly sure of themselves, and likely to the point where their beliefs are set in stone. You can't get them to shift, even in the face of conflicting evidence. "How could some bloke from [any foreign country] come in and do a better job than [any mediocre British manager... Alan Pardew]? He doesn't know the league! He's not worked in England before! He's too young! He won't be able to handle the physical English game!" All this is nonsense.

Due to this lack of intellectualism, as I recall being told by FA tutors that "you academics are ruining the game, you have no clue!", I think what we're witnessing is a gross misrepresentation of the importance of certain factors pertaining to experience and attributes. Language and league knowledge are relatively unimportant when compared to tactical knowledge, ability to inspire and motivate players, eye for talent, and the ability to coach and train groups and individuals. Those are obviously huge factors. One could argue you need to know the league in order to be able to successfully motivate players. No. Good players are intrinsically motivated. They just need to be focused, and the coach helps with that. Whether you're in China or Argentina, the players want to win. There's a few different techniques that display a varying level of success depending on age, gender, ability, and level, which most coaches figure out quickly. I'll save you some time; you can be more direct with men, you have to be softer with women. Wow. Mind blown. Crash course in motivation. That would have taken one session to figure out, not three years in the Premier League. There's so many other factors like that, which really are not issues at all.

"Bloody Foreigner, coming here wanting to know what love is!"

Culture shock? I didn't eat baked beans for about nine months in Mexico. I have them nearly every day in the UK. What effect that had on my coaching, will take years of close scrutiny, observation, and research to figure out. It's not important. And let's face it, the TV and radio pundits, and many of the journalists that write sensationalist articles, actually have no idea what they are talking about. Ex-players as pundits may have been fantastic players, but they're not intelligent people. Just watch them attempt to string a sentence together on Soccer Saturday. Many of them played at a time where nutritionists, physios, strength and conditioning coaches, psychologists, analysts, scouts etc. were either non-existent, or done by the same bloke in a cloth cap. These pundits that criticise players for not being able to play two games in three days played at a time where the drinking culture in football was huge. It's not that you can't play two games in three days, it's just that you'll only be at 80% recovery, and the longer you perpetuate that cycle, the larger the risk of injury. Again, it doesn't take three years of Premier League experience to learn that. I've just told you. And that's pretty much all you'll have to know, as anything deeper than that will be delegated to the sports science department.

These were good players, from an era where football was quite different, but they are not intelligent blokes. They can't provide in depth analysis, evaluation, or insight. They're out of touch, with a cushty job, allowed to spout all sorts of nonsense about the game. Many viewers are in the same boat, but without the top level playing experience. Such viewers are searching for soundbites that they can repeat to their colleagues at work, or their mates down the pub. It's often like listening to last night's episode of Match of the Day.

So no, I don't think it's racism. It's a fear of new ideas, and a challenging of perceptions that they just can't tolerate, that often manifests itself in a form of disdain and distrust towards those of a foreign origin. Okay, reading that back, it sounds like racism. Just not in a direct way. They're dismissive of ideas, and it just so happens that those ideas are foreign. Though I always say; "You don't know you're a racist until your daughter brings home a black boyfriend." You don't know you're homophobic either until your son does the same.

And finally, we end up here.

A tweet from BT Sport presenter Jake Humphrey.

You should probably know by now what the answer is. In case you were unaware, the people of Twitter filled in.

So no need for me to get involved. Statistically, I have about as much chance as winning the Premier League as Scholes, Lampard, Gerrard, or Terry. We're all English, putting us at roughly 0%. If anything, I'm at a slight advantage, having never played in the Premier League, and never playing for England. I also have more coaching experience too. And in other countries, with more languages, and without baked beans. John Terry did a session on our B license course, so we were using the same tutor and would have passed around the same time.

Could Gerrard become the first English manager to win the Premier League? I sincerely doubt that, but we'll see. Football is a funny old game. Although it's not that funny when we unjustifiably seek to exclude foreigners.