The Manchester United manager joined his squad on an open-top bus parade in the rain yesterday as the beaten European Cup finalists drew solace from winning a record 19th league title.
Thoughts remain with United’s failure to get to grips with Barcelona at Wembley, though, and Ferguson called for change in the way youngsters are coached in England.
He said: ‘We are only allowed to coach youngsters for an hour and a half a week. Barcelona can coach them every hour of the day if they want. It’s a great philosophy.’
Ferguson’s comments point to the fact that young players at Barca are coached regularly from an early age. In England the academy system, combined with the demands of mainstream education, means that between the ages of 10 and 18 a footballer will receive between 2,000 and 3,000 coaching hours. At Barcelona, youngsters receive about 8,000.
What will please Ferguson is the content of the Elite Player Performance Plan that will be voted on at the League’s AGM next week. Premier League insiders claim the plan represents a radical overhaul of the way youngsters are coached and one of its key aims is to increase the time spent working on skills.
United’s parade was more muted than it would have been had they beaten Barcelona, but Ferguson still led his players in a rendition of ‘Are you watching, Merseyside?’ as the club celebrated passing the 18 titles won by Liverpool.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1392500/Sir-Alex-Ferguson-calls-English-academies-change-follow-Barcelona-blueprint.html#ixzz1NuOJc8cA
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