With England’s Euro 2012 qualifier coming up against Switzerland there is always some kind of fuss these days regarding how youth academies in England are run, but one must wonder if this is the result of something born from pure envy.

Whenever the likes of Barcelona are in town or the England national team gets a pummelling at a world cup from a young but explosive German team the knee jerk reaction is to question whether enough time or money is being invested in our kids in the academy.

Automatically we think of an idealistic world where if we start now, perhaps in 10 years time England could be playing in the mesmerising fashion that Spain do. So the question is, are we right to aspire to becoming a footballing nation that adopts the philosophy of other great teams? Team’s whose philosophy is to keep the ball and play “beautiful football”, like the “total football” dubbed Ajax team of the late 60’s under Rinus Michels or to the present day with Barcelona and the Spanish national team or perhaps to lesser extent Arsenal.

My point being, is this how football is defined, is this truly accomplished football? To play well and win well by having superiority ball possession? Most teams just want to win, whatever the cost, take the Manchester United side of the season just gone by for example. But on the day of the Champions League final, football was the winner, as Sir Alex brought up in a press conference days later, one of the problems that exist in England when it comes to the involvement a club can have with a youth player is that the coaches are only allowed to train that player for up to an hour and a half a day, while in other countries coaches are allowed to spend as long as they like with a kid in the academy.

Gareth Southgate himself has said earlier on this week that he is championing the idea of “England’s youngster’s playing like Barcelona”. Whether or not England’s desire is to play this fantasy football, it is clear there are some major barriers to overcome first, such as the one mentioned by Sir Alex, Which I personally cannot see changing any time soon.