The recent Under-17 World Cup came to a disappointing end for the young England lads as they were knocked out by old rivals Germany in the quarterfinals, but a display of real footballing character and technical ability not usually associated with the English game was apparent.
The quality of English players has come in for some criticism over the past year since the dreadful display of the senior team in South Africa last summer, but this young side showed real verve in their ability to play the beautiful game the right way.
A run to the quarterfinals was a satisfactory achievement for the young Lions, especially after knocking out rivals Argentina along the way and on penalties!
In a squad consisting of mainly Liverpool and Manchester City and other Premier League youngsters, it was somewhat of a surprise to many on-lookers to see three products of League Two side, Crewe Alexandra in the squad.
But if you know of Dario Gradi, then this is no surprise at all.
The Crewe Alexandra youth academy has produced many stars including David Platt, Dean Ashton, Danny Murphy and Wales international David Vaughan, but in a modern footballing era controlled by money, it is unusual to see a League Two club still having such a fantastic impact on youth development.
It can be considered as somewhat of a crude money-making scheme set up by The Alex in bringing players in at a very tender age and turning them into first team outfits before selling them on for a substantial profit.
It is a business model that has served the club well over the years and for many years kept them at a profitable level off the field, which is unusual for non-Premier League sides.
The system is one that has brought a basic financial structure to the club, but in a time surrounded by so much debate over the quality of youth setups in Britain, it equates to so much more than money at Crewe, as this is a club built around pride in developing young talent through the footballing philosophy of Dario Gradi.
Surely it is not possible to compare the youth system at Crewe with the scheme at Ajax or with Barcelona’s La Masia is it?
But the thing is, even though they may be miles apart in terms of prestige and world recognition, and of course money, there is an abundance of similarities between the philosophies instilled in them.
The Crewe manager has always taught youngsters the value of actually playing football rather than just trying to win a game. The coaching philosophy of Gradi is all about ball control and the importance of passing and movement off the ball, the key traits associated with the current Barcelona side.
The Ajax youth system is known for its ability to promote the 4-3-3 formation from a very young age, and rather than force the youngsters how to understand the tactical ins and outs of the game at such an age, the first rule of Ajax is to enjoy the football.
Youth development is all about the enjoyment and giving the young players the freedom to express themselves on the field, a concept that has not been recognised in England until now, except at systems such as the one at Crewe.
New youth initiatives have been implemented by the Football Association allowing kids to have much more freedom on and off the field. Instead of playing 11-a-side league football at below secondary school age, schemes will be set up to promote a better development plan involving more five-a-side based programmes.
The FA Youth Development Review will also create a difficulty for the future of youth schemes at clubs like Crewe as it will allow the bigger clubs to take on promising youngsters from anywhere at a young age.
These youngsters being scooped up by the biggest clubs may gain access to the top corporate facilities available, but in a time when Premier League clubs prefer to spend money on recognised stars, it is unlikely that top clubs will prioritise the needs of their youth players.
Ben Garratt, Nick Powell and Max Clayton are the three Crewe Alex players involved in the England Under-17 tournament in Mexico and are possible stars of the future, whose footballing education under the maestro has been second to none.
For his role in the development of home-grown talent and philosophy of footballing coaching, Gradi has once again been recognised for his achievements in football this season after being presented with the Contribution to League Football Award by the Football League.
This is not the first accolade bestowed upon the 69-year-old after 28 years involved with the club, but it comes at a time when England are finally starting to realise there is a problem in youth development in the country and acknowledge that the Crewe boss has been a man ahead of the times for many years now.
In 1996, Dario Gradi was very close to becoming Technical Director at the FA and would have had a large say in youth development at clubs throughout the country, but Howard Wilkinson ended up getting the role.
Fifteen years on and Gradi is still producing the next stars of the future with limited resources and the FA are finally doing something about youth development, but what if the man ahead of his time had been given his say back in 1996?
Would England be like Spain and be the technical kings of world football right now?
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We’ve been writing a lot of posts about our speakers at GamesBeat 2011. But here’s a summary of why we think this will be the must-attend game conference for you.
We’re gathering the industry’s top CEOs, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, investors, journalists, marketers, developers and other key executives for a two-day gathering at the elegant Palace Hotel in San Francisco, from July 12 to July 13. The event is co-located with our MobileBeat conference this year and it focuses on the hottest sector of gaming: the intersection of mobile and games.
1. Great headliners:
We’ve got some of the best minds in the game industry giving talks and doing fireside chats. Many of our talks are one-on-one conversations, not unwieldy panels or lectures. Our speakers include:
Nolan Bushnell, father of video games and board member at Atari (speaking on the arc of history in games)
Bing Gordon, partner at Kleiner Perkins (speaking on the Golden Age of Gaming)
Jordan Weisman, founder of Harebrained Schemes (speaking on the Talent Migration)
Trip Hawkins, CEO of Digital Chocolate (speaking on Digital Disruption)
Tim Chang, partner at Norwest Venture Partners (speaking on Investing in Mobile/Social Games)
Rich Wong, partner at Accel Partners (speaking on Deconstructing Angry Birds)
Steve Perlman, CEO of OnLive (speaking on Cloud Gaming Goes Mobile)
Wibe Wagemans, Humming Bird at Rovio (speaking on Making Angry Birds even bigger)
Peter Relan, chairman of Youweb (speaking on Next-generation Mobile)
Neil Young, CEO of Ngmoco (speaking on DeNA — Building a global mobile social network)
Andrej Nabergoj, CEO of Outfit7 (speaking on brands born from mobile)
Lars Buttler, CEO of Trion Worlds (speaking on The Deep End or the Shallow End of Gaming)
Kevin Chou, CEO of Kabam (speaking on Raising a Big Pile of Money)
Joe Kraus, partner at Google Ventures (speaking on Raising a Big Pile of Money)
Shervin Pishevar, managing director of Menlo Ventures (speaking on Raising a Big Pile of Money)
Dennis Ryan, head of publishing at PopCap Games (speaking on Rise of Cross-Platform Games)
Keith Lee, CEO of Booyah (speaking on Learnings From Mobile)
2. We’ve also got some of most interesting newcomers on the gaming scene:
Andrej Nabergoj, CEO of Outfit7
Suli Ali, CEO of TinyCo
Daniel Terry, CEO of Pocket Gems
Colin Digiaro, COO of MindJolt
Jussi Laakkonen, CEO of Applifier
Brian Selzer, president of Ogmento
Laurent Gil, CEO of Viewdle
Gene Becker, AR strategist at Layar
Evan Kirchhoff, co-founder and chief technology officer at Qubop
3. And the king makers of the mobile social networks
Neil Young, CEO of Ngmoco
Jason Citron, CEO of Open Feint
Si Shen, CEO of Papaya Mobile
Jude Gomila and Immad Akhund, founders of Heyzap
Jussi Laakkonen, CEO of Applifier
4. Some of the best-known developers in mobile will be on stage:
Jeferson Valadares, a veteran studio exec and general manager for games at Flurry
Dave Castelnuovo, founder of Bolt Creative and creator of Pocket God
Gabe Leydon, CEO of Addmired
Lou Fasulo, chief operating officer at Z2Live
Julian Farrior, CEO of Backflip Studios
Giancarlo Mori, chief creative officer at Glu Mobile
5. Supporting players and smart business leaders who matter:
David Marcus, founder and CEO of Zong
Teemu Huuhtanen, executive vice president of Sulake/Habbo Hotel
Kevin Henshaw, vice president of business development, IMVU
Chris Bergstresser, executive vice president and commercial director at Miniclip.
Peter Farago, vice president of marketing at Flurry
Matt Shea, executive vice president of product development at Wild Tangent
Brian Wong, founder of Kiip
Joshua Hernandez, CEO of Tap.me
Peter Driesen, CEO of Spil Games
6. Some interesting thinkers:
Rob Wyatt, chief scientist at Otoy
Peter Relan, chairman of Youweb and CEO of CrowdStar
Michael Pachter, analyst at Webush Securities
Nicole Lazzaro, founder of XEO Design
7. Investors worth meeting:
Tim Chang, partner at Norwest Venture Partners
Rich Wong, partner at Accel Partners
Tim Merel, managing director of Digi-Capital
Suli Ali, CEO of TinyCo (which manages the Tiny Fund)
Joe Kraus, partner at Google Ventures
Peter Relan, chairman of Youweb
Charles Hudson, partner at SoftTech VC
8. Outsiders who matter:
Keith Rabois, chief operating officer, Square
Dror Oren, executive director of Ventures, Licensing, & Strategic programs at SRI International
Adam Lavine, CEO of FunMobility
Kris Duggan, CEO of Badgeville
9. The tool makers and analytics experts:
Brett Seyler, vice president of strategy for Unity Technologies
Michael Agustin, founder, GameSalad
Walter Luh, CEO of Ansca Mobile
Josh Williams, head of special projects, Kontagent
Frederic Thuard, executive vice president of App Annie
Michael Oiknine, CEO of Apsalar
10. Breadth of speakers: We’ve got 78 speakers and moderators lined up and two more to confirm.
11. Wide range of topics: We have 28 sessions that cover the gamut in mobile, social, and digital gaming. They range from a debate on Deep End vs. the Shallow End of Gaming to Augmented Reality Games.
12. Eight fresh and cool startups in our “Who’s Got Game?” Best Game Startup Contest: We went through 39 applications and pulled the top eight to present for four minutes each on stage.
MetalCompass — Maker of social real-world games and peripherals for smartphones
Haptify — Creator of games that make use of haptics; started by Immersion
Kaiju Empire – Developer that wants to bring back the Japanese classic monster characters
Zipline Games – Maker of Moai mobile game creation tools
Protege Production — Creator of DreamHome social network casual games
Gbanga – Developer of mixed-reality games
OneUp Games – Maker of a live sports game.
Guerillapps — Maker of games with green goals
13. Excellent startup competition judges: Sana Choudary of YetiZen; Tim Chang of Norwest Venture Partners; Michael Chang of Electronic Arts’ corporate development department; and Terence Fung, head of corporate development at Zynga.
14. Great moderators: Yukari Kane Iwatani of the Wall Street Journal; Cliff Edwards of Bloomberg Businessweek; Charles Hudson of Bionic Panda Games; Mark Friedler, gaming consultant; Anand Iyer of IGN, Anthony Ha of Adweek; Matthew Lynley of VentureBeat; Sana Choudary and Japheth Dillman of YetiZen; Rich Wong of Accel Partners; Eric Goldberg of Crossover Technologies; Jeferson Valadares of Flurry; Margaret Wallace of Playmatics; Loyd Case of Maximum PC; Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities; Eric Eldon of Inside Network; George Jones of Invention Media; and yours truly, Dean Takahashi, lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat.
15. The press will be there. It’s a good place to get noticed with journalists from the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Business Week, CBS Interactive, Electronic Gaming Monthly, 1Up.com, Gamasutra, Gamerlive.tv, GameSpot, Gaming Business Review, Inside Network, Inside Social Games, Maximum PC, Pocket Gamer, the San Jose Mercury News, Social Times, IGN, Adweek, Wired, and dozens more attending the co-hosted MobileBeat event.
16. Don’t forget MobileBeat 2011 is next door. You can get a combination ticket that will gain you entry into two world-class conferences, each happening over the same two days in the same location, side-by-side.
17. Awesome sponsors: Qualcomm, Flurry, Greystripe, Nexage, Tapjoy, Fun Mobility, TriNet, Zong, Sibblingz, Open Feint, Spil Games and WildTangent.
We’ll be exploring the most disruptive game technologies and business models at our third annual GamesBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the disruptive trends in the mobile games market. GamesBeat is co-located with our MobileBeat 2011conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. Our sponsors include Qualcomm, Flurry, Greystripe, Nexage, Tapjoy, Fun Mobility, TriNet, Zong, Sibblingz, Open Feint, Spil Games and WildTangent.
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