We look at our European counterparts as more technically gifted and more astute tactically in our
beautiful game. Whereas the British style of play is seen as fast paced, tough tackling and very
physical. Size, speed and strength were the factors that got youngsters in to the school team or local
side.
Those crafty Europeans pick kids for their technique and would let the physical part develop later on.
Many kids in this country have been told by clubs that they are very good but just too small. Imagine
if Barcelona thought that about Messi. As a kid Messi was always smaller than those he played with,
instead of giving in it taught him to improve his ball skills, balance and control.
Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency as a child. Barcelona saw the talent and
agreed to pay for his medical treatment and he relocated to Spain from Argentina. He rapidly
progressed through the club's ranks and made his debut for the first team aged 16 against
Mourinho's Porto coming on as a substitute. English clubs back then would've have sent him home
for being too small. Look at the legend he has become.
Back in the old days us English had a very inflated opinion of our footballing skills. We looked at the
rest of the world with disdain and in a way rightly so. In the Home Championship we'd have close
matches with Scotland, sometimes Wales and every so often Ireland. But when it came to play our
European neighbours we were unbeatable.
Look at some of our results at the turn of the century, 12-0 and 9-0 wins against Germany, 15-0 and
12-0 against France, 8-1 and 12-2 versus Holland, 8-2 and 11-2 versus Belgium, 11-1 and 6-1 in
Austria, 12-1 and 6-1 against Sweden, 9-0 Switzerland, 7-0 Hungary, the list goes on and on.
By the time the first World Cup came around in 1930 the British home nations had fallen out with
FIFA as the relationship had become strained and we refused to fraternize with enemies of the First
World War and didn't rejoin until 1946. This was the beginning of a road to isolation just as the
world was growing more passionate about the game.
As the Twentieth Century wore on the English team had lost a few matches against European
opponents on their travels, but many considered this to be down to the long travelling to away
games before flying became the main mode of transport. The FA and British footballing community
still regarded the British teams as the best despite the growing and prospering World Cup
tournament.
Wembley was considered an unconquerable fortress for European sides, however in 1953 that
fortress crumbled. On a dank afternoon at Wembley, Hungary finally ended England's unbeaten
home record against continental opposition. But it was worse than that. The defeat was by a
humbling 6-3 and not only had the "Magic Magyars" shown themselves to be superior in everything
from ball skills to tactics, they opened England's wounds even wider by dedicating the historic
victory to an Englishman.
Sandor Barcs president of the Hungarian Football Association spoke about a little Lancastrian coach
Jimmy Hogan, a 71-year- old, who was sitting in the stands. Barcs said "Jimmy Hogan taught us
everything we know about football."
English FA officials were doubly mortified. The match had seen Ferenc Puskas and his superb team
humiliate England; now they were hearing that Hogan had planted the seeds not only of a Hungarian
football revolution but one that had spread across the whole of Europe. Hardly any wonder that
many years later England's captain, Billy Wright, told the media "there were people who were of a
mind to call Jimmy Hogan a traitor."
Hogan was way ahead of his time, his coaching was based on mastery of the ball and effective
teamwork which in 1953 was seen to be deficient in the English players, just as it is today. After his
playing days Hogan traveled to the continent, he became a football coach working across Europe
and was teaching in Austria at the outbreak of World War One. He was arrested and interned as an
enemy alien.
Hogan negotiated a safe passage back to the United Kingdom for his wife and children in March
1915 while he was rescued by the intervention of Baron Dirstay, the British vice-president of
Hungarian club Budapest MTK, who took Hogan on as coach in order to prevent him being taken to a
prisoner of war camp.
In a fairly modest career he played for Burnley, Bolton, Fulham and Swindon as a skilful inside
forward. It was a summer tour of Holland with Bolton that persuaded him to take up coaching.
Bolton easily beat Dordrecht and he vowed to go back and "teach them how to play" and in his early
30's he did indeed return to become the youngest-ever British coach to take up a permanent position
on the continent.
A meticulous, obsessive character, Hogan is reported to have had a consuming desire for self-
improvement, his extensive fitness regime and the onus he placed on conditioning being remarkably
rare for a time when formalised training was generally frowned upon. This compulsion to achieve
excellence at all costs would serve Hogan well during what would become a distinguished coaching
career, his drive to succeed feeding and shaping the talent of the players who had the privilege of
learning from his studied insight and motivation.
Hogan’s methodology reaped great rewards, MTK winning the 1917 and 1918 titles, his philosophy
and methods are held to be the blueprint for the great Hungarian side of the 1950s, the Mighty
Magyars were head and tails above the rest and really should've won the 1954 World Cup where the
lost 3-2 to Germany in the final despite being the better team, the half fit Ferenc Puskas had a
perfectly good goal disallowed by an English referee. They had hammered the Germans 8-3 in the
group stages.
The thoughtful ethos of short passing and fast movement off the ball was one which stuck with
Hungarian football for several generations, an aesthetic style that Hogan had championed. He was a
true footballing revolutionary.
Hogan is also considered the father of German football, he visited German clubs on lecture tours,
instructing players and coaches alike in tactical philosophies, such was the impression that he left
that, on his death in 1974, his son received a letter from the German Football Federation describing
him as “the father of modern football in Germany”.
Former West German manager Helmut Schoen, who Hogan coached at Dresden, called him "a
shining example for the coaching profession". He was teaching Total Football generations before
Johan Cruyff and Franz Beckenbauer brought that term into the game's language.
It is often said that Brian Clough was the best manager England never had; in reality it was Jimmy
Hogan.
Source: DSG