Clifford: why winning would have put us back years

England: the lessons

Simon Clifford was probably the only Englishman in the land wearing a Brazil scarf on Friday morning and and he doesn't give a hoot that he will be condemned as a traitor for suggesting that getting beaten in the World Cup quarter-finals was the best thing that could have happened to the national game.

For the 31-year-old former Leeds schoolteacher is the originator and orchestrator of a scheme which now has some 40,000 English schoolchildren learning basic Brazilian. The language of football, that is. It is called Futebol de Salão and, according to Clifford, is the only way ahead for our game if we are ever to emulate and beat the Brazilians at theirs.

On Friday, with the gulf in the Class of 2002 apparent, there were clearly lessons to be learned from Brazil, beginning with the three Rs – Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho. Can England ever produce players like these? Yes, claimed Clifford. "I truly believe that if every child in the country was taught the way Brazilian kids are, we'd win the World Cup every time in years to come."

All the great Brazilian players, from Pele through to Ronaldo, have cut their teeth on Futebol de Salão, which literally means football of the hall, played on a basketball-sized court with a half-sized but heavier ball which hardly bounces and produces a higher level of skills, concentrating on control and passing.

It was the Brazilian international Juninho who inspired Clifford, a Middlesbrough season-ticket holder, to give up his £12,000-a-year job as a primary-school teacher and travel to Brazil on a borrowed £8,000 to study the training culture of their game and how it was applied to their youngsters.

"Juninho told me: 'When you go to Brazil you'll find the smallest, poorest street-corner children's club is more professional in their approach to training than the biggest football clubs here'. I laughed. But when I went there I soon saw what he meant. They may not have the facilities, but facilities don't make players. The training does."

The result is a network of nearly 300 football schools, with 1,000 coaches, spread throughout the UK who practise what the Brazilian masters preach. Hence Clifford's presence with some of his young Futebolers at the Millennium Square in Leeds on Friday, sporting Brazilian colours.

"I'm English. I wanted us to do well, but I was torn between that and the certain knowledge that had we beaten Brazil, and gone on to win the World Cup, it would have put us back years, keeping us entrenched in narrow views of the past," he said. "When you go to a country like Brazil and see how children approach football, it is as different to the way we approach it here as night and day.

"Yes, on Friday I had a Brazil scarf on and people called me a traitor, but actually I think I'm more patriotic than anybody. I went to Brazil because I was so dissatisfied with the way we played here and the technique of our players that I wanted to do something about it. No one else had bothered, certainly not the FA.

"Brazilian schoolkids were doing 12 to 20 hours of football a week compared to our two. And those two were tactical sessions where they hardly kicked the ball. In Brazil they had a ball each or a ball between two.

"Friday's game summed up why I'm doing what I'm doing. In the second half, because they were better on the ball, they looked like the team with the extra man. China, Turkey, Belgium and Costa Rica all created more chances against Brazil than we did.

"The most creative player we have was sat on his backside – Joe Cole. David Beckham was poor and whether Sven Goran Eriksson is worth £3 million a year is questionable, the way England played. My baby is 15 months old and she could say: 'Give the ball to Michael Owen, he's very good'. In fact, Owen is the only great player we have. His pace and finishing are brilliant.

"Bringing in a manager and paying him a fortune isn't what we should be doing. We should be putting the money into developing our kids, fundamentally changing the way they are coached and the way coaches are coached."

Recently Clifford, who choreographed the actresses in the women's football film hit Bend It Like Beckham, took a team of kids from two estates in Leeds to a tournament in Ireland, where they beat Scotland Under-14s 3-2. The team had no specialised defenders, with the youngsters being told only the day before what positions they would play. "That result to me said everything about what we are trying to do."

The techniques are now used by several Premiership clubs, including Manchester United, Everton and Newcastle. Clifford added: "When I first met Juninho and asked why he was so different to any English player on the ball, he said it was because he had been trained differently. He thought the way we trained kids here wasn't great.

"If you are an Englishman, and truly wanted the best for English football, you'd have applauded Friday's result because it's much better for the future. It was the best thing that could have happened to English football."

Just don't tell that to Sven or Seaman.