Reed up to speed
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Article summary
uefa.com talks to Les Reed, acting technical director of the English Football Association.
Article body
By Luke Williams
At the recent UEFA Youth Conference in Potsdam, uefa.com caught up with one of the leading figures in youth football development - Les Reed, acting technical director of the English Football Association (FA).
Work at all levels
A former first-team coach at Charlton Athletic FC, Reed has worked at virtually all levels of international and club football, and has conducted countless coaching courses at national and international level. He joined the FA in 1986 and recently led the England Under-20 team at the FIFA World Youth Championship in the United Arab Emirates.
uefa.com: On the basis of recent results England are ranked in the top three in Europe at both Under-19 and Under-17 level. Do you think this reflects great strides in your youth development programmes?
Les Reed: It's very difficult to measure success in youth development. Of course, it can't purely be measured from results, but I'm very pleased that in the last few years we've pushed ourselves way up towards the top of the Maurice Burlaz ratings. Being seeded in both the [UEFA European] Under-19 and Under-17 Championships along with Spain gives us a very good benchmark. Perhaps now we're beginning not only to develop players but also teams. It's a mark of the success of our programme.
uefa.com: Do you try and teach one tactical system to all age levels of the England set-up?
Reed: Our strategy is based on a simple system of 4-3-3 but it's very flexible, very loose. We see it as a teaching framework rather than a tactical system to win matches. What we try to do is make sure everything we do is geared towards success in international football in the long term. We know we have to make sure our players are comfortable on the ball, that we have lots of movement off the ball, lots of interchanging positions. A rigid structure is not good in terms of being successful at international level in the future. All our teams play 4-3-3 and yet our national team manager plays 4-4-2. People often say that is inconsistent but my view is if we teach properly our national manager should be able to play any system he likes according to the players he picks and our players should be able to adapt.
uefa.com: What are your opinions on the UEFA Youth Conference?
Reed: This conference brings like-minded people together. I've worked in club football and international football from the bottom to the top and there's no doubt that at international level people are far more willing to share ideas than they are in the domestic club scene. That's what this conference provides - it allows people to get together, meet each other and develop friendships. We [the FA] plan to hold our own domestic national youth conference and a big part of that, I hope, will be inviting people [from Europe] across. If more federations were to do that we would get together more often and it wouldn't be incumbent on UEFA to continually do it. The UEFA Youth Conference could then be the pinnacle of a series of smaller meetings. That would only be good for the development of football.
uefa.com: How well do you think the restructuring of the U19 and U17 UEFA competitions has worked?
Reed: The principle of two mini-tournaments to give a wide experience of international football to as many countries as possible can only be a good thing. Organisationally, it's very simple too; it can only be more efficient this way. I think the restructuring has been absolutely perfect for the game.