Declan Rice ‘looks like a prisoner of war breaking rocks’ because England is embarrassed to copy Scotland | OneFootball

In Scotland, the season has been going for a couple of weeks with the League Cup. I saw Montrose play Spartans on Saturday.

Why isn’t England following suit with their League Cup, which starts on August 6 after a couple of preliminary games on the 1st and 3rd? Premier League clubs don’t join until the 24th. If they want to continue with the League Cup, why start so late? They know it causes congestion further into the season.

The Scottish league campaigns start on Friday, so that it can have a winter break. Yes, that radical European idea that the Premier League and EFL prefers to ignore in favour of flogging the players as much as they can, squeezing every last penny out of them, regardless of player welfare. The TV channels can’t let us have a day without football, it seems.

God forbid the FA use Scotland as an example to follow, even though it makes sense. They say they’re starting later to help World Cup players recover but will have no hesitation in cramming the games in later in the season.

There’s least 2,500 players in the leagues. Only a few were at the World Cup and fewer still who played more than three games. It seems madness to gear the start of the season to accommodate that small percentage.

I suspect the reason they don’t follow this good example is down to their sense of self importance. They don’t want to be influenced by something they look down on. Admittedly, the SFA is a useless organisation and proven to be inadequate year after year, hardened around an old boys’ network. What’s more, everyone knows it. What’s more, some of them are feckin’ English! But it does at least show an alternative, better way which isn’t so physically stressful.

England has a history of being led by Scotland, dating back to the start of football, If it was ever coming home, its home is Scotland and that’s just one more thing that has been colonised by the English.

In the late 1860s and 1870s, Glasgow club Queen’s Park pioneered “combination play”, which was passing the ball between team-mates to move down the pitch. When Scotland faced England in the first-ever international match in Glasgow in 1872, the Scottish used this new tactic to dominate play despite being much smaller in physical size. Still ended 0-0, like.

Scottish players known as “Scotch Professors” were subsequently hired by English clubs, spreading the passing game across England and eventually exporting it to South America and the rest of the world. See? Where would the English game be without Scottish innovation?

The world’s oldest surviving leather football (dating back to between 1540 and 1570) was discovered behind panelling in Stirling Castle, likely played with during the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Scottish King James I officially banned “fute-ball” in 1424 because it was too violent and distracted men from archery practice, while King James IV bought a bag of “fut ballis” in 1497 according to royal accounts.

John Hope founded the Foot-Ball Club of Edinburgh in 1824 and drafted written rules banning tripping and carrying the ball. It predates England’s famous Cambridge Rules by 15 years. England wrote the rulebook for Association Football, but Scotland invented modern tactical football: the passing, team-oriented game played around the globe today.

So given the historical dependence on Scottish forethought, the EFL and the Premier League might realise that Scotland’s model might just be better than flogging their players all winter, or sending the squad to a hot, oppressive regime for a break if they get knocked out of the FA Cup early.

Everyone knows the fixture list in England is too crowded and needs a radical overhaul. There’s often talk of getting rid of the League Cup altogether, but there really is no need. By starting in mid-July most of the players have already had six weeks off work and a couple of weeks pre-season. The League Cup can be used to further hone fitness. Surely competitive football is better training than running up sand dunes until you’re sick?

Breaks are most effective if they’re relatively short but more regular. Doing nothing for three months then having to do nine straight months is why Declan Rice looks like a prisoner of war breaking rocks. The poor fella sweats blood.

Most would take two six-week breaks over one of three months and then none and the only reason that they haven’t reorganised it like that is because they’d feel humiliated being shown to follow the admittedly usually useless SFA.