I think that's massively out of date - did you watch the England U20 and U17 world cup wins last summer?
No. It’s based only on the games of this World Cup. English players are too often clumsy with the ball and rarely take a man on (Sterling excepted and he fails often). They mostly play a game of athletic power and endurance, set pieces, and statistical analysis. It works or they wouldn’t be in with a realistic chance of winning the World Cup, but it’s not usually pretty.
I spent my teenage years playing beach football in Brazil and received very little formal training (having no special talent, etc.). When I watch Brazilian players, very often they do what I fondly imagine I would do (if I had the skill and speed). When I watch England, the players much less often make the decisions I would. Especially the off-the-ball movement is highly theoretical, not the natural movement you learn by unschooled playing.
This England team is structured and organised. They have picked the players who fit the structure, not the best footballers, because that's how you do well at tournament football.
However, Sterling is doing pretty well according to this:
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1017050334512812032?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5EtweetOf the top 5 players on that list:
Hazard played for a club from 4,
Neymar played footsal from a young age and joined his first club aged 7,
Cheryshev was at Sporting Gijon from age 6,
Sterling joined the QPR academy at 9,
and MBappe joined his first club aged 6 (and was coached by his father prior to that).
The magic of street football is not the breeding ground for modern youngsters who dribble - structured coaching is everywhere.
The astonishing thing to me about Sterling is how good he is despite his inability to really
strike a ball.
