‘Can tell most of the teams are coached by brits from the thuggery’ isn’t the most PC way to get your point across. So if I’m not happy with the quote I’ll call it out. Like I said it’s common place.
I agree.
I've never played football abroad except for some futsal when I was living in Australia so I would be interested to see if there is a difference in the general level of aggressiveness/dirtiness in different countries. There's definately an element of aggression in amateur (and professional) football in England which seems particularly English to me, although I couldn't say for certain without experiencing football elsewhere. I will say I've played in numerous sides in England and every so often you get a player from abroad play, and they always comment on the level of aggression. It's only partly the fouls on the pitch or willingness to tackle hard but fair, that happens everywhere I believe, but more so it's the off the ball verbals, threats of physical violence and occassional actual violence that surprises them. Unfortunately from my experience this caused a lot of good players to not want to play anymore.
I don't think it's due to coaching though but possibility the fact in England football is very much a working class sport. At professional youth level I would expect if there is more aggression or foul play then it's possibility some element of that, but also the fact these kids are striving to become professionals in the most competitive, high tempo league in the world. The Blackburn players will earn a hell of a lot less than our lads, they will have less expensive facilities, they will want to get one over a Manchester United team even though it's "only" at youth level, they will want to "prove a point", and most importantly they will want to get a result. The only way to beat a more technically talented side is to be more aggressive, more assertive, stronger, quicker. If the ref is letting you get away with it, players keep pushing the boundary of what's acceptable.