It is not about the beach. “Pelé never played on a bloody beach.” Nor is it about facilities. “We trained Micah Richards on Roundhay Park.” It is about a deep-seated cultural malaise that means our footballers are lazy and the coaches poorer than those in São Paulo’s most diseased favela.

This is the sort of abrasive wake-up call that meant Simon Clifford was never going to fit in at Southampton, where he was recruited as Sir Clive Woodward’s right-hand man. It duly went sour amid a dressing-room bust-up with Dave Bassett and much mockery of his perceived ball-juggling. Yet Clifford’s faith in Brazilian coaching methodology had already caused him to throw in his job and spend his savings on a trip to South America. A decade on, he is a millionaire on the back of his Brazilian Soccer Schools. Something, as a graduate such as Richards would testify, is working.

The popular, romanticised belief is that in Brazil players learn on the streets. The truth is different. Clifford first became intrigued by Brazil when he befriended Juninho, who was staggered by what he had found in England when he joined Middlesbrough.

“He came over here on four times the money he was used to and he expected things to be four times better,” Clifford said. “But São Paulo had five training centres like nothing you’d ever seen and Middlesbrough were training in a prison with dog s*** on the pitch.”

By contrast, in São Paulo, where Juninho and Pelé grew up, each youth player is given a specific technical programme and weekly blood samples are taken. But the facilities and the back-up are not really the issue. Pelé and Ronaldinho were brought up playing futebol de salão, an abridged version of the game played on a basketball court-sized pitch with a small ball. By necessity, skills are honed quicker, the long ball is impossible and players learn how to beat a man.

In England, coaching drills are based largely upon passing and there may be one ball between a group in a 90-minute session; in Brazil everybody has a ball for 40 per cent of the time. As in the Netherlands, there are no leagues for young players. The goals are fun and development.

Another national stereotype that is a myth is that we have a harder work ethic than the more naturally talented South Americans. Brazilian junior players train for four hours a day, over here it is less than four hours a week. When Clifford advocated a Brazilian regime at Southampton he was told that he was risking injuries. “When I first went to Brazil it blew my mind,” Clifford said. “It was like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Our own factory, by contrast, remains closed.

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