I don’t entirely accept this north/south divide of talent, but I commissioned a bit of research. And what I discovered may shatter a few myths. I looked at three English cities (London, Birmingham and Manchester) and three Italian cities (Milan, Turin and Rome) and evaluated data on average temperature, wind speed, rainfall and hours of sunshine per month.

The research showed clearly that there was no substantial difference in temperature and that it rained more in Turin than in London. So why did it feel colder in London? The answer came when I looked at wind speeds. The average monthly wind speed in the three English cities was 15.3 kilometres per hour, compared with 10.3km per hour in the Italian cities. That meant that in England the wind blew some 50 per cent harder than it did in Italy. A substantial difference. And if we exclude the non-footballing summer months, the gap increases. The average in Manchester, Birmingham and London is 15.6km per hour while in Milan, Turin and Rome it’s just 10.1km per hour.

I felt vindicated. It supported what I had suspected for a long time — that wind, more than any other climatic factor, influences the development of a footballer. It seems basic, it seems simplistic, but it is an absolutely huge factor. And it’s not just something that affects young players: it has an impact on how a team trains and, therefore, how it plays, even at professional level. Arsène Wenger shares my view.

“One of the first things I had to get accustomed to as soon as I arrived in England was the weather,” he said. “And I don’t mean the temperature or the rain but, most of all, the wind. The wind ruins everything. It forces you to do only one type of exercise. It forces you to work on either speed or continuous movement. It’s very rare that you get the chance to sit calmly and work on technique or on tactics. You have to keep the players moving, otherwise they get cold. And this is something which begins way back when they are children.”

The wind affects everything. You can be the most technical footballer in the world — you can be Zidane and Maradona rolled into one — but if a fierce wind is blowing, you won’t be able to do any meaningful work with the ball in the air, whether it’s volleying practice, heading or keepy-uppy. Even any kind of passing over ten or 20 feet becomes pointless when it’s windy. And it’s not just down to the way the wind affects the flight of the ball. No. As Wenger points out, the wind makes everything feel colder. You don’t want to do a shooting drill or individual ballwork when players spend lots of time standing around. You want to keep them moving so that their muscles stay loose.

I have clear memories of standing on a training pitch in Italy as the coaches explained what they wanted us to do tactically in excruciating detail. We would play for about 30 seconds, then everything would stop and they would explain it again if somebody made a mistake or didn’t make a crisp enough run. All of this, of course, was in addition to the time we spent in front of the blackboard. This type of tactical work gave us a base in terms of movement and reading the game. In England the wind makes it impossible to replicate that kind of work.

Does it explain why, generally, Italian players have better individual technique than their English counterparts and why in Italy we spend much more time on tactics? Not on its own, but it’s certainly a factor. More than any other climatic factor, the wind determines what kind of players are produced and their characteristics, both technical and tactical.

TRIBAL WARFARE

FOR ITALIAN FANS THE JOY OF football is primarily derived from results, but in England just being there counts for something. It is a sign of belonging, it is doing one’s duty. “Here in England their patience is infinite,” says Sven-Göran Eriksson. “The supporters never criticise and they always applaud you. It doesn’t matter if you do well or not, the supporters are always there.”

For Arsène Wenger, the reasons for this are historical. “Anglo-Saxon culture is all about banding together in small groups which, to survive, had to remain united. British history is the history of thousands of years of warring clans so, to survive they looked inwards, fostering unity. That was their strength. It was very clannish and tribal.

“Italy and France were also tribal, but to survive they did things differently. That’s why our history is the history of alliances and betrayals, of the Borgias, of double-crosses, of being with one ally one year and another the next. You loved your colours but you loved your own survival more. The Latins think more, they reason more, they are more analytical.

“This is why if I were going to war I would want to be alongside an Englishman not a Frenchman. The Frenchman would think too much.”

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