This is very true - the scouting focus of top teams in England when recruiting young English talent for the last 20 odd years seems to have focused heavily on the physical aspects of a player and we've ended up with good athletes and or young kids who've physically developed ahead of their peers getting a head start over skillful and intelligent youngsters who perhaps had more potential but were never given the opportunity to show case that because they either developed into a man slower than others or simply lacked the physical and athletic attributes that short sighted scouts have deemed essential
I think it Holland's youth systems they play a style of football that negates all physical advantages and makes each player prove their worth by their footballing skills and footballing intelligence
As a result its not surprising that the Dutch have constantly produced a better crop of young players than us and have a stronger national team in spite of their lesser population and therefore smaller talent pool to choose from
Of course physical attributes play an important role in modern football - but not at the expense of the really valuable attributes that all truly great footballers have (not just great athletes) like vision, ability to anticipate play, skill, passing range and timing, the metal ability to gain a yard on the opponent etc
