BURTON UPON TRENT, England -- Imagine it's June, 2016. England has just crashed out of the European Championships in France despite qualifying for the tournament without breaking a sweat. Despite taking his nation to a third major tournament, the calls will come for Roy Hodgson's removal and yet another overhaul.
But there are people working already on improving the future of football in England, regardless of what happens next summer in France.
Hodgson will be 70 by the time the 2018 World Cup begins in Russia and though he certainly wants to continue, Football Association chief executive Martin Glenn has been quite clear that any contract extension will be dependent on an impressive performance next summer. But it's not as if a potential challenger to Hodgson has even made his presence known.
Where are all the up-and-coming England managers, anyway? According to the bookmakers, the only three candidates with odds shorter than 10/1 are Alan Pardew (revered in South London, hated in the North-East), Gareth Southgate (respected but unsuccessful in this summer's U21s) and Gary Neville (excellent pundit and current assistant manager but yet to manage a team at any level).
At St George's Park, the FA's national football centre, Geoff Pike is working hard at the foundations, striving to improve coaching standards and to ensure that next time the top job comes up, there are rather more candidates to choose from. Pike, who played for West Ham for twelve years and won the FA Cup with them in 1980, is the head of coaching awards, overseeing a structure of development -- or, to put it another way, coaching the coaches of the future.
"It annoys me when people say we're not providing opportunities [for new coaches]," says Pike. "We are providing opportunities. When the Germans got in that room together after their debacle in 2000, they planned to win the 2014 World Cup. And that's what they did. They were prepared to wait for it. The problem in this country is that we want everything tomorrow."
Nothing will be decided by tomorrow, of course, but the future seems in good hands.
Opened in 2012, St George's Park is a state of the art facility constructed at a cost of £105 million with the aim of fully maximising the knowledge, experience and (of course) the affluence of English football. Located in Staffordshire in the middle of England, more than 40 percent of the population are within a two-hour drive, making it more convenient and considerate than placing it in the capital.
It provides a base for all of England's teams, a training pitch with the same specifications as Wembley, 11 outdoor pitches with undersoil heating and floodlights, and even an altitude chamber to help prepare for challenging conditions.
On a wet day in August in an vast indoor playing arena the size of an aircraft hanger, Pike looks on as a group of UEFA B-qualified coaches run through sessions for the next level up, the UEFA A licence.
One by one and under the supervision of FA instructors, the coaches take their own individual session with their fellow students, who are mostly (but not exclusively) former professional footballers. They explain their expectations and then blow the whistle, launching into whatever drills or practice sessions they've decided to demonstrate. Afterwards, as those who have played stretch their aching limbs and prepare to go again, the coach in question will be taken aside by an instructor and assessed on their performance.
Pike is eager not to teach by rote, allowing his students to simply memorise and repeat their way through the levels, but to encourage them to think for themselves.
Some of Pike's students are already household names. Indeed, the names who are most likely to be linked with England vacancies still to come are either newly retired or still playing now. The likes of Steven Gerrard, Michael Carrick and Rio Ferdinand have all been contacted.
"We want to get away from the myth, and it is a myth, that the qualifications are like passing your driving test. The assumption from some coaches used to be if I do it the way the tutors do it, I'll pass my qualification. So we'd get people that were really good learners. They'd pick it up straight away and go and do it like that.
"In reality, they weren't actually coaching players, they were just coaching without having a real understanding of what they were doing. I could bring all of these coaches in here, sit them in here for 10 or 12 days and teach them how to pass an exam. They'll pass it, but they won't be very good at coaching."
"I'll give you an example. A while ago we had a manager here who had been working for years but who had never studied for his qualifications. He delivered his first session outside and when he came off, I fed back to him. It was all over the place. He got that and he understood that. We then did some work over the next few days, and I prescribed him a session to deliver, which was about playing with front players.
"He delivered the session and he created a completely different environment. He came off, we sat down and he said, 'Never in my years of management have I delivered a session in that way. I'm going to go back, and start doing them all that way because I know I'm going to get an outcome.'"
Under Pike's guidance, aspiring coaches are watched carefully as they perform their individual sessions. There is an atmosphere of mutual respect among the candidates; every session ends with appreciative and supportive applause but there are always important tells for those who know who to spot them.
"If the players looked disengaged, there's something wrong," says Pike. "We look at how the coach communicates the message. Are they delivering the message through a demonstration, are they delivering it through trial and error? Is it through a question and answer process? There are different methodologies behind what we want them to do. It's crucial."
But even for those coaches who don't go on to manage major clubs or become household names, Pike believes that the infusion of good practices now can have hidden benefits down the line.
"It worries me when you think that there are people out there who are working with young players aged eight or nine and are making decisions on whether they'll make it or not. When you ask them why these boys are not going to be players, they say 'they're not good at making decisions.' Well, hang on a minute: the brain doesn't work like that at that age. It's not developed enough. These people are making assumptions about these players and then they say, 'Well, he might be a late developer.' So why don't you give them a chance then?"
Pike says that the FA are working hard to ensure that former professionals are in their coaching system and they are looking at how best they can ensure they are involved in their top qualifications.
"I've had conversations with Jamie Carragher," he says. "I've had conversations with a number of former England internationals. The PFA have been heavily involved in discussing how we might be able to help them get qualified.
"What gets me is that there are always reports about the professionals and the ex-professionals not wanting to do this. There's an assumption that they don't want to do this. They do want to do it though. They understand it."
But the schedule of a Premier League player does not well suit a UEFA A course that takes a total of 20 days, broken into two parts and spread across separate blocks of study. By their mid-30s, most footballers are men with long-suffering families, eager to make up for their months of absence with relaxing holidays crammed into an off season that seems to get shorter every year.
"I spoke to Jamie Carragher, and he's brilliant," says Pike. "He's come and done some stuff with me. He came for a week on an A license course to see if it was for him. It was just as his playing days were ending so it didn't quite work for him at the time. I spoke to him and he said he wanted to do it in a way that suits him but he doesn't want any shortcuts.
"It's an assumption that people make that we're going to fast track the pros because they've played at the highest level and there's no consideration for their needs. What we do for them, is that we say 'look, you've got all this knowledge but we're going to teach you how to teach it.'
"We are trying desperately hard to make the courses more available, more accessible and more productive," says Pike. "From May of this year, the qualification assessment model has changed. Previously it was more like an exam process, but now the A license has gone onto a competency framework.
"Basically what we will do is support the candidate in their club environment. So it's not like an exam where you work, work, work and then you're judged. It's about developing the coach over a period of time, at a pace which suits them, and when they're ready, we'll shake their hand and say well done, you've qualified. Their learning journey will be much more worthwhile and rounded, rather than just passing an exam."
Pike laughs grimly when it is suggested that none of this hard work will protect the FA from criticism if England exit the 2016 European Championships in the group stages, even if it's in unfortunate circumstances.
"Absolutely! But you ask the French, you ask the Germans, you ask the Spanish, you ask the Belgians... every country is the same. Every coaching system is ultimately judged by what the national team does over the summer. It's completely unfair."