England plan to unleash a squad of thoughtful footballing RoboCops, capable of enforcing their will and skill despite anything the rest of the world can throw at them. That is not the phrasing of the FA but it seems to be the hope behind the England DNA masterplan on how to build the ideal England international.

The FA hopes coaches will spread the word across the land, while the most talented young players in the country will be carefully nurtured and issued with flash disks that they can wear on wristbands so they can consult the blueprint at any time. The aim is to make England dominant and distinctive.

“England DNA is the start point for the creation of a world-class approach of elite player development,” reads the blurb for a scheme hatched over the past 12 months to help the FA make best use of St George’s Park. Some 1,500 licenced coaches will gather over the next three days to find out more before passing on their knowledge.

Spearheaded by Dan Ashworth, the FA’s director of elite development, the plan factors in research and consultations with coaches across the country as well as the most advanced practices of six other European nations and three in South America.

“We have a mantra that the only thing that changes is the size of the shirt,” said Ashworth, explaining the England style will be fostered at youth level and seamlessly taken into the senior team by well-reared players.

“There has to be a consistency in the message we’re trying to get out to the players,” Roy Hodgson said. “The earlier we can get that message to them, the better. It’s very important that we have clear principles of what we want them to be doing in defensive positions, what we want them to be doing with the ball, without the ball improving their awareness tactically, their sense of game-management.” The England manager added: “The earlier we can get these messages across to them – and really bed in these messages – it should really help the senior team.”

So how will New England play? The FA stresses the style will not be German or Belgian, to mention two countries whose models it admires, but English, intelligent and open to evolution. That, apparently, means cultivating players who are comfortable on the ball, shrewd in the mind and able to rise to any challenge. But definitely not copying anyone. Ashworth, appointed two years ago on the back of his progressive work at West Bromwich Albion, said England’s youth team are already starting to demonstrate the definition in motion.

“I watched the under-21s home and away against Croatia, watched them against Portugal, watched the under-19s against Italy, and the ability for us to deal with the ball, the ability for us to press early when needed to, the ability for us to be tactically flexible to be to play against different systems such a diamond that Portugal threw up against us, the ability for us to dominate the middle of the pitch, some of the key things there, that’s not a formation, that’s a philosophy. We get hung up on ‘is it 4-3-3 or 4-4-2?’ No, it is a philosophy and principles of play.”

Intriguingly, given England have just emerged from an era partially defined by the vexed question of whether Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard can play together, Ashworth suggests that in the future England players and coaches will have the nous to make good players complement each other: “We have a duty to get our best players on the pitch. If the two best players at under-16s are No9s, then we have to find a way of getting them on the pitch without having one sat on the bench. We are not rigid.”

The FA recognises clubs will remain the chief influence on young players but says increasingly they and the FA share similar visions. “Of course 90% of players development is with clubs because they have more time with them,” Ashworth said. “But the connection and interaction with the clubs is better than it’s ever been. It’s not club v country, it’s club and country. We’ve all got the same success criteria. The clubs want good young players coming through their academies and we want good young players in England teams.”

An example of a change beneficial to club and country is the increase in the number of England youth teams, introducing under-18s and under-20s, and devising a more diverse fixture list. This change resulted from the FA’s conviction that, in addition to improving players technically and tactically, it needs to broaden young players’ experiences by getting them to play more international matches and against a wider range of teams.

Gareth Southgate, the England Under-21 coach, points out that the Germany players who won the World Cup last summer were more experienced than their England counterparts even before they graduated to their senior teams, with top countries’ players averaging 20 youth caps more than English ones by the time they reach their senior teams. “But it’s not just about the number of caps, it’s the types of experiences,” Southgate said. “Historically our game programme was just against European teams, this year we’ve tried to extend that. Our under-17s were in America last week playing against Australia, Brazil and the States. We’ve got to play world opposition and face different types of challenges.”

England drew 2-2 with Brazil in Florida and Southgate said it was an enriching encounter thanks to the antics of the Brazil coach and the fact that, contrary to the stereotype, Brazil play a direct style with which English youngsters are not familiar. “Our under-17s had a unique experience against Brazil this week with some of the things that were going on off the pitch as well as on it – their coach was sent to stand, let’s leave it at that – and you have to cope with all of that. You have to have the discipline to keep 11 men on the field and experience how we’re going to play when we’re behind, how we’re going to play when we’re ahead with five minutes to go. Also, encountering different styles of play – when you play a South American team, they’ve been very direct in our experiences from senior level to youth level over the last couple of years. Also, the experience of being away for a period of time for a tournament situation is very different to life with clubs.”

Given the FA’s desire for continuity – or a “golden thread” linking youth teams and the senior team – it would seem logical for the next England manager to be someone steeped in the England DNA doctrine, someone such as, say, Southgate or Gary Neville. Ashworth sidestepped the question with the sort of nimbleness he hopes to instil in young England players. “First and foremost, Roy has still got a long time left on his contract,” he says. “It’s not a question we need to think about for a period of time. At club level we had a philosophy, where the club felt it was important to continue the work that had gone on, the philosophy, and head coaches were brought into that philosophy during the interview process. I’ve not been through that process at international level yet and hopefully for not for a while to come.”