Mike Rigg and Matt Crocker have been talking at St George's Park for the best part of an hour, passionately discussing their roles in the Football Association's brave new world. "Something I picked up, and I'm sure Mike would say the same, is there is a real thirst for positive change in the FA," Crocker, the FA's head of player and coach development, says. "People are ready for it. They want to be part of something special."

Recruited by Dan Ashworth, the FA's director of elite performance, Rigg and Crocker have key parts to play in shaping the future of English football, not least by helping to create the playing philosophy that will provide a "golden thread" running from the Under-16s through to Roy Hodgson's senior side.

The theory is that every representative team, and every coach at St George's Park, will be guided by the same principles, giving England a clear identity that will increase the chance of success further down the road and also help to make the transition for someone such as Luke Shaw, the 18-year-old Southampton left-back who hopes to win his first senior cap against Denmark on Wednesday night, as seamless as possible.

"I guess what we're trying to do is to create a culture or an environment where you go and watch an England team for five minutes and you should be able to know whether it's an England team whether they're wearing the kit or not," says Crocker, who was previously academy manager at Southampton.

"We need to clearly define ourselves tactically and technically in terms of what we're looking for, but also socially and psychologically what our players should be like."

Rigg, the FA's head of talent identification and former technical director with Manchester City and QPR, has visited the top clubs at home and abroad, as well as the leading nations, in search of ideas and good practice to help with the process of constructing English football's DNA. Yet it was a relatively unknown Spanish club, rather than the trip to Real Madrid's training ground, that left the deepest impression on him.

"A couple of months ago I went out to Alcorcón, who play in Segunda B, they were on the verge of the play-offs to get into La Liga last summer. The club is run by the council, it's about 20 minutes outside Madrid, it's got a stadium that holds about 4,500 people and an Astroturf pitch which is the training ground. I sat down with their sporting director and I was blown away with how they develop players because of their DNA. It was essentially about having a plan, sticking to it and getting everyone to buy into it."

With discussions still going on, Rigg and Crocker are reluctant to go into detail about what England's DNA might look like but there is a flavour of what to expect. "If you come into top level football, if you want to be able to compete, you have to have a work ethic, so we can't afford to carry players who aren't prepared, in simple terms, to press and go and close down the ball," Rigg says. "So part of our DNA is, off the ball, what is your attitude like to win it back? That's a real simple example of not just what gets you success at the highest level but something that is true to us as a nation – the hard work that is ingrained in our culture."

Crocker explains that no stone has been left unturned. "The biggest thing we're looking at in addition to what other countries are doing is research innovation. How Apple or Nike take an idea or a concept, put it into some type of process and it comes out the other end as ingrained in their culture. So it's massively broader than football. This is where Dave Reddin coming in [as head of performance services] is brilliant. We've opened our minds to all kinds of things that football would have probably frowned upon a few years ago."

The idea of an England coach standing up in a lecture hall on the eve of a game and explaining his team selection and tactics to a roomful of people who have nothing to do with the FA would also have been unthinkable at one time, but that it is a scenario played out regularly at St George's Park these days, with a view to creating a much more open culture, where ideas are exchanged and challenged.

"When England Under-16s played Belgium last month, we invited every Under-16 coach in the country [working at a professional club] to the game," Crocker says. "Before that Dan does a brief presentation, supported by Gareth [Southgate, the England Under-21 coach], on what we're doing. Then we'll bring in Kenny Swain [the England Under-16 coach] to talk about his how we're going to line up, how we'll play against Belgium and the reasons why. So we're getting a chance to forge relationships with clubs and share what we're doing."

That has not always been an easy alliance in the past, in stark contrast to Germany, where clubs buy into the bigger picture that the strength of the national team is crucial to the health of the domestic game. While it is difficult to ever imagine that being the case in England, Rigg and Crocker see positive signs. They view the Premier League's Elite Player Performance Plan as a force for good and highlight the value of the FA's 16 full-time youth coach educators, who work closely with academy staff, helping them to gain their qualifications and providing support on implementing each club's philosophy.

"I think there's a different mindset now," Rigg says. "We all went to Man City a couple of weeks ago – me, Matt, Dan and Gareth – and spent the day with Patrick Vieira, Gary Worthington, Txiki Begiristain and Brian Marwood. Their attitude was: what can we do to help you? The perception is those relationships aren't there. But they are there. Hand on heart, there has not been one door that has been closed."

But even if things are moving in the right direction on that front, and Rigg and Crocker are adamant that the talent is out there, it is impossible to ignore the sobering reality, which is that there are so few chances for young English players to break through at Premier League level. What, if anything, can Rigg and Crocker do to change that? "I don't think this is an answer us two can give you now," Rigg says. "We do agree, the opportunities and pathways into competitive football are a real challenge in this country. I know this is one of the areas the FA commission is looking into, which is a level above what we're doing."

An area where Rigg does have the scope to effect change in the English game is in relation to scouting and player recruitment. A fortnight ago every club with a category one and category two academy was invited to attend a talent identification conference at St George's Park, where Rigg put forward his case to "radically professionalise the side of football that is the least developed". He plans to introduce a five-level award, starting with a talent ID course at grassroots level that goes right through to a technical director's licence. Rigg says there is a lot of support among the clubs.

"It is the only department in a club, or an association, where you can literally go and get two fellows off the street, bring them in and say: 'You're now in charge of talent identification'," Rigg says. "In many ways it lets everyone else down, because you've got a coach who has gone through four years of education, effectively to a masters level, going through the youth modules, B licence, A licence and Pro licence, and Fred from the cafe can come in and be asked to find a player for them."

The conversation is coming to a close and Rigg and Crocker are both keen to stress that they are not trying to reinvent the wheel. English football is playing catch up and there is no quick fix. What the FA will soon have, though, is a clear framework to work from and that, at the very least, is a step in the right direction.

Crocker adds: "I think the aim has got to be for us, in the FA licensed coaches' club conference come December, rather than bringing in Belgium – where there is some great work going on – and all these different associations to give an insight, let's say: 'This is England, this is how we're going to play, this is our philosophy, this is what we're going to stick to for the next 10-15 years.' There might be people in the room who disagree with it but at least we are defining ourselves. Hopefully it will bring us some future success."