Having watched Kane and his Tottenham team-mates Ryan Mason and Andros Townsend celebrating together for England in Turin during the week, Ferdinand argues that the line between that happy picture and talent drifting unharnessed in the modern game could not be thinner.
It had been naggingly obvious since Samba's departure from Millwall in 2004, having been paraded in front of the Premier League's top clubs while concurrently allowing his own talent to drift, that the facts would never do justice to the figures.
Talent is drifting to pay-television, in part because there are fewer appealing roles in film.
Russell Thomas wrote in the Guardian that Kendall's move "confirms the most depressing trend in British football: the drift of talent, player and managerial, to the continent," while, in the Times, Stuart Jones said Kendall's departure represented "another disturbing signpost.
The natural drift of such talents tends toward elegy, as their circle of interlocutors and secret-sharers shrinks over time: Many distinguished dead were there At one of the front tables, fragrant talk everywhere.
Mentors are being drawn from C-level execs, often from country managers of the likes of Intel in Poland – there is a lot of exec and CEO talent in these countries that often doesn't drift towards Western Europe much.
Talented staff, sick of poverty wages and living in shared flats will drift off to other jobs, draining much-needed talent and expertise from the industry".
The heart has been allowed to drift out of the side as genuine talent has given way to staggering mediocrity.
Oftentimes, the wrong people are laid off, and top performing associates, the ones most essential to keep, will always drift away to more stable environments where their talents are acknowledged and appreciated, and their hands are not tied.
Their attention drifts, they fail to exercise their skills and their talents begin to wither.
