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Scotlands last genuine world class player?


RobbieD

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Its cyclical, in 20 years we'll have a world beater while Wales don't, thats life when you're not a major nation.

We haven't had a world beater in 30 years and there doesn't look like there is one coming.

Holland, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Uruguay, Bulgaria, Croatia, Belgium and other similar sized countries have produced at least 2 or 3 minimum world class players in that same time period.

There's absolutely no way it's as simple as being cyclical.

Edited by RobbieD
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We haven't had a world beater in 30 years and there doesn't look like there is one coming.

Holland, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Uruguay, Bulgaria, Croatia, Belgium and other similar sized countries have produced at least 2 or 3 minimum world class players in that same time period.

There's absolutely no way it's as simple as being cyclical.

Maybe it's like busses and we'll get 5 or 6 all at once.

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Darren Fletcher was sensational in his prime. I remember Sir Alex Ferguson saying that the spine of the 'new' Manchester United would be him, Ronaldo and Rooney, and initially their fans couldn't understand the hype, but by about 2009 he was a massive player for them. Gordon wasn't far off him; sad the way their careers have ended up going due to injury when people were looking at them as ones to build the national team around consistently for years to come.

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Well they didn't get to Euro 80,84 or 88. Absolutely remarkable given the amount of talent at our disposal.

For qualifying for Euro 88 we finished 4th in a 5 team group, behind Belgium, Bulgaria and... Wait for it.... Group winners Southern Ireland!

I think it's pretty likely Scotland will never have an impact at a major tournament again, certainly not in anyone reading this's lifetime.

Therefore it's such a shame we don't have a proud history to be nostalgic about, because we really should have when you see the quality of players we had back in the day. The future looks bleak and so does the past!

The European championships were harder to qualify for in the 80s than the WC though given that there were only 7 available slots to play for. I don't think it's that remarkable that we never made it to one until 1992. Maybe more so in 60s and 70s when we underachieved terribly given the talent at our disposal but not so much the 80s.

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Its cyclical, in 20 years we'll have a world beater while Wales don't, thats life when you're not a major nation.

Won't they?

As far as I remember, Wales have always had at least one top, top player in their side.

Bale replaced Giggs who was on his way in when Hughes and Rush were getting to the tail end of their careers.

Is it cyclical? Is it luck? I don't know to be honest. Even our 'world beaters' that we lost across the Irish sea have both turned out to be no great shakes in world football.

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Won't they?

As far as I remember, Wales have always had at least one top, top player in their side.

Bale replaced Giggs who was on his way in when Hughes and Rush were getting to the tail end of their careers.

Is it cyclical? Is it luck? I don't know to be honest. Even our 'world beaters' that we lost across the Irish sea have both turned out to be no great shakes in world football.

Wales was probably the worst example possible, seeing as 90% of them are raised and trained in England

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I suppose you could class Collins and Lambert in that bracket given they were playing for Monaco and Dortmund, and Lambert won the Champions League with Dortmund.

Nonsense. What did Monaco do whilst Collins was with them? Lambert was so "world class" he only played with them for a season and only got a game because Paulo Sousa was injured all season. Just because you play for a good team doesn't mean you're "world class". Gary Cahill isn't world class but he plays with a world class team, Phil Jones isn't world class because he plays with Man U.

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You folk seriously need to get a grip! a world class player is a player who would walk into any side in the world, would be a contender for a world XI and would be revered the world over. You seriously think a couple of bog standard midfielders like Lambert and Fletcher fit that criteria??? do you think ANYONE outside of Scotland or hardcore Dortmund fans remember Lambert? You reckon ANYONE outside of Scotland (even Man U fans) will remember Darren Fletcher??? get real.

Dagleish and Souness were our last 2 world class players.

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