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6 year rebuilding plan like Berti Vogts suggestion


mcfadden78

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This might get a roasting but I believe long-term rebuilding is the only way forward for the national team. I wanted to take the question. 

Berti Vogts took Scotland over in 2002 and capped well over 30 players. Although he was there for 2 and a half years, He virtually had to build a new team after Craig Brown's era. He capped both Craig Gordon and David Marshall and also Darren Fletcher and James McFadden. He also unearthed Graham Alexander and several others. 

5 years later Scotland nearly qualified from the toughest group of all time for Euro 2008 beating both France home and away and were the victims of a referee decision which was largely unjustified (honest). This remains the last time we had a national team which everyone was fighting for. Nearly all the players in the team were from the Vogts era. It is true that Smith and McLeish got results from this. Under Vogts, young players were thrust right into the starting team and were given matches in lots of friendlies. We had to go through some pretty dire results in those particular matches. Although I believe Craig Brown would have capped several of the players above, he would not have started them. 

With this in mind Vogts also is the last manager to take Scotland to the play-offs. The group we qualified from included Germany, Iceland, Lithuania and the Faroe Islands. This might have seemed an easy group at the time but today take the fact that Scotland drew 1-1 with Lithuania at Hampden and would probably come behind Iceland in the group who are a strong team in Europe. 

The period watching Scotland under Berti Vogts was the first time I followed the national team. It was bad to watch and the results were dreadful but now I am older, I can see what he was trying to do. He was a nice guy, respected the Tartan Army and gave new players a game. He tried to produce attacking football and didn't sit back (against the Dutch at Hampden and Germany at Hampden). In my opinion he produced the perfect balance for us long-term in making a team for Smith and to a greater extent McLeish in becoming a competitive side whilst giving players an opportunity. 

Today I believe that something similar if not as on a huge scale is the only way forward. To do this we need to build the team round a core group of five players much like Vogts did with Fletcher and McFadden. This would be Tierney (left-back), Robertson (left-wing), Burke (right-wing), Gauld (attacking-mid) and McGinn (centre-mid). These five players can then be supplemented by the odd late-bloomer, experienced crop and further players from the youth ranks. 

Although this is not popular, I would forgo qualification for at least the next tournament (2018 and possibly 2020) and look towards make a team overall towards 2022. Scotland has to be a fun experience for everyone and by doing this would take the pressure off to be perfect. Also I would look into the the scapegoat dynamic which involves around Scottish Football which is clear is a big thing. Clearly there needs to be some kind of mediator between all different types of stakeholders - media, fans, players, coaches, clubs etc. 

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Just now, mcfadden78 said:

He also unearthed Graham Alexander, Gary Caldwell and Garry O'Connor.

 

Got to here the stopped. Thats like boasting that you unearthed a long dead cat in your garden.

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Vogts did more for the national side than Smith, McLeish and the rest combined.

Do you think we should've listened to someone who won the World Cup as a player and manager or the Scottish press?

He was left with nothing, absolutely nothing. He built a squad capable of qualifying and we came very close despite having to deal with Germany and Holland. I put almost everything that Smith and McLeish 'achieved' down to him also.

Yes we went down in the rankings but we had to play lost of friendlies to play players. Smith immediately stopped the friendlies and  got the media onside. The result of this was the end of players coming through and the talent dried up again. Very short term and selfish thinking. 

We really need to forget about qualifying for the next two tournaments and completely rebuild the structure from u16 to the first team. Have them all train at the same venue, like France do. Create a winning modern footballing style and tactics using the best coaches, sports science and facilities we can afford. Try to tie in the coaches that were at Livvy, Hibs and Accies. These three clubs brought through just about all the talent we have despite the relatively low budgets compared to the top two.

I think there is talent and that we can transform our game. The problem is the media and their refusal to admit our setup is a total joke under the Largs mafia system. We are now miles behind so called minnow nations like Iceland and Northern Ireland.

Its totally unacceptable and we need a ten year plan. Getting someone in like Vogts as an advisor would be a nice idea. He's currently doing the role for America. Another example of a so called former joke team who are now pissing all over us.

Or we could just change the manager for the next tournament, then the next, then the next, then .......

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16 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

Vogts did more for the national side than Smith, McLeish and the rest combined.

Do you think we should've listened to someone who won the World Cup as a player and manager or the Scottish press?

He was left with nothing, absolutely nothing. He built a squad capable of qualifying and we came very close despite having to deal with Germany and Holland. I put almost everything that Smith and McLeish 'achieved' down to him also.

Yes we went down in the rankings but we had to play lost of friendlies to play players. Smith immediately stopped the friendlies and  got the media onside. The result of this was the end of players coming through and the talent dried up again. Very short term and selfish thinking. 

We really need to forget about qualifying for the next two tournaments and completely rebuild the structure from u16 to the first team. Have them all train at the same venue, like France do. Create a winning modern footballing style and tactics using the best coaches, sports science and facilities we can afford. Try to tie in the coaches that were at Livvy, Hibs and Accies. These three clubs brought through just about all the talent we have despite the relatively low budgets compared to the top two.

I think there is talent and that we can transform our game. The problem is the media and their refusal to admit our setup is a total joke under the Largs mafia system. We are now miles behind so called minnow nations like Iceland and Northern Ireland.

Its totally unacceptable and we need a ten year plan. Getting someone in like Vogts as an advisor would be a nice idea. He's currently doing the role for America. Another example of a so called former joke team who are now pissing all over us.

Or we could just change the manager for the next tournament, then the next, then the next, then .......

'Try to tie in the coaches that were at Livvy, Hibs and Accies.'

That's interesting – do you know more about it?

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Vogts did more for the national side than Smith, McLeish and the rest combined.

Do you think we should've listened to someone who won the World Cup as a player and manager or the Scottish press?

He was left with nothing, absolutely nothing. He built a squad capable of qualifying and we came very close despite having to deal with Germany and Holland. I put almost everything that Smith and McLeish 'achieved' down to him also.

Yes we went down in the rankings but we had to play lost of friendlies to play players. Smith immediately stopped the friendlies and  got the media onside. The result of this was the end of players coming through and the talent dried up again. Very short term and selfish thinking. 

We really need to forget about qualifying for the next two tournaments and completely rebuild the structure from u16 to the first team. Have them all train at the same venue, like France do. Create a winning modern footballing style and tactics using the best coaches, sports science and facilities we can afford. Try to tie in the coaches that were at Livvy, Hibs and Accies. These three clubs brought through just about all the talent we have despite the relatively low budgets compared to the top two.

I think there is talent and that we can transform our game. The problem is the media and their refusal to admit our setup is a total joke under the Largs mafia system. We are now miles behind so called minnow nations like Iceland and Northern Ireland.

Its totally unacceptable and we need a ten year plan. Getting someone in like Vogts as an advisor would be a nice idea. He's currently doing the role for America. Another example of a so called former joke team who are now pissing all over us.

Or we could just change the manager for the next tournament, then the next, then the next, then .......



Bertie was lambasted from the start but his pure results didn't do himself any favors either. Totally agree on the rest of your suggestions and comments though
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I genuinely believe we should play the youth/sabotage our coefficient for the remainder of the campaign. For Euro 2020 there are 24 qualifying spots up for grabs but it is slightly different in that there are no play-offs and only the group winners and runners up from each group of 5/6 qualify. The remaining 4 spaces are given to the newly created Nations League (which is essentially replacing international friendlies). This is split into 4 "divisions" based on UEFA ranking with each of the 4 divisional play-off winners earning a place at EURO 2020.

Scotland currently sit 30th in the rankings. If we were to slip to 40th we would be in division 4. The teams that currently would make up this division are:

Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Cyprus, Moldova, Macedonia, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Faroe Islands, Malta, Andorra, San Marino, Gibraltar and Kosovo.

From this point, all we would have to do to qualify would be to win a 4-team, home and and away round robin group with 3 of the above and then beat 2 other sides in a semi-final and final.

Therefore, if we play the youth as mentioned above and sacrifice our coefficient to the extent where we drop to 40th in Europe, we would be able to qualify for Euro 2020 simply by beating 5 minnows instead of having to finish ahead of better teams than ourselves.

Unfortunately, knowing Scotland we'd still find a way to f**k it up.

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21 minutes ago, lubo_blaha said:

Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Cyprus, Moldova, Macedonia, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Faroe Islands, Malta, Andorra, San Marino, Gibraltar and Kosovo.

From this point, all we would have to do to qualify would be to win a 4-team, home and and away round robin group with 3 of the above and then beat 2 other sides in a semi-final and final. Therefore, if we play the youth as mentioned above and sacrifice our coefficient to the extent where we drop to 40th in Europe, we would be able to qualify for Euro 2020 simply by beating 5 minnows instead of having to finish ahead of better teams than ourselves.

Unfortunately, knowing Scotland we'd still find a way to f**k it up.

Belarus who we drew to away, and lost to at home... Georgia we twice scraped past at home, and twice lost to away... Latvia we scraped past home, and away... Cyprus we scraped past away... Moldova we drew with away... Macedonia we drew with at home, and lost to and scraped past away... Luxembourg we scraped past away... Liechtenstein we scraped past home (97th minuter!), and away... and Faroe Islands we twice drew with away?

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Belarus who we drew to away, and lost to at home... Georgia we twice scraped past at home, and twice lost to away... Latvia we scraped past home, and away.. Cyprus we scraped past away... Moldova we drew with away... Macedonia we drew with at home, and lost to and scraped past away... Luxembourg we scraped past away... Liechtenstein we scraped past home (97th minuter!), and away... Faroe Islands we twice drew with away?



I know exactly what you mean but you would fancy our chances to come out on top over 6 group games. Also "scraping past" a side = winning 3 points.

It would definitely be easier than qualifying out of a group of 6 after being seeded 4th anyway.
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It'd be brave and the media would never buy into it (three defeats into it and they'd be printing plane tickets for the new manager to go home), but it's probably the way to go.

I particularly agree with the idea of playing at every opportunity - quite depressing that we're silently absent from tonight's friendly fixtures.

Also, following the French model of having different age groups train/play at the same place seems sound: could give the various grades a sense of unity and cohesiveness in atmosphere and approach - maybe a more progressive version of Strachan's 'club mentality' thing?

And while we're at it, I reckon we should bite the hand off of the likes of Barry Hearn or Ken Schofield:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/14904911.EXCLUSIVE__Former_golf_supremo_Schofield_prepared_to_help_halt_the_decline_in_Scottish_football/

'I would try and help any sport, but, in particular, anything connected with Scotland. But if people have closed minds it makes it much more difficult.'

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Unfortunately there's no point putting in these kinds of long term plans.  They'll only be reviewed a few years into it and scrapped when they're not getting results quicker than expected.  

No matter what we do though, we can't just do the really stupid thing that some seem to suggest and just "play the youth".  It's all very noble saying we can forget about results for a few years, but 1) a lot of fans won't accept that, and why should they?  Who would buy tickets knowing that the team is forgetting about results? and 2) FIFA/UEFA won't forget about results, and then once we've blooded in these imaginary youngsters, we'll be a pot 5 side, making it even harder for them to claw their way back.

The solution is somewhere in the middle.  Pick the best 18 or so players available consistently, without question.  Then fill the rest of the squad with carefully selected players for the future.  If they're good enough, by all means fast-track them and get them involved, but just having them in squads is fine if they're not ready.

And play fucking friendlies!

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Vogts did thrust plenty of young players into friendlies - problem was that far too many of them were the wrong fucking players! How did the following players work out for our six year plan? David McNamee (4 caps), Robbie Stockdale (5 caps), Gareth Williams (5 caps), Michael Stewart (4 caps), Scot Dobie (6 caps), Kevin Kyle (9 caps), Paul Gallagher (1 cap), Jamie Smith (2 caps), Brian Kerr (3 caps), Peter Canero (1 cap). An international manager will always get it wrong with some players, but Berti was just guessing. He didn't really have an eye for what young players were going to come through and make an impact. Wasting time through capping too many players who are never going to be good enough is not a good strategy. 

He actually ignored James McFadden for quite a while, and didn't play him in a competitive match until he moved to Everton. It was similar for Fletcher, who he didn't play in a competitive match until he broke through at Man Utd. He wasn't a visionary who went against the grain to give those two games, there were massive calls for them to play. You can say that he gave David Marshall a chance, but he went 5 years without any caps after that, and almost a decade before becoming a regular - was he really ready for it then? He also managed to totally ignore young players like Shaun Maloney. It was a strange time.

Many of the players that Smith and McLeish built their teams around weren't there under Vogts, so I'm not sure if there was much of a direct impact there. It's not the job of an international manager to cap whatever young player might make it. It would have taken far more foresight to bring in the likes of Hartley and Boyd instead of Stewart and Kyle, for example. That's maybe too much to ask. But what's not too much to ask is that you don't cap players who aren't anywhere near good enough yet - like the likes of Brian Kerr and Scot Dobie who didn't get close to being good enough in the course of their career. Otherwise we'd just continue to cap any John Fleck or Islam Feruz who came along (they both would have received multiple caps in friendlies under Berti, you can be sure of that). 

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Vogts wasn't just trying to bring the senior team into the modern era - he was trying to sort out the mess that is our youth system.  Sadly he was doomed thanks to the folks who parasite within the game - blazers, ex-players and coaches, the clubs themselves and the media.

Strachan has admitted that our system of coaching the kids is rubbish - but as the man at the top has he tried to fix it or influence it in any way?  And it's not just pro-youth development that's all wrong, kids football is just as messed up.......

 

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The problem Vogts had was that he didn't know the Scottish game and it wasn't until he got here that he saw for himself the absolute fucking state of it and the terminal decline that had kicked in.

He had no option but to play unknowns hence some of the complete shite that got caps. That said we did come out of the other side to an extent with the euro 2008 campaign which should have been the foundations to build on. That didn't happen though for a good number if reasons one of which was the failure to secure mcleish as the manager which then led to various clowns getting the job for 2 years at a time until they had utterly fucked a qualifying campaign.

The other main reason is that selections became the same old names again not bloodied youngsters and now we can't even be bothered with friendlies.

 

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I agree with the gist of the OP's point.

Sadly there's little chance of a long term plan being A) drawn up and B) implemented.

The SFA are too clueless to have the foresight for such an idea and you certainly couldn't trust them to pick the correct personnel to oversee the plan.

This would also involve spending substantial amounts of money and making radical decisions - something the SFA wouldn't be willing (or able) to do.

If that isn't enough to ensure that a long term rebuilding job wouldn't succeed, you also have the fact that our media and a large chunk of our support are too fickle and impatient to let things develope over time. This would be ten times worse if it was a foreigner heading up the plan.

Perish the thought.

 

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13 hours ago, D.A.F.C said:

We really need to forget about qualifying for the next two tournaments and completely rebuild

How many times have we said that over the last 15 years?  Maybe one day some c**t will take some notice of it.  The short-term thinking of Scottish Football really is criminal.  

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2 hours ago, pub car king said:

The problem Vogts had was that he didn't know the Scottish game and it wasn't until he got here that he saw for himself the absolute fucking state of it and the terminal decline that had kicked in.

He had no option but to play unknowns hence some of the complete shite that got caps. That said we did come out of the other side to an extent with the euro 2008 campaign which should have been the foundations to build on. That didn't happen though for a good number if reasons one of which was the failure to secure mcleish as the manager which then led to various clowns getting the job for 2 years at a time until they had utterly fucked a qualifying campaign.

The other main reason is that selections became the same old names again not bloodied youngsters and now we can't even be bothered with friendlies.

 

Almost 70 different players played under Vogts for Scotland in around 2 and a half years. There is no evidence which backs up the claim that he had no option but to mess around selecting such a large number of players, including absolute no-hopers such as Warren Cummings and Robbie Stockdale. He had to pick some players that weren't great, due to a lack of options in some positions. That's not the issue here, though. The issue is that he capped so many players that simply weren't ever going to be good enough. He needed to spend more time working with what he had, instead of wasting time on a sea of awful young players who were never gong to be good enough.

1 hour ago, Desp said:

How many times have we said that over the last 15 years?  Maybe one day some c**t will take some notice of it.  The short-term thinking of Scottish Football really is criminal.  

That type of thinking is quite simply wrong-headed when it comes to international football, especially for a nation like Scotland where there will always be players at the peak of their game who can play an important role for 3 or 4 years. Selecting players like McFadden and Fletcher was a no-brainer. A player like Oliver Burke seems to be an equivalent today - but we don't get many of those players. We could look at the best young players of the moment, and because so many of them are a long way off actually being ready, we could get it very wrong. 

The Smith/McLeish era, which was far more successful, included about 20 players that didn't get capped under Vogts at all. This included young players like Shaun Maloney, Scott Brown, and Alan Hutton making the breakthrough, and older players like Paul Hartley and Gary Teale who had something to offer at that stage in their career. Hutton, McManus, Brown, and Hartley were all important players that night in Paris - none of them featured under Vogts. You play players when there good enough, not when they're a long way off in the hope that some day they will actually be good enough. 

How do we go about this longer-term vision at first team level? What other nations have made a success out of this strategy?

 

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11 minutes ago, SpoonTon said:

How do we go about this longer-term vision at first team level? What other nations have made a success out of this strategy?

 

Of course it's nonsensical to suggest simply doing something crazy like promoting our U21s to the full squad and hoping it all clicks in four years time.

You'll always need a group of here and now players, but there has to be some kind of plan in place for progression, surely?  Look at Wales.  They've had a core group of six, seven players that got pitched in as teenagers and it's worked out well for them.  But they still need their James Collins, David Vaughan, David Cotterill, Hal Robson-Kanu types.  Iceland are another who've struck it lucky with they've worked a group of players brought through the age groups together.  They've also had their share of experienced players (Gudjohnsen played a small part at the Euros, for example).  Probably the biggest "long-term strategy", if that's what you want to call it that, would be Belgium (personal feelings on them though is they'll be another "golden generation" in the mould of Portugal late 90's/early 00's, i.e doing nothing of note).

I'm not advocating a 10/15 year strategy here, but we appear to be stuck in a rut of going round in a circle every 18-24 months.  It's not working.  It's no use crossing our fingers and saying "this time".

Let's focus on WC2022/Euro 2024.  The first of those is five and a half years away.  Start off with a 'medium' term plan and try and go from there.  Get the right manager in.  Play every fucking friendly date possible.  If we get lucky and hit Euro 2020, superb.  

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe a smarter mind than me will work this shit out.  I hope someone does, because we are plummeting at an alarming rate. 

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42 minutes ago, SpoonTon said:

Almost 70 different players played under Vogts for Scotland in around 2 and a half years. There is no evidence which backs up the claim that he had no option but to mess around selecting such a large number of players, including absolute no-hopers such as Warren Cummings and Robbie Stockdale. He had to pick some players that weren't great, due to a lack of options in some positions. That's not the issue here, though. The issue is that he capped so many players that simply weren't ever going to be good enough. He needed to spend more time working with what he had, instead of wasting time on a sea of awful young players who were never gong to be good enough.

That type of thinking is quite simply wrong-headed when it comes to international football, especially for a nation like Scotland where there will always be players at the peak of their game who can play an important role for 3 or 4 years. Selecting players like McFadden and Fletcher was a no-brainer. A player like Oliver Burke seems to be an equivalent today - but we don't get many of those players. We could look at the best young players of the moment, and because so many of them are a long way off actually being ready, we could get it very wrong. 

The Smith/McLeish era, which was far more successful, included about 20 players that didn't get capped under Vogts at all. This included young players like Shaun Maloney, Scott Brown, and Alan Hutton making the breakthrough, and older players like Paul Hartley and Gary Teale who had something to offer at that stage in their career. Hutton, McManus, Brown, and Hartley were all important players that night in Paris - none of them featured under Vogts. You play players when there good enough, not when they're a long way off in the hope that some day they will actually be good enough. 

How do we go about this longer-term vision at first team level? What other nations have made a success out of this strategy?

 

In what way was smith and mcleish era mirr successful? 

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13 minutes ago, Desp said:

Of course it's nonsensical to suggest simply doing something crazy like promoting our U21s to the full squad and hoping it all clicks in four years time.

You'll always need a group of here and now players, but there has to be some kind of plan in place for progression, surely?  Look at Wales.  They've had a core group of six, seven players that got pitched in as teenagers and it's worked out well for them.  But they still need their James Collins, David Vaughan, David Cotterill, Hal Robson-Kanu types.  Iceland are another who've struck it lucky with they've worked a group of players brought through the age groups together.  They've also had their share of experienced players (Gudjohnsen played a small part at the Euros, for example).  Probably the biggest "long-term strategy", if that's what you want to call it that, would be Belgium (personal feelings on them though is they'll be another "golden generation" in the mould of Portugal late 90's/early 00's, i.e doing nothing of note).

I'm not advocating a 10/15 year strategy here, but we appear to be stuck in a rut of going round in a circle every 18-24 months.  It's not working.  It's no use crossing our fingers and saying "this time".

Let's focus on WC2022/Euro 2024.  The first of those is five and a half years away.  Start off with a 'medium' term plan and try and go from there.  Get the right manager in.  Play every fucking friendly date possible.  If we get lucky and hit Euro 2020, superb.  

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe a smarter mind than me will work this shit out.  I hope someone does, because we are plummeting at an alarming rate. 

I'd mostly agree with this, but I don't think we can afford to discount Euro 2020.  There will never be a better chance to qualify for a tournament than then.  2 or 5/6 will qualify from each group, then you'll have the second chance from the Nations League.  There's also no clear host, so one more spot than usual up for grabs.  

To be honest, I'm not even sure we need to forget or focus on any tournament in particular.  Far-reaching changes are going to need more than a decade to bed in, and we're not going to wait that long.  We can put that into place, and as long as we stick to it to the end, we should see the results come the late 2020s.  In the meantime, we just need to do the simple things - like you say, get the right manager in, play every friendly date possible, and have the right mix of the best players we have available and any youngsters who would be useful.

I'd also probably disagree we're "plummeting".  We're not really.  We're just stagnating while other "lesser" nations are catching up and overtaking.

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38 minutes ago, Desp said:

Of course it's nonsensical to suggest simply doing something crazy like promoting our U21s to the full squad and hoping it all clicks in four years time.

You'll always need a group of here and now players, but there has to be some kind of plan in place for progression, surely?  Look at Wales.  They've had a core group of six, seven players that got pitched in as teenagers and it's worked out well for them.  But they still need their James Collins, David Vaughan, David Cotterill, Hal Robson-Kanu types.  Iceland are another who've struck it lucky with they've worked a group of players brought through the age groups together.  They've also had their share of experienced players (Gudjohnsen played a small part at the Euros, for example).  Probably the biggest "long-term strategy", if that's what you want to call it that, would be Belgium (personal feelings on them though is they'll be another "golden generation" in the mould of Portugal late 90's/early 00's, i.e doing nothing of note).

I'm not advocating a 10/15 year strategy here, but we appear to be stuck in a rut of going round in a circle every 18-24 months.  It's not working.  It's no use crossing our fingers and saying "this time".

Let's focus on WC2022/Euro 2024.  The first of those is five and a half years away.  Start off with a 'medium' term plan and try and go from there.  Get the right manager in.  Play every fucking friendly date possible.  If we get lucky and hit Euro 2020, superb.  

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe a smarter mind than me will work this shit out.  I hope someone does, because we are plummeting at an alarming rate. 

The point with Wales and Iceland is that we're talking about very good young players that were brought in, but in many ways they aren't doing anything significantly different to us at first team level. What we need are players who are good enough to make the step up. Grant Hanley was brought in at a young age, he got his first cap and 19 and now has 27 caps. You could argue that's looking to the future - Strachan placed faith in his younger defender who could play in the next 2 or 3 cycles. The important thing is having good enough players coming through - if you don't have that then what can you really do?

 

20 minutes ago, 54_and_counting said:

In what way was smith and mcleish era mirr successful? 

Quite simply, the results were more successful. There's no question about that. 

ETA: I'll also point out that there were no play-offs for Euro 2008. Finishing third was essentially the same thing as losing a play-off for Euro 2004. It would have been like having a team like Holland in the group with us for that round of qualifying. 

Vogts' record in qualifying was 4 wins, 4 draws, 3 defeats (1.45 points per game). Smith/McLeish record was 11-2-7 (1.75 points per game). You can also make direct comparisons with records against Lithuania and the Faroe Islands. 

 

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