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Will Scotland ever be good again?


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4 hours ago, 54_and_counting said:

lol we had stones and bits of bricks lobbed at us at milton once, thinking it was the neds backing the local team we just rode it out and hoped they would f**k off in the second half when we changed sides, 2nd half the wee neds started lobbing more shit at the local team :lol:

We played football all the time. Me and a friend built goals but the local neds destroyed them. My friend wrote to the council and they gave us a set of goals. One night we didn't put them away as we usually did and the neds kicked f**k out of them and destroyed them. They said they were drunk and it was funny.

There's now a set of metal goals installed that have been there for years (not sure when they were installed) but any time I'm back to visit I haven't seen anyone use them.

4 hours ago, Kelheart said:

I’m a big believer in 3 foreigners rule so happens we were doing all right at that time in history gotta get more Scots playing at top level in the top league instead of below average imports sucking clubs  dry in wages they can ill afford to pay 

This is a big load of pish. There are plenty of Scottish players playing in our top league. Who are these players that are seemingly not getting played due to some big bad foreign types? And who are the big bad foreign types 'sucking clubs' dry, and why can't those clubs pay them the wages they are? Clubs aren't forced to sign anyone or pay too much for someone.

It should also be noted that clubs are under zero obligation to help the national team.

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On 11/07/2018 at 11:10, Estragon said:

We just won 50% of our qualifiers for the first time in a decade - the trajectory is upward.

We're still a bit pish - but 6-8 years ago we were totally pish.

Then proceeded to punt the manager when we finally got a bit of momentum, then replaced him with a guy who walked out of the job previously after our last good campaign, leaving us for f'kin Birmingham.

 I think we'll make it to the big tournaments again, only because they are expanding them far too much. The Euros will soon go up to 32 teams, like the World Cup was previously.

I think the best we can hope for is hard workman like performances, a bit like Australia, with no real chance of doing any damage to anyone in the group stages

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Lack of talent.

Old Firm not playing Scottish talent or ruining it by benching it when it was doing well at other clubs.

Inept SFA

No investment in facilities

Lack of patience from the media and supporters.

Overinflated opinion of ourselves as being a footballing powerhouse when we are a backwater.

 

We must invest in facilities and have a structured a standardised system that stays with players from 12-22. It really is that simple.

Germany, France, Belgium and now England are doing it. 

Money to youth and coaches and facilities. Forget about the first team for a while.

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

Lack of talent.

Old Firm not playing Scottish talent or ruining it by benching it when it was doing well at other clubs.

Inept SFA

No investment in facilities

Lack of patience from the media and supporters.

Overinflated opinion of ourselves as being a footballing powerhouse when we are a backwater.

 

We must invest in facilities and have a structured a standardised system that stays with players from 12-22. It really is that simple.

Germany, France, Belgium and now England are doing it. 

Money to youth and coaches and facilities. Forget about the first team for a while.

What international talent are wasting away right now on the old firms benches? 

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1 hour ago, D.A.F.C said:

The best young Scottish midfielder at Celtic for one.

Nonsense. More than half of the Scotland team comes from Celtic. It’s the non-Old Firm clubs that have the dodgy foreigner policy.

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57 minutes ago, 54_and_counting said:

Who? 

I presume he means Morgan.

Who played the other night.

29 minutes ago, woof! said:

Nonsense. More than half of the Scotland team comes from Celtic. It’s the non-Old Firm clubs that have the dodgy foreigner policy.

No it's not. Scottish football and the national team's issue has never been 'dodgy foreigners' (comin over ere and steelin owr jobs!).

And as I said in another post, Scottish clubs are under zero obligation to do anything to help the national team.

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6 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

I presume he means Morgan.

Who played the other night.

No it's not. Scottish football and the national team's issue has never been 'dodgy foreigners' (comin over ere and steelin owr jobs!).

And as I said in another post, Scottish clubs are under zero obligation to do anything to help the national team.

Dodgy = shite (just to clarify)

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

Old Firm not playing Scottish talent or ruining it by benching it when it was doing well at other clubs.

Celtic played 7 Scots in the recent Champions League qualifiers. 

Dundee just played 4 in a League Cup group stage match against Stirling Albion.

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Even if we do produce really good players, they'll most likely have to play under a negative backwards coach and won't see enough of the ball in vital positions as they'll either be watching as it flies over their head, be chasing it down or being told to punt it up the park.

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On 13/07/2018 at 18:46, Kelheart said:

I’m a big believer in 3 foreigners rule so happens we were doing all right at that time in history gotta get more Scots playing at top level in the top league instead of below average imports sucking clubs  dry in wages they can ill afford to pay 

There is no correlation between number of foreign players playing in a domestic league and the success of national teams. The positive effect of the 3 foreigner rule is a myth which pops up from time to time only to be thoroughly dispelled by statistical analysis conducted by many different institutions.

The period in history you're referring too when Scotland regularly qualified for major tournaments has nothing to do with less foreign players in the Scottish domestic league and a lot to do with the fact that there was far less competition. Since the collapse of communism in the late 80's/early 90's and the break up of former Yugoslavia 14 of the 25 current UEFA members which made up the old Eastern Bloc have qualified for either the Euro's or World Cup (or both). Scotland have failed to qualify since 1998, there is an obvious correlation there. Additionally, a couple of the old Eastern Bloc countries (Lithuania & Georgia) which haven't managed to qualify for major tournaments thus far have been a particular thorn in Scotland's side when we've been attempting to qualify. Add in the fact that many other European nations have transitioned from a semi-pro to a full-time set up in recent decades, the Scandinavian nations for example, and it's easy to see why we're finding it much more difficult to qualify for tournaments. With the increased competition it's difficult to know whether or not we've become worse than we were in the past or had an over inflated sense of how good we thought we were back then. Also, if there was a correlation between a lower number of foreign players in each league and national team success then the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland etc, would have been dominant during the communist era because they had next to no foreigners playing in their domestic leagues. 

The 3 foreigner rule is an issue in Scotland though but not for the reasons that most people conclude. It's going to seem like i'm contradicting myself for a wee bit here until I fully explain what I mean.  We have 12 teams in the top flight and they will use about 20 players a season regularly. So that's 240 squad places about half of which are taken by foreign players. So that's a 120 places for Scottish players in the top flight give or take. However, the issue isn't foreign players coming to play here it's the lack of Scottish players going to play elsewhere. The issue is a lack of emigration not immigration. The top 10 countries in Europe that have the highest number of expatriate footballers playing in foreign countries are:

1. France (821 expatriate players playing abroad) - Euro 2016 Runners-Up and WC Finalists 2018

2. Serbia (760) - WC Group Stage 2018

3. England (413) - WC Semi-finalists 2018

4. Spain (361) - WC Winners 2010, Euro Champions 2008 & 2012

5. Croatia (346) - WC Finalists 2018

6. Germany (346) - WC winners 2014

7. Portugal (261) - Euro 2016 Champions

8. Netherlands (256) - WC Runners-up 2010

9. Belgium (220) - WC Semi-Finalists 2018

10. Ukraine (182) - WC Quarter-Finalists 2006

23. Scotland (103) - 20 years without qualifying for a major tournament and counting.

 

Croatia is the country on that list that has a population size most similar to ours. Croatia have more players playing regular first-team football outside of Croatia than they do inside Croatia. Croatian clubs move loads of their players onto other countries and then replace them with either players from their own academy, players from smaller Croatian clubs or if deemed necessary they will bring in foreign players. They are constantly expanding the overall number of players to choose from for the national side and providing a pathway to the top for domestically based players with potential... and then they just keep repeating that cycle year after year. Croatian clubs also have a constant source of transfer revenue coming in, per capita they bring in more transfer revenue from foreign clubs than any other European nation, their club sides have significantly improved their performances in Europe and the quality of the domestic league is improving year on year despite flogging their best players. Exactly the same thing has happened in Belgium and beginning to take place in countries like Serbia, Switzerland, Austria and Iceland. 32% of the players in the Croatian top-flight are foreign, in Scotland at the moment it's 45%, but Croatia have two less clubs in the top-flight so there's roughly the same number of squad places available to non-foreign players in each country.

In Scotland we don't move enough Scottish players on. The most common transfer is a free transfer and in recent seasons the most likely destination for Scottish players leaving the SPFL is English League One. Followed by the English Championship, English League Two, Iceland, Ireland and the USA. Most of these players fail to make the grade playing elsewhere, at the likes of Luton Town or Colchester United, and end up back playing in Scotland within a year or so. We have the same handful of players moving from club to club in Scotland, stagnating away, not really adding any value (monetary or otherwise) to the clubs they play for and not really improving the quality of the league. There is a logjam at the top of Scottish football and this is stopping young players from getting a chance to play first team football here for a couple of years before moving on and it's also stopping the bigger clubs from looking further down the leagues, where there is undoubtedly talented players with potential, and giving these guys an opportunity to step up. 

 

 

 

 

 

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There may be 413 English players abroad but their entire 4th place at the World Cup squad play in the EPL, so not sure what point you are making.

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51 minutes ago, drs said:

There may be 413 English players abroad but their entire 4th place at the World Cup squad play in the EPL, so not sure what point you are making.

Yup, plus the scotland squad in recent campaigns have been full of players plying their trade down south in a league thats way more demanding physically and skillwise than the top league up here 

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1 hour ago, Afrojim said:

There is no correlation between number of foreign players playing in a domestic league and the success of national teams. The positive effect of the 3 foreigner rule is a myth which pops up from time to time only to be thoroughly dispelled by statistical analysis conducted by many different institutions.

The period in history you're referring too when Scotland regularly qualified for major tournaments has nothing to do with less foreign players in the Scottish domestic league and a lot to do with the fact that there was far less competition. Since the collapse of communism in the late 80's/early 90's and the break up of former Yugoslavia 14 of the 25 current UEFA members which made up the old Eastern Bloc have qualified for either the Euro's or World Cup (or both). Scotland have failed to qualify since 1998, there is an obvious correlation there. Additionally, a couple of the old Eastern Bloc countries (Lithuania & Georgia) which haven't managed to qualify for major tournaments thus far have been a particular thorn in Scotland's side when we've been attempting to qualify. Add in the fact that many other European nations have transitioned from a semi-pro to a full-time set up in recent decades, the Scandinavian nations for example, and it's easy to see why we're finding it much more difficult to qualify for tournaments. With the increased competition it's difficult to know whether or not we've become worse than we were in the past or had an over inflated sense of how good we thought we were back then. Also, if there was a correlation between a lower number of foreign players in each league and national team success then the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland etc, would have been dominant during the communist era because they had next to no foreigners playing in their domestic leagues. 

The 3 foreigner rule is an issue in Scotland though but not for the reasons that most people conclude. It's going to seem like i'm contradicting myself for a wee bit here until I fully explain what I mean.  We have 12 teams in the top flight and they will use about 20 players a season regularly. So that's 240 squad places about half of which are taken by foreign players. So that's a 120 places for Scottish players in the top flight give or take. However, the issue isn't foreign players coming to play here it's the lack of Scottish players going to play elsewhere. The issue is a lack of emigration not immigration. The top 10 countries in Europe that have the highest number of expatriate footballers playing in foreign countries are:

1. France (821 expatriate players playing abroad) - Euro 2016 Runners-Up and WC Finalists 2018

2. Serbia (760) - WC Group Stage 2018

3. England (413) - WC Semi-finalists 2018

4. Spain (361) - WC Winners 2010, Euro Champions 2008 & 2012

5. Croatia (346) - WC Finalists 2018

6. Germany (346) - WC winners 2014

7. Portugal (261) - Euro 2016 Champions

8. Netherlands (256) - WC Runners-up 2010

9. Belgium (220) - WC Semi-Finalists 2018

10. Ukraine (182) - WC Quarter-Finalists 2006

23. Scotland (103) - 20 years without qualifying for a major tournament and counting.

 

Croatia is the country on that list that has a population size most similar to ours. Croatia have more players playing regular first-team football outside of Croatia than they do inside Croatia. Croatian clubs move loads of their players onto other countries and then replace them with either players from their own academy, players from smaller Croatian clubs or if deemed necessary they will bring in foreign players. They are constantly expanding the overall number of players to choose from for the national side and providing a pathway to the top for domestically based players with potential... and then they just keep repeating that cycle year after year. Croatian clubs also have a constant source of transfer revenue coming in, per capita they bring in more transfer revenue from foreign clubs than any other European nation, their club sides have significantly improved their performances in Europe and the quality of the domestic league is improving year on year despite flogging their best players. Exactly the same thing has happened in Belgium and beginning to take place in countries like Serbia, Switzerland, Austria and Iceland. 32% of the players in the Croatian top-flight are foreign, in Scotland at the moment it's 45%, but Croatia have two less clubs in the top-flight so there's roughly the same number of squad places available to non-foreign players in each country.

In Scotland we don't move enough Scottish players on. The most common transfer is a free transfer and in recent seasons the most likely destination for Scottish players leaving the SPFL is English League One. Followed by the English Championship, English League Two, Iceland, Ireland and the USA. Most of these players fail to make the grade playing elsewhere, at the likes of Luton Town or Colchester United, and end up back playing in Scotland within a year or so. We have the same handful of players moving from club to club in Scotland, stagnating away, not really adding any value (monetary or otherwise) to the clubs they play for and not really improving the quality of the league. There is a logjam at the top of Scottish football and this is stopping young players from getting a chance to play first team football here for a couple of years before moving on and it's also stopping the bigger clubs from looking further down the leagues, where there is undoubtedly talented players with potential, and giving these guys an opportunity to step up. 

 

 

 

 

 

Do those figures count a Scottish player playing in England as an expatriate (and vice versa)?

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5 hours ago, John Lambies Doos said:

You realise there are useless overpaid bigoted failures in Hampden that are actually being paid huge sums of money to work this out properly

But that is not a recent development, is it?

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