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Will Scotland ever be good again?


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On 19/07/2018 at 18:13, GordonS said:

Has anyone actually read Project Brave? I've spent the past 20 minutes hunting for it online. Any advice?

It's disconcerting that I could find the Belgian FA's strategy, but not the SFA's. 

There doesn't seem to be a great deal of information for the public other than the standard news articles.

Page 11-12 of the annual review seems to be the longest SFA document (that I can find anyway) on Project Brave.  There's also a Sportsound podcast with Malky Mackay from last year where it's discussed too.

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Think it’s a big season for quite a few scotland players this year.

Interested to see if Callum Patterson and Cairney can improve and have an influence in the EPL this year.

Gauld at Lisbon will he actually get a game?

Armstrong at Southampton will he handle the step up and will he even get a game?

Can McKenna and Hendry push on and become our 1st choice centre backs. Will Hendry get good game time?

When will Griffiths get fit and will he get a game with dembele and edouard

Will Mcburnie be Swansea’s main striker and get loads of goals this season?

Will Ollie Burke get a game and get back on form?

Will mctominay get any game time or be farmed out on loan?

What sort of influence will Morgan have at Celtic?

Who’s going to be the big break through player?

Big season for a lot of our players here’s hoping alot of these players push on and really improve

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On 7/11/2018 at 23:38, GordonS said:

I am. I believe Scotland has all the attributes needed to regularly reach the quarter finals of major tournaments. All we need is to get our shit together, and that starts with accepting the scale of the problem, then copying what others have done, with no compromises for the traditionalists.

Croatia have just made the World Cup final - that really could be Scotland.

FWIW, I don't think we truly realised how good our clubs were in the early 80s. Aberdeen were ranked second in Europe, and Dundee United reached fourth. That's outrageous for clubs of their size and I don't think we realised how good they were. Malpas, Hegarty, Narey and Malpas is the best back four in Scottish football history and was one of the best in the world. Why they never achieved more with the national team is a question no-one can answer.

Interesting points, and I'd forgotten just how amazing that Dundee United back four was: I have to agree with its being the best ever Scottish defence. Gough and Malpas did achieve a lot with the national team, though, being first choice players for years when we were qualifying for tournaments.

Narey played well in two world cups, but I think Hegarty was hindered by having been involved in some defeats early on in his Scotland career and Jock Stein's always wanting to use Hansen in those early years, then the emergence of the McLeish-Miller double act from about 83 or 84.

Our defence in 86 was the best we've sent to a world cup and Narey partnered Miller in the second and third games following an injury to McLeish in the first. Hegarty and he, though, were seen a just a shade below McLeish and Miller as a central defensive partnership. Unfortunately, our midfielders and forwards did not get to the same level in the mid 80s.

 

 

 

Edited by Marlow
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On 19/07/2018 at 20:13, GordonS said:

Has anyone actually read Project Brave? I've spent the past 20 minutes hunting for it online. Any advice?

It's disconcerting that I could find the Belgian FA's strategy, but not the SFA's. 

Fine by me.  Let's just copy the Belgian one.  Use that.

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  • 1 month later...
On 18/07/2018 at 08:26, pandarilla said:

Interesting point about why kids from challenging backgrounds don't make it through regularly.

I take your point but how do you explain success from those areas in the past? When they still couldn't afford the best boots or play on decent facilities?

I think there is an attitude issue out there - but it certainly isn't responsible for everything. It's complicated. But I see lots of opportunities for kids who can't be bothered taking them (not just in football).

Working class kids don’t get the opportunity anymore. Back in the day, pitches were free. Youth club football cost peanuts compared to now. You could practise on the streets. Kids from working class backgrounds aren’t playing close to the amount of football as they did in my day. I look at all the places I played growing up and they are either closed to football or cost money to play now.

As for Andy Murray, he came from a background lucky enough to give him a good start. His talent and work ethic took him the rest of the way. He could have had that same talent and work ethic and not made it if he was working class because he never would have been able to afford a racquet and balls, never mind court time and training schools in Spain.

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Ball and a piece of grass. No opportunity? Nonsense. 

Kids used to play football in the park near me every night, I can’t remember the last time I saw any kid playing any sport in the same place. Sad really. They’re just too mollycoddled now and somehow it’s dangerous for twenty kids to have a kickabout? This is where kids learn skills at an early age. Just get out there and play. Kids football is too organised now and they’re getting coached too much too early and can’t think for themselves.

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

Ball and a piece of grass. No opportunity? Nonsense. 

Kids used to play football in the park near me every night, I can’t remember the last time I saw any kid playing any sport in the same place. Sad really. They’re just too mollycoddled now and somehow it’s dangerous for twenty kids to have a kickabout? This is where kids learn skills at an early age. Just get out there and play. Kids football is too organised now and they’re getting coached too much too early and can’t think for themselves.

Child abductions were only invented in recent years.

It's one thing that's always got to me, this widespread attitude that apparently we just can't let kids go out now.  I've got a friend whose now a guidance teacher, and talks all the time about how he gets so many kids with stress, or more deeply-rooted psychological issues.  I can't imagine bringing kids up to be afraid of everything, and drumming it into them that they can't even go outside will be helping that very much.  Irony being that if they then want to communicate with pals, they'll have to take to the internet.  At least we're safe in the knowledge that nothing bad ever happens there, eh?

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3 hours ago, forameus said:

Child abductions were only invented in recent years.

It's one thing that's always got to me, this widespread attitude that apparently we just can't let kids go out now.  I've got a friend whose now a guidance teacher, and talks all the time about how he gets so many kids with stress, or more deeply-rooted psychological issues.  I can't imagine bringing kids up to be afraid of everything, and drumming it into them that they can't even go outside will be helping that very much.  Irony being that if they then want to communicate with pals, they'll have to take to the internet.  At least we're safe in the knowledge that nothing bad ever happens there, eh?

Rocketing levels of depression, mental health issues, self-harm etc. among children v previous generations - which some also put down to a decline in resilience - is a complex issue of course. I have lots of teachers in my family and as you say situations which could have been exceptional in past decades are now common and increasing. Of course, society also relies ever increasingly on education to "solve"  issues which other areas of life would've been dealing with, or preventing happening in the first place, in times gone by.

Conceivably lots of factors behind it... rise of parental fear culture; dark side of the internet and social media; more broken families; decline of religious observance; 'weakening' of community in a lot of areas. How many neighbours do you or I know? How many organisations do we and our families attend or belong to? How many people do we know who let their kids go out alone?

What is certain is that the old days aren't going to return. In terms of football that means a lack spontaneous play in public spaces and an increased reliance on formal youth club activity: with associated cost and bureaucracy. (Latter is going to explode with the publication and implementation of SFA's child abuse report, too). It's an issue far bigger than football.

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14 hours ago, HibeeJibee said:

Rocketing levels of depression, mental health issues, self-harm etc. among children v previous generations - which some also put down to a decline in resilience - is a complex issue of course. I have lots of teachers in my family and as you say situations which could have been exceptional in past decades are now common and increasing. Of course, society also relies ever increasingly on education to "solve"  issues which other areas of life would've been dealing with, or preventing happening in the first place, in times gone by.

Conceivably lots of factors behind it... rise of parental fear culture; dark side of the internet and social media; more broken families; decline of religious observance; 'weakening' of community in a lot of areas. How many neighbours do you or I know? How many organisations do we and our families attend or belong to? How many people do we know who let their kids go out alone?

What is certain is that the old days aren't going to return. In terms of football that means a lack spontaneous play in public spaces and an increased reliance on formal youth club activity: with associated cost and bureaucracy. (Latter is going to explode with the publication and implementation of SFA's child abuse report, too). It's an issue far bigger than football.

Yeah, it's by no means a simple issue, and I'm not saying you can just let kids out until it gets dark like I was.  I just think it's sad that the attitude seems to be "well, we can't do that", rather than "Well how do we get to a place where we can do that?"

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10 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Decline of religious observance :lol:

Take that right to f**k.

Religion :lol:

Got to disagree, I always made sure I played out my skin in training to make sure I got picked for the Sunday game to save me getting fiddled as an alter boy.

Edited by gannonball
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When people hark back to the good old days of 1998, was that the year that we finished behind Austria in the group, just ahead of Sweden who were the next best team in the group (ahead of Latvia, Estonia & Belarus), only to get pumped by Morocco and equalise against Norway to get our single point?

Since then we've had Croatia/Belgium x2, Italy, Holland & England in our WC qualifying groups.  I doubt we'd have made France '98 if any one of those teams had been in that fairly jammy group.

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On 29/08/2018 at 12:44, Hedgecutter said:

When people hark back to the good old days of 1998, was that the year that we finished behind Austria in the group, just ahead of Sweden who were the next best team in the group (ahead of Latvia, Estonia & Belarus), only to get pumped by Morocco and equalise against Norway to get our single point?

Since then we've had Croatia/Belgium x2, Italy, Holland & England in our WC qualifying groups.  I doubt we'd have made France '98 if any one of those teams had been in that fairly jammy group.

Point is we haven't finished higher than third in any World Cup qualifying group since 98. More often than not we've finished fourth.

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5 hours ago, JamesM82 said:

Point is we haven't finished higher than third in any World Cup qualifying group since 98. More often than not we've finished fourth.

And mine is that had they stuck the usual good team in that group then we would have probably finished third behind Austria, marginally ahead of fourth. Not much difference then. 

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2 hours ago, Hedgecutter said:

And mine is that had they stuck the usual good team in that group then we would have probably finished third behind Austria, marginally ahead of fourth. Not much difference then. 

We would have probably finished above Austria if there had been a top team as the #1 seed instead of Sweden. Austria won the group mainly because they beat Sweden twice, which outweighed the fact we took 4/6 v Austria.

The 1998 team were not world beaters but they were far more solid and consistent than anything we've had since.

Edited by JamesM82
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Kids football is too organised now and they’re getting coached too much too early and can’t think for themselves.


To be fair, the SFA have acknowledged that kids have been “getting coached too much too early” and have tried to change that through Project Brave. Go on any 1.1, 1.2 & 1.3 course on the Children’s Pathway and they really hammer it into you not to coach and to let the children express themselves.

Hopefully this is something we will see a big change in over the coming years, but really, unless community (volunteer) coaches buy into it then the SFA are pretty much working with their hands tied on this.

Rocketing levels of depression, mental health issues, self-harm etc. among children v previous generations - which some also put down to a decline in resilience - is a complex issue of course.


I work for a charity that goes into primary and high schools to run programmes on resilience, team work etc etc etc. It’s frightening how easy and how frustrated youngsters give up and get these days. What is also staggering is how much Head Teachers in lots of schools, don’t value these characteristics in youngsters because you can’t gauge them when it comes to Scottish Government stats.
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On 28/08/2018 at 19:54, DA Baracus said:

Decline of religious observance :lol:

Take that right to f**k.

Religion :lol:

He's simply making a general point about society being more fragmented with less influence today from the institutions that once provided some unity.

I think it's a reasonable factor to list among several others.

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