Will Scotland ever be good again?

[Savage Henry]

Trope. The new White Knight. Which in turn was the new Quisling. .

[Honest_Man#1]

On 13/09/2018 at 18:35, GordonS said:

I very much disagree. Souttar is young and centre halves take a long time to develop, but right now he's not a quality defender. Robertson and Armstrong are perfect examples of what I'm talking about - neither are technical players. If they were, they would have stood out wildly at Queen's Park and ICT. They both cover a lot of ground, take up good positions and make good choices, plus Robertson had huge intensity and a glorious left-foot cross. But that's it. They are not particularly technical.

Tierney is better in possession than the others you mentioned, but honestly, would you say he controlled the ball as well as Xhaka?

Utter shite from start to finish.

[HibeeJibee]

Bump.

People were talking about participation... UEFA has produced a report on the economic impact of football. Extracting the Scottish figures the BBC announces the sport is worth £200M to the economy here and valued at £1.25bn when social and health benefits are included (which sounds an awful lot but who knows.).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-46020676

It also says 780,000 people in Scotland play football and 89% of those are male. So that means 1 in 7 of the total population and between 1 in 3 and 1 in 4 men play football - and of course that would be including everyone from babes-in-arms right through to OAPs: it would be more like 1 in 2 from primary school to middle age.

Anyone know how that figures is arrived at?! Even if you tried to estimate how many kick a ball around the playground or do 5-asides it seems amazingly high.

[GordonS]

On 16/09/2018 at 20:45, craigkillie said:

Andrew Robertson, of course, blended into the background so much at Queen's Park that he earned a move up three divisions within a year. And Armstrong was so anonymous at Inverness as a youth player that he earned a move to Dundee United at the age of 17.

I saw Andrew Robertson several times when he played for Queens Park. Did you? Rangers saw him, he played against them four times, they could have got him for next to nothing and they never expressed an interest in signing him. He was seen as a good young player but precisely no-one was saying he'd be playing in the Champions League final. 

Everybody knows he developed over time, and when he signed for Liverpool from Hull he was very much seen as a squad player. Initially he was only used against weaker opposition, when he would have the chance to get forward and his defensive skills wouldn't be tested. It was his intelligence, his great appetite for improvement and his intensity for 90 minutes that sealed him a starting spot. 

Getting a move from League Two to Dundee Utd is hardly a stratospheric leap into the big time. They've signed plenty of players who came to nothing. Without looking it up, can you name the player who signed for Dundee Utd from Queens Park on the same day as Andrew Robertson, and where he's playing now? (It's not for a club in the Champions League).

[craigkillie]

6 minutes ago, GordonS said:

I saw Andrew Robertson several times when he played for Queens Park. Did you? Rangers saw him, he played against them four times, they could have got him for next to nothing and they never expressed an interest in signing him. He was seen as a good young player but precisely no-one was saying he'd be playing in the Champions League final. 

Everybody knows he developed over time, and when he signed for Liverpool from Hull he was very much seen as a squad player. Initially he was only used against weaker opposition, when he would have the chance to get forward and his defensive skills wouldn't be tested. It was his intelligence, his great appetite for improvement and his intensity for 90 minutes that sealed him a starting spot. 

Getting a move from League Two to Dundee Utd is hardly a stratospheric leap into the big time. They've signed plenty of players who came to nothing. Without looking it up, can you name the player who signed for Dundee Utd from Queens Park on the same day as Andrew Robertson, and where he's playing now? (It's not for a club in the Champions League).

Rangers had Lee Wallace at that time, who was still considered good enough to be considered for Scotland squads even though he was playing at that level. In spite of that, the inimitable Craig G Telfer, who watched a lot of the Third Division that season, still picked Robertson ahead of him for his Tell Him He's Pele team of the year.

Not sure if it was Aidan Connolly or Blair Spittal who they signed on the same day, but both of those players have still ended up playing well above Scottish League 2 level even though they didn't prove to be as good as Robertson. That's because they were clearly better than the fourth tier and stood out as being too good for that level.

[forameus]

3 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

Rangers had Lee Wallace at that time, who was still considered good enough to be considered for Scotland squads even though he was playing at that level. In spite of that, the inimitable Craig G Telfer, who watched a lot of the Third Division that season, still picked Robertson ahead of him for his Tell Him He's Pele team of the year.

Not sure if it was Aidan Connolly or Blair Spittal who they signed on the same day, but both of those players have still ended up playing well above Scottish League 2 level even though they didn't prove to be as good as Robertson. That's because they were clearly better than the fourth tier and stood out as being too good for that level.

Well, there it is.  I never thought I'd hear Blair Spittal and Andrew Robertson mentioned in the same post.

[HibeeJibee]

1 hour ago, HibeeJibee said:

Bump.

People were talking about participation... UEFA has produced a report on the economic impact of football. Extracting the Scottish figures the BBC announces the sport is worth £200M to the economy here and valued at £1.25bn when social and health benefits are included (which sounds an awful lot but who knows.).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-46020676

It also says 780,000 people in Scotland play football and 89% of those are male. So that means 1 in 7 of the total population and between 1 in 3 and 1 in 4 men play football - and of course that would be including everyone from babes-in-arms right through to OAPs: it would be more like 1 in 2 from primary school to middle age.

Anyone know how that figures is arrived at?! Even if you tried to estimate how many kick a ball around the playground or do 5-asides it seems amazingly high.

To return to this: in 2006 SFA had to supply figures to FIFA for the 'Big Count' - I'm unsure if there has been any since - and the figures provided were as follows (of which 12.5% were female).

      4,132 professionals
   39,234 adult amateurs
   67,123 youths
          600 futsal
111,089

+ 302,500 "company, army, schools, university and street football" = 413,589

[the total figure provided was actually 420,589 but the 7,000 difference is not explained]


So in the last decade the number of people playing football has apparently doubled from just over 400,000 to just under 800,000; and the proportion of girls and women playing the game has slightly fallen?

Colloquially neither of those seems right, tbh.

[HibeeJibee]

17 hours ago, HibeeJibee said:

      4,132 professionals
   39,234 adult amateurs
   67,123 youths
          600 futsal
111,089

+ 302,500 "company, army, schools, university and street football" = 413,589

According to today's paper the figure for those playing organised football is now 147,000. (That'll partly be down to the drive to register all youth and many school players under the Scotland 2020: United Vision plan and not entirely "new" people). This would be an increase of 36,000 on a decade ago.

Informal football - presumably on the streets, in parks, playgrounds, and so on - accounts for the remaining 633,000. That represents a more than doubling of 331,000 on a decade ago.

Apparently the claim is that 4 in 10 boys and men aged between 5 and 65 play football .

Some additional figures here:

 

Edited October 31, 2018 by HibeeJibee

[Ira Gaines]

It's worth noting that while Robertson was seen as a squad player, he impressed any time he played, and was probably better than the first choice even then. It took a long term injury to Moreno to get Robertson a long stint in the team and for Klopp to finally admit he was better than his choice.

[Gaz]

Would it be including people who play a weekly game of 5s?

I don't consider myself an amateur footballer anymore, but I do play football.

[craigkillie]

9 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said:

According to today's paper the figure for those playing organised football is now 147,000. (That'll partly be down to the drive to register all youth and many school players under the Scotland 2020: United Vision plan and not entirely "new" people). This would be an increase of 36,000 on a decade ago.

Informal football - presumably on the streets, in parks, playgrounds, and so on - accounts for the remaining 633,000. That represents a more than doubling of 331,000 on a decade ago.

Apparently the claim is that 4 in 10 boys and men aged between 5 and 65 play football .

Some additional figures here:

 

There's surely a difference between being a "registered player" and being a person who plays football, so the attached tweet seems to be a bit of a non-sequitur. There are presumably also women out there who play 5s or other informal football but who are not included in that 12,885 from the Scotsman.

[HibeeJibee]

31 minutes ago, Gaz said:

Would it be including people who play a weekly game of 5s?

I don't consider myself an amateur footballer anymore, but I do play football.

If it's in a 5-aside league of some kind you're quite possibly still being counted as organised football.

If it's just a kick about with mates it's part of the informal football they've tried to estimate.
 

23 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

There's surely a difference between being a "registered player" and being a person who plays football, so the attached tweet seems to be a bit of a non-sequitur. There are presumably also women out there who play 5s or other informal football but who are not included in that 12,885 from the Scotsman.

From what I can see - "organised" football (147,000) contains 13,000 girls & women = 9% as well as 134,000 men & boys. Overall total (780,000) contains 11% women leaving 694,000 men & boys. That's about 30% of all men and boys - but about 40% of those aged between 5 and 65... I think we'd assume few babies, toddlers and few OAPs play. His figure doesn't seem far out.

SFA themselves, in another tweet, assert 41% of children play football.


EDIT: Those figures are confirmed in the report: 780,000 participants of whom 89% male & 11% female... 147,55 in organised football and 632,445 informal... There is a case study saying 71,000 people in Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire play football (from 450,000 population i.e. 1 in 6 people).

It also claims 1,800,000 adult football "followers" in Scotland. If so less than 6% attend each weekend.

Edited October 31, 2018 by HibeeJibee

[Savage Henry]

On 10/31/2018 at 17:29, HibeeJibee said:

If it's in a 5-aside league of some kind you're quite possibly still being counted as organised football.

If it's just a kick about with mates it's part of the informal football they've tried to estimate.
 

From what I can see - "organised" football (147,000) contains 13,000 girls & women = 9% as well as 134,000 men & boys. Overall total (780,000) contains 11% women leaving 694,000 men & boys. That's about 30% of all men and boys - but about 40% of those aged between 5 and 65... I think we'd assume few babies, toddlers and few OAPs play. His figure doesn't seem far out.

SFA themselves, in another tweet, assert 41% of children play football.


EDIT: Those figures are confirmed in the report: 780,000 participants of whom 89% male & 11% female... 147,55 in organised football and 632,445 informal... There is a case study saying 71,000 people in Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire play football (from 450,000 population i.e. 1 in 6 people).

It also claims 1,800,000 adult football "followers" in Scotland. If so less than 6% attend each weekend.

Surveys about health participation are notoriously unreliable.  Folk like to pretend they do far more exercise than they actually do.

Edit: it's one of the reasons that clown college degrees in "Sports Marketing" produce such absolute dross "studies"... as evidenced by almost every single "supporters' questionnaire" conducted on here.

Edited November 4, 2018 by Savage Henry

[kenny131]

Watching  MOTD 2 and showed that between liverpool chelsea and man city there midfield and attacking players are all small so much for strachans wete too wee pish

[MarkoRaj]

Yes 

[immcinto]

Really? According to Ewan Murray the crop of players we have now are no better than 10 years ago
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/oct/11/steve-clarke-is-the-difference-maker-scotland-must-not-lose-to-any-club

An incredible take from him.

[the snudge]

On 11/07/2018 at 00:01, ExiledSaint said:

The last few weeks we've been spectators for yet another World Cup we failed to qualify for. Some of the "smaller" nations have played well and had some impressive results. Belgium's Golden Generation have only just missed out on the Final, and Iceland gave a good account of themselves.

I used those 2 as examples as they have shown amazing progress due to an overhaul of youth development, patience and quality coaching. 

So my question is; will we ever be dining at the big table again, and will the changes we've implemented in the youth setup ever bear fruit?

Yes

[HibeeJibee]

We should be qualifying for Euros - now that half the continent does so (possibly increasing to 2/3 come 2032!).

Many around the continent would have regarded us as beneficiaries of the slots for weaker nations in reaching Euro 2020... huffed-&-puffed our way to winning a Nations League C pool, ahead of Israel + Albania, then beat Israel on penalties, then beat Serbia on penalties... but since then kicked-on winning promotion to Nations League A and qualifying comfortably for Euro 2024.

Ambition should be to continue this progress, by reaching Euros KOs and qualifying for WCs.

[PrestersKTID]

1 hour ago, immcinto said:

Really? According to Ewan Murray the crop of players we have now are no better than 10 years ago
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/oct/11/steve-clarke-is-the-difference-maker-scotland-must-not-lose-to-any-club

An incredible take from him.

Looking at the Squads from 2013 had likes of Marshall and Mcgregor in it which we'd probably take over Gunn.

Hutton ahead of Hickey or Patterson? 

Scott Brown over Mcgregor?

Steven Fletcher over Dykes?

Leigh Griffiths over Adams?

Snodgrass over Christie?

Maloney over armstrong?

Naismith over Adams/Dykes?

I can't see many taking the place of current crop. Midfield is much stronger now, Defence much stronger. For me only goalkeeper and maybe strikers get a look in. 

 

 

[Stellaboz]

I'd have Dykes and Adams over that previous lot too.