Will Scotland ever be good again?

[John Lambies Doos]

But that is not a recent development, is it?

No, and that's clearly my point. Rotten to the core

[gruppenfuhrer]

should all the best players in scotland move to the likes of england to play against better opposition to make them a better player while back up in scotland  fringe players would get more first team football that should improve them,dont think average crowds in croatia are over 5000 in the top division  so i money cant be to blame for this, also i think managers should put a ban on players  going out to get pissed  3 days before a game , as this would affect most players , dont know if george best drank  the night before a game ? prosinecki drank as well socrates too, and they we not shite

Edited July 16, 2018 by gruppenfuhrer

[Dunning1874]

I'm not one for knee-jerking about youth development, either in saying we can simply copy what other countries do or that we need to tear our entire footballing structure to the ground and start again. What works in one country won't necessarily work in another, and tearing everything up to start again simply can't be presented as a long-term solution when in reality it'll be used as a short-term backlash every single time we have a setback at senior level, giving no youth structure a time to succeed or fail on its own merits.

However, there are basic principles which we can learn from other nations on, and we're doing the exact opposite. It's not realistic for a country the size of Scotland to have as many as facilities relatively as Iceland do with the amount of public money it would take to get indoor pitches at that number of schools, but the principle of providing as many top class facilities with as much top class coaching as possible is one that's an absolute no-brainer to follow.

In Iceland you have to have at least a UEFA B licence to coach at under-10 level - they have one UEFA qualified coach per 825 people. This ensures that pretty much any child who wants to play football can do it with a properly qualified coach to oversee them. They obviously didn't train that many coaches or build those facilties overnight, it took years to get there and players who'd been through that youth set-up only started bringing success to the national team when they had a manager with a track record of success at international level overseeing them, but getting as many coaches as possible working with young players is just a blatantly obvious step to take.

However, in Scotland we get absolute morons like Willie Miller given a platform with the national broadcaster to say that we have too many players getting access to top level coaching, and we need to restrict that access so the very best players aren't held back by having to share their time with top coaches with players of lower ability. Rather than recruiting more coaches as possible to maximise the number of players receiving high quality coaching, preventing late developers being lost to the game or talented players not even getting into it in the first place, we should just focus on the very small elite who are at the very biggest clubs in the country and forget everyone else.

With Project Brave, we're entirely following the Willie Miller approved model and setting fire to grassroots football. It'll ensure the vast majority of children in Scotland will never get near a proper coach, instead learning from a teacher or classmate's parent volunteering a couple of hours a week.

As I said I'm not one for knee-jerks, but Project Brave really is absolute insanity and needs to be killed before it can properly begin. It'll only take a couple of years to do decades of damage and we should turn the whole thing on it's head then keep anyone who had anything to do with its inception away from making decisions about Scottish football ever again.

[gruppenfuhrer]

scotlands best 2 players  now are mckenna and robertson

[Sergeant Wilson]

1 hour ago, gruppenfuhrer said:

should all the best players in scotland move to the likes of england to play against better opposition to make them a better player while back up in scotland  fringe players would get more first team football that should improve them,dont think average crowds in croatia are over 5000 in the top division  so i money cant be to blame for this, also i think managers should put a ban on players  going out to get pissed  3 days before a game , as this would affect most players , dont know if george best drank  the night before a game ? prosinecki drank as well socrates too, and they we not shite

Is this cliche bingo?

[DA Baracus]

1 hour ago, Dunning1874 said:

I'm not one for knee-jerking about youth development, either in saying we can simply copy what other countries do or that we need to tear our entire footballing structure to the ground and start again. What works in one country won't necessarily work in another, and tearing everything up to start again simply can't be presented as a long-term solution when in reality it'll be used as a short-term backlash every single time we have a setback at senior level, giving no youth structure a time to succeed or fail on its own merits.

However, there are basic principles which we can learn from other nations on, and we're doing the exact opposite. It's not realistic for a country the size of Scotland to have as many as facilities relatively as Iceland do with the amount of public money it would take to get indoor pitches at that number of schools, but the principle of providing as many top class facilities with as much top class coaching as possible is one that's an absolute no-brainer to follow.

In Iceland you have to have at least a UEFA B licence to coach at under-10 level - they have one UEFA qualified coach per 825 people. This ensures that pretty much any child who wants to play football can do it with a properly qualified coach to oversee them. They obviously didn't train that many coaches or build those facilties overnight, it took years to get there and players who'd been through that youth set-up only started bringing success to the national team when they had a manager with a track record of success at international level overseeing them, but getting as many coaches as possible working with young players is just a blatantly obvious step to take.

However, in Scotland we get absolute morons like Willie Miller given a platform with the national broadcaster to say that we have too many players getting access to top level coaching, and we need to restrict that access so the very best players aren't held back by having to share their time with top coaches with players of lower ability. Rather than recruiting more coaches as possible to maximise the number of players receiving high quality coaching, preventing late developers being lost to the game or talented players not even getting into it in the first place, we should just focus on the very small elite who are at the very biggest clubs in the country and forget everyone else.

With Project Brave, we're entirely following the Willie Miller approved model and setting fire to grassroots football. It'll ensure the vast majority of children in Scotland will never get near a proper coach, instead learning from a teacher or classmate's parent volunteering a couple of hours a week.

As I said I'm not one for knee-jerks, but Project Brave really is absolute insanity and needs to be killed before it can properly begin. It'll only take a couple of years to do decades of damage and we should turn the whole thing on it's head then keep anyone who had anything to do with its inception away from making decisions about Scottish football ever again.

Agree with all of this.

Regarding coaching, it's not cheap to become one (in terms of the cost for the badges). Sure I read somewhere it's much cheaper in Germany, Spain, Iceland etc to get them than it is here.

[DA Baracus]

Example: UEFA B License in Scotland costs £1450 (https://www.scottishfa.co.uk/football-development/coaching/coaching-pathway/main-youthadult-pathway/uefa-b-licence/).

In Iceland it's £613 and in Spain it's £995 (http://www.goal.com/euro2016/en/article/the-secret-behind-the-iceland-miracle/1quzrzppu5pmy1gc6jx6nxl0fw).

 

 

In Scotland the A License costs £2740 (https://www.scottishfa.co.uk/football-development/coaching/coaching-pathway/main-youthadult-pathway/uefa-a-licence/).

In Germany it's €800 (https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/football/the-agony-and-the-ecstasy/2016/sep/07/england-grassroots-football-iceland-germany-coaching).

[54_and_counting]

one issue that imo scotland have had for years now is the lack of experience that the better players have when they hit their peak or are at the prime of their development

take the scotland squad the now, we have guys with 3 or 4 caps at the age of 23, even worse is guys in their mid twenties with less than 10 caps, and undoubtedly a few of they caps are minimal sub appearances

other countries take their best and highest potentials and expoerience them right away, pick any of the current world cup participants best players and im willing to bet they have way more experience, some examples

eden hazard, 27yo and has 92 caps, 9 caps per year since he made the belgian first team

raheem sterling, 23yo and has 44 caps, just over 7 caps per year since his debut

mbappe, 19yo and has 22 caps, 11 per year since his debut

ivan perisic, 29yo and has 73 caps, just over 10 per year since his debut

this list is potentially as lengthy as f**k, scotland have recently tried guys like kevin mcdonald at fulham, he's played the last ten years in english football, a good bit in the championship, yet he has only one cap and thats from earlier this year, so just why the hell has he never been tested before, if he wasnt deemed good enough back in 2010 when he finished his stint in the u21's what chance will he have of being anywhere near experience enough to be good enough to qualify fior a major tournament, and he's not the only one

this isnt a "ditch the old guys and play a team of 19yo's" post, but surely to f**k scotland have a core or u21's who are deemed the best and brightest of their age group, and by core i mean at least half of a matchday squad, integrate them now, let them earn their 30 caps by the time they are around 23 or 24, then when these guys hit their prime years they will be vastly experienced and scotland will have gradually blended in their eventual replacements as well

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

In one of my FM saves as Scotland I started playing this guy because his 16th birthday fell on the date of one of our games. Kept on playing him just so I could run up an obscene number of caps. He turned out to be utter shite, but I persisted and brought him on for the last couple of minutes in every game. 

I eventually managed to win the World Cup, with my longterm project coming off the bench to, quite incredibly, rack up a performance rating of 4 in the ninety seconds or so that he was on the park, but we won the a World Cup nevertheless. 

Just goes to show that capping any old duffer as many times as possible CAN work, we just need to have the balls to see it through. 

Edited July 17, 2018 by Barry Ferguson's Hat

[forameus]

13 hours ago, 54_and_counting said:

one issue that imo scotland have had for years now is the lack of experience that the better players have when they hit their peak or are at the prime of their development

take the scotland squad the now, we have guys with 3 or 4 caps at the age of 23, even worse is guys in their mid twenties with less than 10 caps, and undoubtedly a few of they caps are minimal sub appearances

other countries take their best and highest potentials and expoerience them right away, pick any of the current world cup participants best players and im willing to bet they have way more experience, some examples

eden hazard, 27yo and has 92 caps, 9 caps per year since he made the belgian first team

raheem sterling, 23yo and has 44 caps, just over 7 caps per year since his debut

mbappe, 19yo and has 22 caps, 11 per year since his debut

ivan perisic, 29yo and has 73 caps, just over 10 per year since his debut

this list is potentially as lengthy as f**k, scotland have recently tried guys like kevin mcdonald at fulham, he's played the last ten years in english football, a good bit in the championship, yet he has only one cap and thats from earlier this year, so just why the hell has he never been tested before, if he wasnt deemed good enough back in 2010 when he finished his stint in the u21's what chance will he have of being anywhere near experience enough to be good enough to qualify fior a major tournament, and he's not the only one

this isnt a "ditch the old guys and play a team of 19yo's" post, but surely to f**k scotland have a core or u21's who are deemed the best and brightest of their age group, and by core i mean at least half of a matchday squad, integrate them now, let them earn their 30 caps by the time they are around 23 or 24, then when these guys hit their prime years they will be vastly experienced and scotland will have gradually blended in their eventual replacements as well

That's all well and good to say, but you've just named four players who are absolutely fucking miles ahead of anything we have.  Eden Hazard would be a Ballon D'Or winner if he wasn't in an era with two of the best players ever.  Raheem Sterling is probably the weakest of the 4, but still a tremendous player.  Mbappe will be the best in the World barring any sort of catastrophe, and Perisic is easily one of the best in his country.   If there are players of that kind of quality in our ranks, they would be getting played.

When this argument comes out people seem to forget that we tried to do it in one notable occasion.  Oliver Burke.  We brought him in while completely skipping the U21s, and had it worked out he would be an ever-present.  Strangely enough, he was nowhere near ready, and now looks like he may well be the type to end up with single figure caps until a later age when he might be more ready.

[PrestersKTID]

We have no one under the age of 30 with more than 30 caps that have played recently.

Mcarthur has 32 but is 30.

Hanley and Robertson only 2 close to it with 26 and 22 caps.

Forrest has 22 but is 27 now

Bannan close on 27 caps but closing in on 30 and probably won't play much for Scotland in future.

We did try burke and we tried Wilson a while ago but apart from that we always seem to find players at 26/27 when we'll get 1 or 2 campaigns out them then we're looking again.  Likes of Mcgregor, armstrong, have been playing champions league for a few years but only get a call up recently.  

Hopefully the likes of Mckenna, Hendry, Paterson, Mctominay and Mcginn can become regulars, sooner we get the younger guys top level experience the better.

Northern ireland have proven that even if you're not the most talented group a settled team can make the difference. 

[DA Baracus]

I genuinely can't see us being decent again. We've stood still for decades while other nations speed by us.

There's too much to change and not enough will to do it. We all know the things we should be doing, but we're not doing them, and haven't been doing them for decades now. Where are the facilities? Where are the coaches? Where are the players who show the attitude required to be more than just a standard player?

We need to change mentality more than anything, but the folk who have to drive that, since they are in charge of the tools capable of it (i.e. funding and certification), the SFA, are far too comfy to do it. We have loads of young players who will be brought up in a shitty system and their only real goal is to play for Celtic or Sevco which they see as the pinnacle. As a fan of one of those teams they already have a poor mentality anyway (entitled for a start, part of what they see as an elite so why try harder, interested in success only as a means to deny the other side success and not for the sake of success itself, paranoid and full of excuses and blaming everyone else instead of looking inward to be honest and identify weaknesses so they can be worked on, etc).

Coaching is too expensive for those wanting to get in to it. It some countries like Germany and Iceland, it's significantly cheaper to get your badges. 

We've heard loads of anecdotes about how at youth level it's win at all cost, to the utter detriment of player development. 

We keep appointing guys seeped in the disease of failure and excuses and stubbornly tied to a long dead way of playing the game to vital roles, and other such voices are the leading ones in the media, so their crappy negative ideals are broadcast more than others.

Why is Malkay Mackay in the role he's in? What credentials does he have for it, other than 'played for Celtic' and 'managed in England', both of which are irrelevant to the role.

An arsehole like Gordon Strachan cried about genetics and stubbornly stuck to the same group of players who hadn't cut it before for the most part, only really making changes when it was forced, either by injury or by us messing up so much that there no other option. And now we've appointed Alex McLeish.

Club appointments are often shockingly closed shop, with those in the media with the most prominent platform constantly promoting their mates, and outsiders viewed as anathema.

 

We've had decades to do something. We've done nothing.

Do we even really want to change? Or are those in charge happy to just keep making small alterations, as if a long term plan that saw radical change actually happened they'd not have any excuses? 

Why are there so many obstacles to change? Why are so many shite appointments made to vital roles?

 

We're fucked. 

Edited July 17, 2018 by DA Baracus

[The Moonster]

20 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

I genuinely can't see us being decent again.

I'd say we're decent right now, it's getting good that seems to be the problem.

The rest of your post is a bit sensationalist.  I don't deny that we have a lot that could do with a change but if a Croatian FA in complete turmoil can watch it's team get to a World Cup final then I'm quite confident that at some point in the entirety of time we'll be able to at least fluke the odd good side.

[Gordopolis]

5 hours ago, Barry Ferguson's Hat said:

In one of my FM saves as Scotland I started playing this guy because his 16th birthday fell on the date of one of our games. Kept on playing him just so I could run up an obscene number of caps. He turned out to be utter shite, but I persisted and brought him on for the last couple of minutes in every game. 

I eventually managed to win the World Cup, with my longterm project coming off the bench to, quite incredibly, rack up a performance rating of 4 in the ninety seconds or so that he was on the park, but we won the a World Cup nevertheless. 

Just goes to show that capping any old duffer as many times as possible CAN work, we just need to have the balls to see it through. 

What was his caps/goals ratio?

[craigkillie]

18 hours ago, 54_and_counting said:

eden hazard, 27yo and has 92 caps, 9 caps per year since he made the belgian first team

raheem sterling, 23yo and has 44 caps, just over 7 caps per year since his debut

mbappe, 19yo and has 22 caps, 11 per year since his debut

ivan perisic, 29yo and has 73 caps, just over 10 per year since his debut

 

These players have loads of caps because they're very good rather than being very good because they won loads of caps.  If any of those players were Scottish they'd already have that many caps if not more (aside from the fact that we often play far fewer games due to not qualifying for stuff).  Any time an exciting young player has burst on to the scene, we've been more than happy to give them a chance at an early age.

Who are these mystical Scotland players who should have been given tons more caps at an early age?  In terms of real top quality players, there haven't been a lot in recent years.  Darren Fletcher made his debut at 18 and won 80 caps for Scotland.  It would likely have been well over 100 had we qualified for major tournaments and had he not had his issues with illness.  You can say the same for Craig Gordon, whose debut came at 21 and who has over 50 caps despite missing years and years through injury.

Looking at some of the younger members of the current squad, Kieran Tierney made his debut at 18 and has basically immediately established himself as a first choice, only missing games through injury.  Andy Robertson made his debut at 19 and aside from ludicrously being dropped for a few games by Strachan, he's been a regular pick.  Oliver Burke was thrown in at 18 and was picked from the start in a couple of qualifiers in the last campaign but hasn't really done it for club or country since.  James Forrest was picked at 19 and was consistently picked in the team despite many complaints that he wasn't good enough.  Even Grant Hanley was flung in at 19 and has picked up a load of caps despite never really living up to his promise.  You can put Barry Bannan in a similar category - plenty of caps based on his early promise, but ultimately his career never really took off.

 

 

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

32 minutes ago, Gordopolis said:

What was his caps/goals ratio?

I think he had two goals in about 400 minutes of football spanning over 150   caps. 

[JamesM82]

19 hours ago, 54_and_counting said:

one issue that imo scotland have had for years now is the lack of experience that the better players have when they hit their peak or are at the prime of their development

take the scotland squad the now, we have guys with 3 or 4 caps at the age of 23, even worse is guys in their mid twenties with less than 10 caps, and undoubtedly a few of they caps are minimal sub appearances

other countries take their best and highest potentials and expoerience them right away, pick any of the current world cup participants best players and im willing to bet they have way more experience, some examples

eden hazard, 27yo and has 92 caps, 9 caps per year since he made the belgian first team...

That's just a function of qualifying / not qualifying for things, which is circular logic.

Hazard will have played ~10 games for Belgium this summer while Tierney, Robertson et al were having a longer break.

Edited July 17, 2018 by JamesM82

[forameus]

Those that are tearfully saying that we'll never amount to anything, or be "decent" again...genuine question, what is your barometer for success?  What exactly would be "decent" in these cases in terms of what we can achieve?

[woof!]

I think we’re on the verge of being (relatively) tremendous. This is the best i’ve felt about the team for 20 years. We’ve got pace and technique right through the team. We’ve been a national of battling plodders for too long, and those days are over. Er ye are! 

[DA Baracus]

37 minutes ago, forameus said:

Those that are tearfully saying that we'll never amount to anything, or be "decent" again...genuine question, what is your barometer for success?  What exactly would be "decent" in these cases in terms of what we can achieve?

Qualifying for the World Cup