Euro 2020 Play-offs

[HibeeJibee]

Presumably they'll be throughout the window for TV coverage?

If they were thinking about national teams and spectators convenience they could have all SFs on Thursday (or even Wednesday) and all finals on Tuesday to give people maximum time to make their travel arrangements. You've got a scenario where our SFs could be say Serbia v Norway plus Scotland v Hungary. Lets say these are the Friday-Monday games and Serbia or Norway are drawn to host the Final. It's only late on the Friday night you discover whether the Final is in Belgrade or in Oslo... Scotland or Hungary have to get there from Glasgow... and the fans of either Scotland or Hungary have to get their arrangements in place over the weekend plus arrive at the latest on Monday. Meanwhile the host have to sell or refund the tickets, firm-up or cancel policing and stewarding, and so forth. Granted that Scotland & Hungary book a private charter jet and hotel which only one will need to use... Will 4 sets of tickets require advance selling?

All ties should be in neutral venue cities/regions as was originally mooted.

[forameus]

4 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said:

Presumably they'll be throughout the window for TV coverage?

If they were thinking about national teams and spectators convenience they could have all SFs on Thursday (or even Wednesday) and all finals on Tuesday to give people maximum time to make their travel arrangements. You've got a scenario where our SFs could be say Serbia v Norway plus Scotland v Hungary. Lets say these are the Friday-Monday games and Serbia or Norway are drawn to host the Final. It's only late on the Friday night you discover whether the Final is in Belgrade or in Oslo... Scotland or Hungary have to get there from Glasgow... and the fans of either Scotland or Hungary have to get their arrangements in place over the weekend plus arrive at the latest on Monday. Meanwhile the host have to sell or refund the tickets, firm-up or cancel policing and stewarding, and so forth. Granted that Scotland & Hungary book a private charter jet and hotel which only one will need to use... Will 4 sets of tickets require advance selling?

All ties should be in neutral venue cities/regions as was originally mooted.

I was going to say, well its only two games, but then it isn't I guess.  We'll have two semi-finals for each division.  If it was a weekend they must be able to get away with having staggered kick-off times, but can't imagine them doing that for a weekday.  Can't imagine UEFA will be that keen to completely change their week of football shite for what could be - for the neutral - a very exciting watch either though.  

Agree on the neutral part.  Obviously it doesn't work for the Euro 2020 chuckle tour, but in future just let the country hosting the full tournament host the Nations League Finals in the summer, then the playoffs in March.  They do it to decent success with the Confederations Cup anyway.  It would also avoid the farce of everyone scrambling for travel to a place for the final they may or may not be involved in.  If everyone's in the city anyway, it's just a choice of staying or not.

[craigkillie]

I can recommend just booking flights to Serbia in anticipation of getting through. Nothing can go wrong with that foolproof plan.

[forameus]

33 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

I can recommend just booking flights to Serbia in anticipation of getting through. Nothing can go wrong with that foolproof plan.

But you had such a good time, Craig...

[craigkillie]

It's a lovely place, comes highly recommended to anyone who does fancy it.

[skippy2015]

I really don’t want to play Norway some very good players coming through haaland of Salzburg and Ødegaard and a good manager in Lagerbäck

[Gnash]

On 12/09/2019 at 00:28, sjc said:

I'm talking about the fundamental issues we have with our approach to developing players from grassroots, not the professional set up. Much in the same way Uruguay does. ie they've accepted that their domestic league will never be strong enough financially to compete so they looked to developing skillful youngsters with good technique knowing they'll be picked up by foreign Clubs, who will effectively be finishing schools for their talent.

We on the other hand still have kids playing 11 v 11 in the freezing cold throughout the winter.....

But none of that has changed in 2 decades of not qualifying.  I don't see why 1 more failed qualifying campaign would make any difference to the SFA's approach, hence we might as well qualify through an admittedly contrived route that doesn't prove we're any good.

[sjc]

3 hours ago, Gnash said:

But none of that has changed in 2 decades of not qualifying.  I don't see why 1 more failed qualifying campaign would make any difference to the SFA's approach, hence we might as well qualify through an admittedly contrived route that doesn't prove we're any good.

You've missed the point I was making, which was that the SFA would see qualification as justification of what they're doing with regard to grassroots coaching and development.

As poor as Scotland are, we've not hit rock bottom yet imo. (Although I can see us finishing behind both Cyprus and Kazakhstan in our group!)

[Guest]

In fairness I don't think we can blame the SFA or grassroots coaching and development.

Our U21's have just beaten Croatia away which would point to the coaching and development paying dividends and as for our senior team, the majority are playing at the highest level for their respective club sides and we've arguably got the strongest midfield that we've had in decades.

Again I would point to the likes of Northern Ireland and question how on earth with their squad they should be achieving what they are in relation to ourselves and our playing squad.

Is it tactics ? Is it mentality ? is it commitment ?

Who knows ?

However, I'd doubt very much if more than two of their players would make it into a Scotland side currently which tells you there's a problem somewhere.........

[GordonS]

6 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

Our U21's have just beaten Croatia away which would point to the coaching and development paying dividends

I hear this point a lot, but I don't think it's evidence of what people think it is.

Scotland has performed much better at youth grades than adult grades for a long time. This is interesting for a small country, where variability from year to year should mean less consistency in age grades than the bigger countries. But have you watched these games?

What I find is that our young players are very good at holding their shape, being tactically disciplined, working very hard, challenging for the ball - all stuff you learn from playing 11-a-side on full sized pitches. They don't give the ball away at the back, they don't make many mistakes and they don't muck about. But, apart from against the minnows, in almost every age-grade match I've been to (which is a lot) the opposition clearly have better technique than us. I think what's happening is that young players in other countries learn in small-sided games with a much stronger focus on technique, and much less attention on tactics and competitiveness. An 18 year old footballer in France or the Netherlands will not have played all that many competitive 11-a-side games in their life yet, but our boys will have played in literally hundreds.

You can learn tactics and how to play right back and all the rest of it when you're a bit older, but you can't really learn technique as an adult and you certainly don't get the freedom to test it in matches. So in age-grade football we beat countries whose players will improve beyond ours.

There is no substitute for technique.

If you go through the squads on wiki of teams at age-grade final tournaments you see a far higher proportion of players in other countries go on to careers as professionals or internationals than from Scotland. If I ever get time in my life I might gather the numbers on it.

In 2006 we reached the final of the European Under 19 Championship, qualifying for the U20 World Cup. That squad gave us:

Garry Kenneth - 2 caps (both friendlies)

Graham Dorrans - 12

Robert Snodgrass - 27

Steven Fletcher - 33

Lee Wallace - 10.

That's not too bad at all, but it's not European finalist material. 

It's also notable that many, if not most, of our best players played little or no age-grade internationals. Andy Robertson got 4 U21 caps and nothing before. Tierney got 1 U18 cap and 4 U19, though in fairness he got called up to the big team quite early. McTominay has no age-grade caps.

I don't think we can take any comfort from the successes of our age-grade teams, because it's been like that for a long time and it has never translated into success for the adult men's side. And from what I hear of life under Malky Mackay, it's all about big strong boys running up and down. 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, GordonS said:

I hear this point a lot, but I don't think it's evidence of what people think it is.

Scotland has performed much better at youth grades than adult grades for a long time. This is interesting for a small country, where variability from year to year should mean less consistency in age grades than the bigger countries. But have you watched these games?

What I find is that our young players are very good at holding their shape, being tactically disciplined, working very hard, challenging for the ball - all stuff you learn from playing 11-a-side on full sized pitches. They don't give the ball away at the back, they don't make many mistakes and they don't muck about. But, apart from against the minnows, in almost every age-grade match I've been to (which is a lot) the opposition clearly have better technique than us. I think what's happening is that young players in other countries learn in small-sided games with a much stronger focus on technique, and much less attention on tactics and competitiveness. An 18 year old footballer in France or the Netherlands will not have played all that many competitive 11-a-side games in their life yet, but our boys will have played in literally hundreds.

You can learn tactics and how to play right back and all the rest of it when you're a bit older, but you can't really learn technique as an adult and you certainly don't get the freedom to test it in matches. So in age-grade football we beat countries whose players will improve beyond ours.

There is no substitute for technique.

If you go through the squads on wiki of teams at age-grade final tournaments you see a far higher proportion of players in other countries go on to careers as professionals or internationals than from Scotland. If I ever get time in my life I might gather the numbers on it.

In 2006 we reached the final of the European Under 19 Championship, qualifying for the U20 World Cup. That squad gave us:

Garry Kenneth - 2 caps (both friendlies)

Graham Dorrans - 12

Robert Snodgrass - 27

Steven Fletcher - 33

Lee Wallace - 10.

That's not too bad at all, but it's not European finalist material. 

It's also notable that many, if not most, of our best players played little or no age-grade internationals. Andy Robertson got 4 U21 caps and nothing before. Tierney got 1 U18 cap and 4 U19, though in fairness he got called up to the big team quite early. McTominay has no age-grade caps.

I don't think we can take any comfort from the successes of our age-grade teams, because it's been like that for a long time and it has never translated into success for the adult men's side. And from what I hear of life under Malky Mackay, it's all about big strong boys running up and down. 

I take your point but in defence of the likes of Mackay and the SFA generally, these boys are all coached by their club sides so if they're incapable of controlling a football properly or finding a pass then surely the blame must lie at our club sides and their coaching regimes ?

I'm a bit biased as an Ayr fan, however we're most certainly playing football in what would be described as the "right way" with ball on the deck, one touch pass and move being the norm and I can honestly say that we've got a couple of absolutely cracking young players who have as much skill and natural ability as I've seen from anyone in the Scottish game and this style has definitely (at our level) been paying massive dividends.

Apart from the above we can look again at the likes of the Republic who play what's best described as "hoof ball", however it's been getting them results which is much more than can be said for us.

Maybe it's just a case of us being very unlucky with recent draws as we always seem to get the top seeded teams in the world and those "lower" seeded teams who are on the up, as I say, who knows ? It could be a multitude of reasons but again I don't think blaming the SFA or individual coaches is the answer as our problems would appear to run much much deeper than that...........

[Burnie_man]

14 minutes ago, GordonS said:

I hear this point a lot, but I don't think it's evidence of what people think it is.

Scotland has performed much better at youth grades than adult grades for a long time. This is interesting for a small country, where variability from year to year should mean less consistency in age grades than the bigger countries. But have you watched these games?

What I find is that our young players are very good at holding their shape, being tactically disciplined, working very hard, challenging for the ball - all stuff you learn from playing 11-a-side on full sized pitches. They don't give the ball away at the back, they don't make many mistakes and they don't muck about. But, apart from against the minnows, in almost every age-grade match I've been to (which is a lot) the opposition clearly have better technique than us. I think what's happening is that young players in other countries learn in small-sided games with a much stronger focus on technique, and much less attention on tactics and competitiveness. An 18 year old footballer in France or the Netherlands will not have played all that many competitive 11-a-side games in their life yet, but our boys will have played in literally hundreds.

You can learn tactics and how to play right back and all the rest of it when you're a bit older, but you can't really learn technique as an adult and you certainly don't get the freedom to test it in matches. So in age-grade football we beat countries whose players will improve beyond ours.

There is no substitute for technique.

If you go through the squads on wiki of teams at age-grade final tournaments you see a far higher proportion of players in other countries go on to careers as professionals or internationals than from Scotland. If I ever get time in my life I might gather the numbers on it.

In 2006 we reached the final of the European Under 19 Championship, qualifying for the U20 World Cup. That squad gave us:

Garry Kenneth - 2 caps (both friendlies)

Graham Dorrans - 12

Robert Snodgrass - 27

Steven Fletcher - 33

Lee Wallace - 10.

That's not too bad at all, but it's not European finalist material. 

It's also notable that many, if not most, of our best players played little or no age-grade internationals. Andy Robertson got 4 U21 caps and nothing before. Tierney got 1 U18 cap and 4 U19, though in fairness he got called up to the big team quite early. McTominay has no age-grade caps.

I don't think we can take any comfort from the successes of our age-grade teams, because it's been like that for a long time and it has never translated into success for the adult men's side. And from what I hear of life under Malky Mackay, it's all about big strong boys running up and down. 

We haven't qualified for a Euro U21 Finals since 1996, we last qualified for an U19 Finals (held every year), since 2006 when we got to the Final as you said.  I can only recall one U17 Finals appearance, in Malta a few years ago, although perhaps there were other appearances.

We're not any better at U19 and U21 level, in fact perhaps we're worse. Last U21 campaign we scrambled last minute equalisers away to Andorra and home to Latvia, but then typically Scottish, beat Netherlands home and away, We've had some very poor campaigns.

Perhaps with Performances School graduates starting to come though to U19/U21 level we'll see an upturn. I won't hold my breath though.

[Burnie_man]

On ‎12‎/‎09‎/‎2019 at 12:45, forameus said:

EDIT: Looking at the articles posted already, UEFA seem to have picked a day for the semi finals.  A Thursday.  A fucking Thursday.  

I saw that, but there's also a page on UEFA that suggests the SF's take place Thu/Fri/Sat, with the Finals Sun/Mon/Tue, ie keeping to the week of football concept.

Draw is 22nd November so I suppose we'll find out for sure then.

 

[HibeeJibee]

We get this garbage about our U21s every time they pull-off a good result. They beat the Netherlands home-n-away in the last qualifying... but also lost at home to Latvia, plus drew away to Andorra, and finished 4th. In some friendlies we drew with Estonia and crashed 4-0 at home v Slovakia. In the previous campaign they lost home-n-away v FYR Macedonia, took 1pt off Iceland, and finished 5th. Nothing encouraging there.

We have done well at the Toulon Tournament but that's somewhat deceptive as other countries were fielding teams 1 or 2 years younger than us (or their 2nd string in the case of at least England).

In terms of the historical question - we last qualified for Euro U21s in 1996. Somewhat worryingly we haven't even won more than half our qualifiers since 2009 and have won 9 out of 28 in the last 3 campaigns. We have only once ever qualified for Euro U19s in 2006. We have had a much better recent record at U17s - qualifying 4 times this decade.

Obviously results are not everything but it'd be wrong to think they're of little or no importance either.

[forameus]

A bit of stuff ratified at the recent UEFA meeting, including expanding the top division to 16 teams (so no relegation for anyone from the top tier then, niiiiice).  The playoff stuff has been decided by the looks of it, with some interesting points

• Semi finals will all be on the Thursday, Finals on the Tuesday.  Seemingly no "week of football" stuff, which is good, but they've probably picked the worst days for fans.  Cheers guys.
• Not sure if this is new information, but from my understanding of UEFA speak, but we, as a group winner, are guaranteed to be playing a lower ranked team, no matter who qualifies.  I think, at least. "If fewer than four teams from one league enter the playoffs, the remaining slots are allocated on the basis of the overall rankings to the best-ranked of the teams that have not already qualified, subject to the restriction that group winners cannot be in a play-off path with higher-ranked teams."  The walk of "Paths" suggests that we also can't be against a higher ranked team in any potential final.  Or maybe it doesn't.  f**k knows.
• Looks like they've taken the sensible option and one semi-final will be drawn as the "host" for the final.  Can't wait for the SFA to not do any planning and then have Robbie Williams booked for the Tuesday or something.  Also can't wait for everyone gambling on travel from the four countries, in the hope that they'll get there.  What was wrong with one host city? 
• "The associations that have been awarded with the organisation of the play-off finals, must foresee the option of cancelling the venue at short notice in case of non-qualification for the final or plan to organise a replacement friendly match at the venue which has been reserved".  Lol.  There's a lot of expectation put at the SFA's feet here, isn't there?  But seriously, imagine the SFA saying "don't worry guys, I know you're all disappointed about not going to the Euros, but do you fancy buying tickets for a friendly against Andorra instead?
• Full Euros draw will be in November, with placeholders for the playoffs.  So we'll know our opponents ahead of the playoff, and we'll, presumably, know we're playing England and where.  If that's not enough incentive, I don't know what is.

It's here in punishing detail https://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/competitions/EURO/02/62/53/04/2625304_DOWNLOAD.pdf

[Marshmallo]

If we qualify we'll play England at Wembley and the other two games at Hampden, that was confirmed as well.

[ScottMc77]

1 hour ago, Marshmallo said:

If we qualify we'll play England at Wembley and the other two games at Hampden, that was confirmed as well.

Yep, that's a bit of a stinker, and a change of plan form UEFA as there was 'meant to be' a draw to decide this, or at least that was my initial understanding.

As I said at the time of buying tickets I hope, if Scotland qualify, the game I have tickets at Hampden for (final group game) is not the same day as England v Scotland at Wembley!

 

 

[Gordopolis]

21 minutes ago, ScottMc77 said:

Yep, that's a bit of a stinker, and a change of plan form UEFA as there was 'meant to be' a draw to decide this, or at least that was my initial understanding.

As I said at the time of buying tickets I hope, if Scotland qualify, the game I have tickets at Hampden for (final group game) is not the same day as England v Scotland at Wembley!

 

 

Ahe shite, I never thought about that last bit. I have tickets for the first and last group games at Hampden

Anyway, how was it decided that we would face ENgland at Wembley? Surely some form of draw was used?

[Gordopolis]

2 hours ago, forameus said:

• Looks like they've taken the sensible option and one semi-final will be drawn as the "host" for the final.  Can't wait for the SFA to not do any planning and then have Robbie Williams booked for the Tuesday or something. 

This really did make me chuckle 

[Burnie_man]

NL semi-finals confirmed as being played on Thursday 26th March, with the 4 finals matches on Tuesday 31st March.  They're not being spread across the week.

On 22nd November at 11.00GMT, the draw will be made to decide which semi-final winner hosts the final. Hosts then have 4 weeks to confirm venue.

England get to host because they will qualify automatically via their current qualifying group (almost certainly), whilst Scotland's only realistic chance is via the NL play-offs. Yesterday UEFA decreed that if two hosts are in the same group, the one who qualifies automatically hosts the game.  It was supposed to be the toss of a coin.  Nothing to do with the extra 40,000 tickets that can be sold obviously......

Edited September 25, 2019 by Burnie_man