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Scots on the move


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10 hours ago, parsforlife said:

Better than the other way around, on the 2000s we had youth teams going relievedly deep in euros/world cups.  Judging these results ultimately misses the point.   When training a 17/18/19 year old kid you are training them to be the best senior player they can be, not the best youth player.  If working on an element of a players game that makes them short term a worse player in youth matches but once you go through the process a better senior player then you do it every single time.

Wotte was a slavering c**t.

Keeping the same system has some benefits,  but last thing we want is if a senior manager changes all the players can't handle the change then that's a problem. we want adaptable players.  I am 100% against being stuck on a philosophy or 'scottish way.  We want our manager to be able to pick a system and players every match based on the opponent.' 

 

Wotte might well have been a slavering c**t, but that doesn’t mean all his ideas were wrong.

I conceded there is probably a point where tactical inflexibility becomes a problem but I would argue avoiding that is about the quality of education you give the kids. Remember that the performance schools are just one strand of it, they will still also be at club academies at the same time where they will learn something different, although hopefully also based on developing high quality technical players. Having them well drilled in a particular style or system (or more likely a series of related systems) is hugely beneficial to helping with transition between age grades and ultimately into the full side. It’s exactly what Barcelona and Ajax do, for instance. The players who come out of those systems are still able to adapt and play elsewhere.

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Just now, John Lambies Doos said:
14 hours ago, BingMcCrosby said:
Thats interesting as well, potential for a call up if he does well

Yes, but if he does really make it at top level, he will pick England or Italy

Its the kind of thing we need to be more like Ireland and Wales with, cap him early then were covered 🤷‍♂️ Hes never getting looked at by England or Italy in the Championship.

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1 hour ago, John Lambies Doos said:

Yes, but if he does really make it at top level, he will pick England or Italy

He may well do but everything you read about Fiorini has him firmly committed to Scotland and last summer his target was to get into the U21 squad, which he did. 

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A lot of people have this weird obsession that every player with a connection to another country will immediately rush off to play for them given half a chance. However there's no real evidence of it happening - I'm struggling to think of many examples of players being in the Scotland setup and then moving somewhere else - Sam Gallagher and the Newcastle guy years ago that went to play for Australia are the only ones off the top of my head.

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3 hours ago, craigkillie said:

A lot of people have this weird obsession that every player with a connection to another country will immediately rush off to play for them given half a chance. However there's no real evidence of it happening - I'm struggling to think of many examples of players being in the Scotland setup and then moving somewhere else - Sam Gallagher and the Newcastle guy years ago that went to play for Australia are the only ones off the top of my head.

In fairness theres also not really been many players eligible for both us and England who have been good enough for them. McTominay maybe would have made a few squads.

Karamoko Dembele at the time he was coming thru was touted as one of the best young players in the world. And was quick to ditch us for them. Turns out its probably no great loss in the end.

But the threat of players like for example Fiorini choosing England for me is very real. If they go on to have even one exceptional season in the championship at a young age. Then some contact, their head could understandably be turned.

Edited by BingMcCrosby
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6 hours ago, The Moonster said:

He may well do but everything you read about Fiorini has him firmly committed to Scotland and last summer his target was to get into the U21 squad, which he did. 

Also neither you or me know the guy, so we don't know what his thoughts might be. Media stuff means nothing, their all trained to give the correct bland answers.

Not to say the guy isn't fully committed to us, but we don't know really.

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In fairness theres also not really been many players eligible for both us and England who have been good enough for them. McTominay maybe would have made a few squads.
Karamoko Dembele at the time he was coming thru was touted as one of the best young players in the world. And was quick to ditch us for them. Turns out its probably no great loss in the end.
But the threat of players like for example Fiorini choosing England for me is very real. If they go on to have even one exceptional season in the championship at a young age. Then some contact their head could understandably be turned.
Exactly, being an England International will mean a far bigger salary at club level. Sad but true. English players get much bigger sponsorship deals and are far more marketable. If he isn't a heart based die hard Scot(like mctominay), he will be off in a jiffy.. mad not to.
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Just now, John Lambies Doos said:

Exactly, being an England International will mean a far bigger salary at club level. Sad but true. English players get much bigger sponsorship deals and are far more marketable. If he isn't a heart based die hard Scot(like mctominay), he will be off in a jiffy.. mad not to.

Its obviously not just financial tho, you have a realistic chance of winning a major tournament with them. With us a realistic chance of getting pumped by ukraine and a crap Ireland team🤣

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5 hours ago, John Lambies Doos said:

Exactly, being an England International will mean a far bigger salary at club level. Sad but true. English players get much bigger sponsorship deals and are far more marketable. If he isn't a heart based die hard Scot(like mctominay), he will be off in a jiffy.. mad not to.

For sponsorship income, being American, Indian or Chinese far better than being English.

But yes it is crazy that guys like McTominay gave up guaranteed millions just to play for Scotland, incredible sacrifice on their part.

Englands record in international tournaments in recent decades is pretty dire, can't imagine many of their players were delighted to be losing to Iceland or finishing bottom of a world cup group with Uruguay, Italy and Costa Rica. Even in their best tournaments since the 60s they lost to tiny Croatia and were humiliated by a poor Italy team. 

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14 hours ago, craigkillie said:

A lot of people have this weird obsession that every player with a connection to another country will immediately rush off to play for them given half a chance. However there's no real evidence of it happening - I'm struggling to think of many examples of players being in the Scotland setup and then moving somewhere else - Sam Gallagher and the Newcastle guy years ago that went to play for Australia are the only ones off the top of my head.

It's not happened yet to us on this level, but Rice and Grealish switching from Ireland to England stick in the mind. Ireland 'lost' two generational standard players for them (and they would also have been for us). That's a bit of a sickener.

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7 hours ago, Satoshi said:

Englands record in international tournaments in recent decades is pretty dire, can't imagine many of their players were delighted to be losing to Iceland or finishing bottom of a world cup group with Uruguay, Italy and Costa Rica. Even in their best tournaments since the 60s they lost to tiny Croatia and were humiliated by a poor Italy team. 

Not sure if this is a joke. England are our primary rivals, but to say they have a poor tournament record is surely stretching the truth. Since 1996 (i.e. the last 25 years) they have managed the quarter finals 7 times across the Euro and the WC, with a 4th, 3rd and 2nd place amongst those 7. Yes, they have failed to win a tournament in the period, but they have qualified for all but one of them and have performed reasonably well. That's a comparable record to the likes of Argentina and Netherlands and substantially better than Belgium for instance.

Unfortunately for us, the current team is the first in my lifetime that I think are genuinely as good as the hype, I think they may well win a couple of tournaments over the next decade or so.

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1 hour ago, albagubrath said:

Not sure if this is a joke. England are our primary rivals, but to say they have a poor tournament record is surely stretching the truth. Since 1996 (i.e. the last 25 years) they have managed the quarter finals 7 times across the Euro and the WC, with a 4th, 3rd and 2nd place amongst those 7. Yes, they have failed to win a tournament in the period, but they have qualified for all but one of them and have performed reasonably well. That's a comparable record to the likes of Argentina and Netherlands and substantially better than Belgium for instance.

Unfortunately for us, the current team is the first in my lifetime that I think are genuinely as good as the hype, I think they may well win a couple of tournaments over the next decade or so.

England is a much bigger country than all three of those mentioned (it's more than double the size of the Netherlands and Belgium combined).

Their record relative to their continental rivals like Italy, Spain, France and Germany is dire. They are comfortably bottom of that pack in every sense.

They have had two good tournaments in a row but still lost to tiny Croatia (who themselves were hammered by France in the final) whilst Italy dominated them in a final, something that hasn't been done so comprehensively since Italy were dominated by Spain (both in the preceding game, and in the 2012 final).

England are better than Scotland the same way Scotland are better than Luxembourg. Relative to their peers, Englands record is disastrous. Indeed, it's worth than many non peer countries.

This surely isn't news, right?

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1 hour ago, Satoshi said:

England is a much bigger country than all three of those mentioned (it's more than double the size of the Netherlands and Belgium combined).

Is that relevant to their tournament record or to your claim that their record is 'pretty dire'? Is your point that they should have produced better players over the period based on the relative success of their league in Europe? I would agree, but generally I would say they have rarely if ever in that period had a squad anywhere near the quality of their peers. For what they had, they did okay IMO.

 

1 hour ago, Satoshi said:

Their record relative to their continental rivals like Italy, Spain, France and Germany is dire. They are comfortably bottom of that pack in every sense.

Agreed, but being worse than Italy, Spain, France and Germany doesn't make their record dire. Those teams all had comfortably better squads in most of their tournament runs, albeit there were some notable exceptions (maybe Germany 2014, Italy 2006?).

 

1 hour ago, Satoshi said:

They have had two good tournaments in a row but still lost to tiny Croatia (who themselves were hammered by France in the final) whilst Italy dominated them in a final, something that hasn't been done so comprehensively since Italy were dominated by Spain (both in the preceding game, and in the 2012 final).

Perhaps our view of what makes a good tournament performance is different, but I'd argue making a final makes it a successful tournament. The media made out England were favourites to win most of the tournaments in the period, but I would say that was a view widely held only in England. Certainly my impression of the view outside of England was generally that their squad was relatively weak compared to their peers.

 

1 hour ago, Satoshi said:

England are better than Scotland the same way Scotland are better than Luxembourg. Relative to their peers, Englands record is disastrous. Indeed, it's worth than many non peer countries.

Okay, again not sure Scotland's performance is at all relevant to your claim that their performance has been dire.  By all objective measures they have been pretty effective at tournaments. They haven't won one, but that doesn't make them dire.

 

I understand the point that, relative to resource levels, their performances haven't been as effective as they maybe should have been, but that is a different point. I think it has taken them a considerable amount of time to get their youth structures right to allow them to leverage the huge amounts of money and world class coaching structures they have. I think you are starting to see the impact of that with some of the players they are now bringing though. As I say, I think they now justify the hype and will probably win a tournament in the foreseeable future. 

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Well it all comes down to how you define dire. Their peer group (most people would agree) is the likes of Germany, Spain, France and Italy. It's a group they are not only bottom of, they are comfortably bottom of. In every metric.

Scotland is no where near the bottom of our peer group.

And bring better than a nation like Belgium, 1/5 of their size, is hardly an achievement. Scotland are better than Moldova but it's not something to brag about.

They had pretty fortunate runs in both recent comps, but Belgium beat them easily in the third place play off. And Croatia, 1/10 of their size were the better team in the semi final. Italy dominated the final, producing something crazy like 90% possession for 70 mins regular time.

They have undoubtedly improved but it doesn't change the fact they have been a dumpster fire since the 60s, lagging well behind all of their peers.

 

Edited by Satoshi
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Jack Hendry has been left out of the Club Brugge matchday squad for the first two competitive fixtures of the new Belgian season so I wouldn't be surprised if he was to move before the end of the transfer window.

https://belgium.postsen.com/sports/31958/Jack-Hendry-Club-Brugge-is-in-the-interest-of-Burnley-and-Wolfsburg.html

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On 18/07/2022 at 15:46, Satoshi said:

Well it all comes down to how you define dire. Their peer group (most people would agree) is the likes of Germany, Spain, France and Italy. It's a group they are not only bottom of, they are comfortably bottom of. In every metric.

Scotland is no where near the bottom of our peer group.

And bring better than a nation like Belgium, 1/5 of their size, is hardly an achievement. Scotland are better than Moldova but it's not something to brag about.

They had pretty fortunate runs in both recent comps, but Belgium beat them easily in the third place play off. And Croatia, 1/10 of their size were the better team in the semi final. Italy dominated the final, producing something crazy like 90% possession for 70 mins regular time.

They have undoubtedly improved but it doesn't change the fact they have been a dumpster fire since the 60s, lagging well behind all of their peers.

 

Say what you want with your comparisons to peers but the joy of following your national team lies in the journey rather than the results and ours have been much shorter than those of England fans, limited to qualifying campaigns rather than main events.

We were for two decades denied even the experience of seeing Scotland at a major tournament and the concept of a run to the knockout stages (whether destined for failure or not) gripping the nation is a mere dream for us. 

Following Scotland can basically be summed up with that Trainspotting meme and the "It's shite being Scottish" caption. At least England fans get to enjoy it some of the time. We get fleeting moments of elation (sometimes not even that) interspersed with long periods of despair and occasional periods of horrible, horrible tension that normally end up back in despair.

Yes I'm a miserable b*****d.

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