Why were we so shite for so long?

[HibeeJibee]

At a strategic level you obviously must recognise factors like:
* break-up of USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia into multiple capable countries
* those nations - and others which began professional football/nationwide leagues/etc. long after we did - continuing to catch-up, having once been decades behind, eroding our advantage. There'd been a ticking timebomb built-in since Victorian times.
* development of satellite TV and sponsorship mean attendances are no longer the main source of football income and therefore investment
* societal developments particularly acute in central Scotland - industrial decline, break-up of communities, etc. - and you could equally say non-development e.g. outdated dietary and lifestyle attitudes among some Scottish players which only seem to have been overcome comparatively recently
* players from post-war immigrant communities have made a more significant impact in other nations
* influx of foreign players after SPL began reduced opportunities for home-grown players
* hoary old chestnuts - perhaps myths - like 1980s teachers strike, alleged failure of Youth Initiative or Pro Youth schemes, constant tweaking of U19/U21/U20 leagues, etc.

At a closer level you could also recognise:
* arguably we considerably over-performed during 1990s in particular, therefore setting bar unreasonably high - afterall we hadn't reached any tournament between 1958 and 1974
* we did reach playoffs for Euro 2000 and Euro 2004 - indeed had we not won 2 playoff rounds on penalties and made Euro 2020, we still wouldn't have reached a tournament
* Craig Brown in his closing years didn't bring through sufficient new blood and therefore having built-up a strong squad ultimately left an aging squad needing rebuilt
* our youth teams seem to have underperformed for many years, especially at U21 level - qualifying for U19 Euros in 2006 a singular exception
* you will always get naturally varying cycles of higher & lower performance and more & fewer elite players

That said we haven't been alone... look at the regression of countries like Austria, Eire, Hungary, Northern Ireland, Norway... we've just been a particularly extreme case.

Edited April 2, 2022 by HibeeJibee

[Donathan]

I think Norway now have the longest active drought of UEFA teams who have ever made a major finals. Previously it was us, but we ended that at Euro 2020. Norway last qualified in Euro 2000. After that, I think it's Bulgaria and Latvia who haven't qualified since 2004.

[Lurkst]

Clearly having Old Firm colts in the Lowland League has changed our fortunes. 

 

[Cptn Hooch]

You think that picking good players like Barry Ferguson, Allan McGregor, Scott Brown and Darren Fletcher was the issue, rather than the useless ones who were alongside them?

If you were ruling out players that had previously failed to qualify then unfortunately that means no Marshall, Gordon, Robertson, Tierney, Hanley, Armstrong, Fraser, Forrest any more. Do you think we'd be a better team without those guys?

The problem was we relied on ageing players while disregarding youth. Look at England for example, for years they've brought young players into the squads and consistently freshened things up. I doubt Hickey, Gilmour, Dykes, Patterson get near a squad if they were around in 2000-2015 say

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

3 hours ago, Cptn Hooch said:

 

 

The problem was we relied on ageing players while disregarding youth. Look at England for example, for years they've brought young players into the squads and consistently freshened things up. I doubt Hickey, Gilmour, Dykes, Patterson get near a squad if they were around in 2000-2015 say

 

It’s possible that we have capped more teenagers in the last 12 months than we did in any 5-year period in the last 20 years (Hickey, Gilmour, Patterson). 

I went looking last season and the numbers we have capped at that age seems oddly small. We have tended to cap players in their mid-to-late 20s, which gives them little chance to develop or gain experience before they hit retirement.

This more recent development in playing young (and very capable) players is definitely to be supported ongoing. Even the players outwith those three are still a very good age - Brown, Adams, Ferguson, Turnbull, Dykes, were/are all in their early 20s.

Our ‘senior’ starters are now McGregor 28, Robertson 28, Tierney 24, McGinn 27, Adams 25. Even the oldest heads are either in favourable positions, or peripheral (Hanley, Armstrong, Jack - all 30).

Strachan has to take some responsibility here as the squad he passed to McLeish was criminally under-prepared. SC has done a tremendous job turning that around. He’s really had to experiment and cap a lot of new faces to get to this position. 

Edited April 3, 2022 by HuttonDressedAsLahm
Added starters ages

[Cptn Hooch]

2 minutes ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

Strachan has to take some responsibility here as the squad he passed to McLeish was criminally under-prepared.

You just need to look at his failure to blood Griffiths who was hitting what we now know was his peak

[lubo_blaha]

The problem was we relied on ageing players while disregarding youth. Look at England for example, for years they've brought young players into the squads and consistently freshened things up. I doubt Hickey, Gilmour, Dykes, Patterson get near a squad if they were around in 2000-2015 say

We did try out some youngsters in that period (Bannan, Hanley, Forrest, Wilson, Goodwillie, Maguire, Rhodes off the top of my head). The problem was that none of them were particularly good.

I did used to piss me off when Strachan would leave out Andy Robertson for Craig Forsyth though.

[TheScarf]

Yes but Gordon Strachan is a moron. He managed to get us finishing behind South Ireland in a qualifying group.

[Gordopolis]

The problem was we relied on ageing players while disregarding youth. Look at England for example, for years they've brought young players into the squads and consistently freshened things up. I doubt Hickey, Gilmour, Dykes, Patterson get near a squad if they were around in 2000-2015 say

Fletcher and Ferguson - two of the players you mentioned - were first capped at 19/20 years old during that that time period (Ferguson in 1999 I think). They *were* the Gilmour/Patterson of that era.

As that pair aged, I'm not sure there was any - certainly in midfield - of their calibre to adequately replace them, 19 year olds or 35 year olds. Probably Scott Brown is the only one who came close - and he wasn't exactly denied a place in the side by Ferguson, Fletcher or any other older players.

[DA Baracus]

Are folk saying that countries like Georgia, Belarus, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia and Kazakhstan gaining independence has somehow contributed to us being shite for a period? Can someone talk me through that please?

[Donathan]

Strachan was awful, yet somehow not even close to our worst manager of the 21st century

 

 

1. Steve Clarke

2. Walter Smith

3. Alex McLeish (v1)

4. Craig Brown - Including results from 2000 onwards only

5. Gordon Strachan

6. Alex McLeish (v2)

7. Berti Vogts

8. George Burley

9. Craig Levein

[Donathan]

5 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

Are folk saying that countries like Georgia, Belarus, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia and Kazakhstan gaining independence has somehow contributed to us being shite for a period? Can someone talk me through that please?

It’s two fold.

 

Firstly, some of the new countries are successfully winning qualification places that could have previously gone our way. You’ve conveniently missed out the likes of Croatia, Slovenia and Ukraine who have been relatively successful in qualification events across the past 30 years. 
 

The more pressing issue however, is that in the case of Belarus, Lithuania and (especially) Georgia, whilst they’re not qualifying for tournaments, these teams are especially good at getting results against us whilst our direct rivals tend to take care of business against them.
 

We’d have had a euro 2016 playoff against Bosnia if we had won in Georgia. We’d have qualified automatically for euro 2008 if we had won in Georgia. In 2006 qualifying we dropped points against three new countries who finished below us in the group (Moldova, Slovenia and Norway). We’d have won our group in the euro 2004 qualifiers if we’d won in Faroe Islands and Lithuania. The defeat in Kazakhstan probably didn’t make much difference because Belgium and Russia skooshed that group anyway, but that’s just another example of us coming unstuck in a hostile Eastern European environment whilst our direct qualification rivals won comfortably.

 

If you look at our 21st century results against teams in pots 2, 3 and 4 (typically our direct rivals for qualification), I’d wager an educated guess that we’ve done pretty well against them. It’s dropping silly points to minnows that has cost us playoff spots multiple times.

 

In many ways the recent World Cup qualifying group is the blueprint of how we should be approaching this. 12 points out of 12 against the bottom two teams. We did very well to get 4 points from both of our direct rivals. The home win against Denmark was a Brucie bonus to get a home semi final, but really results against the pot 1 team can largely be ignored. 

 

 

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

30 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

Are folk saying that countries like Georgia, Belarus, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia and Kazakhstan gaining independence has somehow contributed to us being shite for a period? Can someone talk me through that please?

You’re cherry picking a little there. Slovakia, Serbia, Ukraine, Slovenia, Bosnia, and Croatia have all qualified for major tournaments.  Four of those have particularly good players, although it’s true that Serbia as the successor state are just Yugoslavia by another name.

Edited April 3, 2022 by HuttonDressedAsLahm

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

16 minutes ago, Donathan said:

It’s two fold.

 

Firstly, some of the new countries are successfully winning qualification places that could have previously gone our way. You’ve conveniently missed out the likes of Croatia, Slovenia and Ukraine who have been relatively successful in qualification events across the past 30 years. 
 

The more pressing issue however, is that in the case of Belarus, Lithuania and (especially) Georgia, whilst they’re not qualifying for tournaments, these teams are especially good at getting results against us whilst our direct rivals tend to take care of business against them.
 

We’d have had a euro 2016 playoff against Bosnia if we had won in Georgia. We’d have qualified automatically for euro 2008 if we had won in Georgia. In 2006 qualifying we dropped points against three new countries who finished below us in the group (Moldova, Slovenia and Norway). We’d have won our group in the euro 2004 qualifiers if we’d won in Faroe Islands and Lithuania. The defeat in Kazakhstan probably didn’t make much difference because Belgium and Russia skooshed that group anyway, but that’s just another example of us coming unstuck in a hostile Eastern European environment whilst our direct qualification rivals won comfortably.

 

If you look at our 21st century results against teams in pots 2, 3 and 4 (typically our direct rivals for qualification), I’d wager an educated guess that we’ve done pretty well against them. It’s dropping silly points to minnows that has cost us playoff spots multiple times.

 

In many ways the recent World Cup qualifying group is the blueprint of how we should be approaching this. 12 points out of 12 against the bottom two teams. We did very well to get 4 points from both of our direct rivals. The home win against Denmark was a Brucie bonus to get a home semi final, but really results against the pot 1 team can largely be ignored. 

 

 

There were some decent stats being shared ahead of the critical Moldova/Faroes games, and you’re correct - our performances against 5th/6th seeds since 1998 has been pretty appalling.

Only in 2008 and 2022 qualifying have we taken 12 points from the bottom two seeds. If we had, we’d have made something like 3/4 playoffs, and may have even qualified directly.

I am hopeful that this SC team is more capable of putting the likes of Lithuania/Faroes/Moldova/Georgia to the sword. Oddly, we’ve not been super tested at that level yet, and it’s rather the 2nd/4th seeds he’s proven reasonable adept at beating.

I might be right on saying we’ve only dropped 2 points to weaker seeds since he started? We’ve beaten Kazahkstan, Cyprus (x2), Israel, Moldova (x2), Faroes (x2).

I’m not counting UNL as those aren’t seeded in the same manner.

I do genuinely believe we’ll run up a score on someone soon. We’ve been profligate at times, and if a team catch us on the wrong day…

Edited April 3, 2022 by HuttonDressedAsLahm

[Donathan]

1 hour ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

There were some decent stats being shared ahead of the critical Moldova/Faroes games, and you’re correct - our performances against 5th/6th seeds since 1998 has been pretty appalling.

Only in 2008 and 2022 qualifying have we taken 12 points from the bottom two seeds. If we had, we’d have made something like 3/4 playoffs, and may have even qualified directly.

I am hopeful that this SC team is more capable of putting the likes of Lithuania/Faroes/Moldova/Georgia to the sword. Oddly, we’ve not been super tested at that level yet, and it’s rather the 2nd/4th seeds he’s proven reasonable adept at beating.

I might be right on saying we’ve only dropped 2 points to weaker seeds since he started? We’ve beaten Kazahkstan, Cyprus (x2), Israel, Moldova (x2), Faroes (x2).

I’m not counting UNL as those aren’t seeded in the same manner.

I do genuinely believe we’ll run up a score on someone soon. We’ve been profligate at times, and if a team catch us on the wrong day…

The 2008 group had 7 teams so there were 3 minnows to beat. Technically we did take 12/12 against the bottom two, but really we should be beating Georgia as well.

 

Clarke has a 100% record in qualifiers against pot 5/6 teams. There were some near misses though. We needed very late winners to get 3 points in Faroe Islands and at home to Cyprus. The home win against Moldova was also a tad nervy with an early goal then held on for most of the game to win 1-0.

 

I don’t think we need to include Israel here. As a pot 4 side, they have a genuine aim to finish 2nd and qualify for tournaments, so I’d say beating them at home and getting a point in Israel is a good outcome for us. 

 

[HibeeJibee]

New teams aspect is simple.

Not only have many qualified... Slovakia, Latvia, Ukraine, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Slovenia... or occupiedplayoffs/ranking pots/NL places/etc. but numerous have taken points from us.

Nations we dropped points to in qualifying pre-1990:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark,
East Germany, Eire, France, Italy, Luxembourg,
Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania,
Spain, Switzerland, Wales, West Germany, Yugoslavia

and post-1990 (new teams highlighted but omitting Czech Rep/Russia/Serbia):

Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia,
Czech Rep, Denmark, Eire, England, Estonia,
Faroe Islands, FYR Macedonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece,
Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Moldova,
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania,
Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, Wales

or put another way: about 40% of teams we've dropped points to in last 30yr didn't used to compete at all. Our only 100% records = Bosnia & Herzegovina, Gibraltar, Latvia and San Marino... with only Gibraltar being post-Craig Brown's era.

Edited April 3, 2022 by HibeeJibee

[John Lambies Doos]

Like most folk my age who are too young to remember 98, this is the first genuinely good Scotland team I've ever experienced, apart from brief and fleeting moments under McLeish and Strachan.  Aside from that, for the two decades I've been aware of the Scottish national football team, they've generally been shite.

How did this happen? How did we manage to completely drop off a cliff from 1998 onwards from being perennial qualifiers before? Was it just a regression to the mean after a few decades of overachievment? Did we just stop producing good players randomly? Were we gradually getting worse but nobody noticed until it was too late? I've read a few Soccernomics-y explanations about the fall of Communism introducing about a dozen more countries that we had to compete with for qualification spaces,  which makes at least partial sense to me, but you'd think there must be more to it than that.

In summary, our last WC was 1998. We had an oldish squad,. These players would have developed pre 86. In 86, Souness arrived and brought huge influx of English players in. Too try and compete development went out window and clubs brought second rate foreigners in. In effect we lost a whole generation of local development.
That's it tbh.

[HibeeJibee]

Happen to have the Scottish Premier Division sticker album for 1996 in front of me just now: year we qualified for Euros, couple of years before we qualified for WC plus SPL was founded, half a decade after Heysel ban ended and Souness left Ibrox.

Interesting to see even as late as then how few players who are not Scottish are involved. (I've omitted a few naturalised South Africans e.g. Gough):

Aberdeen          2 aren't Scottish         (Theo Snelders, Colin Woodthorpe)
Celtic                   4 aren't Scottish         (Pat Bonner, Rudi Vata, Pierre van Hooijdonk, Andreas Thom)
Falkirk                2 aren't Scottish         (Tony Parks, Jamie McGowan)
Hearts                none isn't Scottish     [Colin Miller naturalised to Canada]
Hibs                     2 aren't Scottish          (Gareth Evans, Michael O'Neill)
Kilmarnock     1 isn't Scottish              (Neil Whitworth)
Motherwell     2 aren't Scottish          (Miodrag Krivokapic, Mitchell van der Gaag)     [Tommy Coyne naturalised to Eire]
Partick                3 aren't Scottish         (Steve Pittman, Rod McDonald, Wayne Foster)
Raith                    1 isn't Scottish             (Julian Broddle)
Rangers              5 aren't Scottish         (Goran Petric, Paul Gascoigne, Brian Laudrup, Oleg Salenko, Craig Moore)

[Gordopolis]

Strachan was awful, yet somehow not even close to our worst manager of the 21st century
 
 
1. Steve Clarke
2. Walter Smith
3. Alex McLeish (v1)
4. Craig Brown - Including results from 2000 onwards only
5. Gordon Strachan
6. Alex McLeish (v2)
7. Berti Vogts
8. George Burley
9. Craig Levein

What are you ranking them on? Stats or your overall feel for how good/horrendous they were?

[Moomintroll]

We really do have great midfielders and left backs right now, SSC broke my heart but thank f**k he answered the call as he has taken us massively forward.