Donathan Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 I don't mean to be that guy, and we did all love seeing Scotland back in a major tournament, but it needs to be pointed out that the expansion of the Euros means that qualifying for a 24 team tournament is much less of an achievement than qualifying for a 16 team event was. At the tournament, we achieved a single point. That effectively put us in 22nd place out of the 24. Turkey and North Macedonia lost all three of their games. Poland had a draw and two losses like we did, but finished above us on goal difference. None of those three sides had the luxury of playing two group games at home. Now, looking at the world cup qualifiers. Thirteen teams will qualify. Ten group winners and three playoff winners. If we consider those thirteen plus the three playoff final losers to be the top 16 teams, we again have fallen into the 17-22 bracket (Alongside Austria, Russia, Czech Republic, Italy and Turkey) Failing to win our previous nations league group and break into league A was further evidence that we are not a top 16 side, and instead sit around the low 20s mark (Technically we finished 23rd. Pattern emerging here) The aim for Scotland has to be to establish itself as a top 16 side in Europe. With the expansion of the world cup, there are three objective ways of doing this: 1. Win our nations league group and get promoted to league A 2. Qualify for Euro 2024 and get through the group stage at the tournament 3. Qualify for the 2026 world cup Based on the last three events, sides that can stake a claim for top 16 are (Bolded made all three and underlined made two of three) UNL League A: France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, England, Poland, Switzerland, Croatia, Wales, Austria, Czech Rep, Hungary Euro 2020 knockout stages: Italy, England, Spain, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Czech Rep, Ukraine, France, Germany, Portugal, Netherlands, Croatia, Wales, Sweden, Austria World cup qualified or playoff finalists: Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Croatia, England, Germany, Portugal, Poland, Wales, Ukraine, Sweden, North Macedonia As you can see the top 16 is a relatively closed shop with 11 spots reserved for consistently very good teams and then there are six other teams who tend to make it more often than not (Ranging from very good sides like Italy who had one horror show, to Austria who are a side we tend to match up well with, but who seem to have a decent record) Outside of those 17 nations, only Hungary, Serbia and North Macedonia have cracked the top 16 on one occasion apiece. I'd put those sides as being our direct peers at the moment alongside Norway, Turkey, Slovakia and Romania. Teams that are aspiring to be top 16 but certainly aren't on recent record. I've loved what Steve Clarke has gotten out of our squad in the last couple of years but we really need to improve in order to start competing with teams like Ukraine, Czech Republic, Sweden and Poland to establish ourselves as an occasional (if not regular) top 16 side. It starts with beating Ukraine to win this nations league group. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satoshi Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 It reminds me of when England lost to Iceland or Croatia they would fret they were not at footballs top table. In reality they hadn't been there for about 40 years, although staking a credible claim now. As for Scotland, we are a decent-good nation for our size but qualifying regularly for the world cups won't be in our grasp given the current European structure. If we are qualifying for less than half of the 24 team Euros though that would be really disappointing. So realistically we will be a regular Euros team and occasional World Cup team. About right. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpoonTon Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 10 minutes ago, Satoshi said: It reminds me of when England lost to Iceland or Croatia they would fret they were not at footballs top table. In reality they hadn't been there for about 40 years, although staking a credible claim now. As for Scotland, we are a decent-good nation for our size but qualifying regularly for the world cups won't be in our grasp given the current European structure. If we are qualifying for less than half of the 24 team Euros though that would be really disappointing. So realistically we will be a regular Euros team and occasional World Cup team. About right. Are we? Looking at the countries our size and smaller, like Denmark, Croatia, Slovakia, Finland, Bosnia, Slovenia, Ireland, Norway, we've been one of the poorer teams over many years. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 We "finished" 12th in World Cup qualifying so we're obviously not miles off where we want to be. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
invergowrie arab Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 17 minutes ago, SpoonTon said: Are we? Looking at the countries our size and smaller, like Denmark, Croatia, Slovakia, Finland, Bosnia, Slovenia, Ireland, Norway, we've been one of the poorer teams over many years. Wish I was a Bosnia fan 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurkst Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 The expanded World Cup from 2026 will give us a slightly better chance of qualifying, and I'd certainly rather be heading to North America for a tournament than Qatar. I'll be extremely disappointed if we don't make the next Euros, especially with a host as good as Germany. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satoshi Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 35 minutes ago, SpoonTon said: Are we? Looking at the countries our size and smaller, like Denmark, Croatia, Slovakia, Finland, Bosnia, Slovenia, Ireland, Norway, we've been one of the poorer teams over many years. You think Finland and Bosnia have been better than us what period of time? Finland's best ever player couldn't hack it at Celtic. We are also doing fairly well relative to much bigger nations too like Hungary, Poland and Belarus. Just qualifying for more tournaments doesn't necessarily make them better if they're having other horror campaigns and results. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2426255 Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 2 minutes ago, Satoshi said: We are also doing fairly well relative to much bigger nations too like Hungary, Poland and Belarus. We're doing better than Poland? Not having that mate. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satoshi Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 (edited) 1 minute ago, 2426255 said: We're doing better than Poland? Not having that mate. Just as well I said fairly well, not better. Both them and Ukraine underperform relative to their size (as do Turkey and Russia). For at least three of them it's down to a too strong domestic league - which affects Scotland as well. Edited June 2, 2022 by Satoshi 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2426255 Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 1 minute ago, Satoshi said: Just as well I said fairly well, not better. Both them and Ukraine underperform relative to their size (as do Turkey and Russia). For at least three of them it's down to a too strong domestic league - which affects Scotland as well. I get what you're saying, we have to be realistic - I agree. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eez-eh Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 Give us a fucking break Supras. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2426255 Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 1 minute ago, eez-eh said: Give us a fucking break Supras. what are you whining about? -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donathan Posted June 2, 2022 Author Share Posted June 2, 2022 Of the 17 countries who are bolded or underlined, 8 of them have massive populations > 15m so it would be very difficult for us to outcompete them. You could probably add a 9th one in Russia who have punched a bit below their weight for the past couple of years but are generally one of the better sides in European football. The remaining 9 split: More than twice our population - Portugal, Belgium, Sweden, Czech Rep Slightly more than us - Austria, Switzerland Almost identical to us - Denmark 2 smaller than us - Croatia and Wales Croatia in particular seem to have an uncanny ability to pump out an endless stream of world class footballers. I'm sure I read there's a 10 year streak of a Croatian player winning the champions league. Modric, Rakitic, Mandzukic, Kovacic and Perisic all fantastic players they've produced. Wales are a one man team so no point focusing too much on them. They'll be out of the bold category sooner than their fans can sing that "Don't take me home" song once Bale hangs his boots up. In the longer term Croatia needs to be our model on how to punch above our weight (Or Portugal to an extent. Not saying we'll ever be as good as Portugal, but they're a medium sized country who compete with massive ones. We aspire to be a small country competing with medium sized ones) In the short term we just need to be on par with your Austrias, Switzerlands, Swedens, Czech Republics etc 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheScarf Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 They'll all have better youth coaches. Hence why they produce better players. Wales being the outlier of course. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
invergowrie arab Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 Just now, TheScarf said: They'll all have better youth coaches. Hence why they produce better players. Wales being the outlier of course. Wales have the Spanish authorities' lax attitude to PED use for their facourite club to thank. Get Gilmour over there. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheScarf Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 Just now, invergowrie arab said: Wales have the Spanish authorities' lax attitude to PED use for their facourite club to thank. Get Gilmour over there. I dunno, Bale was pretty phenomenal before he moved to Madrid. Better than anything we've produced in the last 30 years. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satoshi Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 Croatia is still a relatively small sample as it's quite a new country (one Scotland has an excellent head to head record against...) For them and Uruguay, the main difference is that they have crap domestic leagues and the national federation has much greater control over the production of young players. They train their young players for a career at the highest level, not for the domestic game or for their clubs. Would I like Scotland to do the same? Sure, but our clubs are far too powerful and Scott brown can make 40k a week staying in Glasgow and playing for Celtic. Were he Croatian or Uruguayan he would have been exported to a top five league asap. Strong domestic football harms your international team (provided you aren't a top five league to begin with). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streets of Raith Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 47 minutes ago, Satoshi said: You think Finland and Bosnia have been better than us what period of time? Finland's best ever player couldn't hack it at Celtic. When did Litmanen play for Celtic? 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satoshi Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 10 minutes ago, TheScarf said: I dunno, Bale was pretty phenomenal before he moved to Madrid. Better than anything we've produced in the last 30 years. Bale not in any sense produced by Welsh football (at least Ramsey partially was). Wales and Ireland effectively entirely outsource youth development to England. Should Scotland do the same? Maybe, it comes with benefits and drawbacks. Our current team is pretty good and our youth development has certainly improved recently. It could always be better, but it isn't bad and there are far worse out there. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satoshi Posted June 2, 2022 Share Posted June 2, 2022 1 minute ago, Streets of Raith said: When did Litmanen play for Celtic? Fair enough, I forgot about him, better player but a worse international scoring record than Pukki. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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