A reality check: Our standing in Europe

[2426255]

17 minutes ago, John Lambies Doos said:

What really annoys me is that as a country we accept this mediocre pish.
In essence, football is our only sport... Wales is a rugby country, ROI a GAA country.
We have a population of 6 million. With that we can't even qualify for tournaments..never mind go deep at them. Do you think teams like Croatia are happy to get papped out in group stages.
The SFA are an absolute disgrace, they have failed us for years....yet there has never been any dramatic overhaul
What was it Einstein said......
 

Take a deep breath. 

[Satoshi]

24 minutes ago, John Lambies Doos said:

My main two sporting loves are Football and Rugby. I'd take Wales international record for both over Scotland's in a heartbeat.
We have been a seething mess once we reach tournaments

Well, yeah that's kind of point. Many Scotland fans are seething messes generally and will always talk their team down. They would rather qualify for 2 world cups and win 1 in 5 games, than qualify for 9 and win 4 in 23. Nobody else would think that, it's really just us I think.

Having not lived in Scotland for a while now the stark negativity many people hold doesn't exist in most other countries in the world.

21 minutes ago, Lex said:

We had a real golden period of 24 years between 1974 and 1998. We qualified for five out of six world cups and two out six Euro's, we made seven tournaments out of 12. In the 24 year period since between 1998 and 2022 we qualified for one tournament out of 12. Before 1974 we were fairly hopeless at qualifying too, we never made it to three world cups in a row between 1962 and 1970 and we never qualified for a single European Championships between 1968 and 1988.

The golden period looks like the anomaly, we've been pretty hopeless at international football apart from it. Even during that period we couldn't get past the first stage of a tournament once.  Something Wales, Ireland, Nothern Ireland, Denmark and other similar European nations have all managed several times. 

Well at least this is more balanced than many of the posts!

It misses out that we qualified for three consecutive world cups in the 50s, and our excellent pre war history.

The Euros wasn't quite as important in the past as it is now, but still we have underperformed in it.

Have a look back if you want to see how our number of qualifications compare to our peer group countries (and many more). Did you know we have qualified for three times as many tournaments as huge football mad countries like Turkey? 

20 minutes ago, thew2020 said:

I have counted this now - and you have mentioned Wales losing 6-1 SEVEN times in the last week - Was this the last time you watched Wales play, as I doubt many Welsh fans even remember that result. For a man so focused on 100 years of results I find you obsessively focusing on this one result quite unusual. 

The statement 'the natural order will resume' sounds like a statement an arrogant English fan would state if they were ever to lose to Scotland - When Scotland next beat England I really hope you don't just say 'The natural order will resume shortly, England have a great history against Scotland (qualifications and H2H record) so we shouldn't be excited/happy'

Wow, impressive counting! It's a result that kinda proves my point, even in Wales' golden decade they have had some stinking results. Their highs have been better than Scotland, but their lows much lower. We are more consistent and don't have the same horror results they in their recent (and long term) history.

It's interesting you mention England, despite being 10x our size (Scotland is only around 40% bigger than Wales) our head to head record is much much closer to England than Wales' is to ours (or Ireland for that matter). So why can we compete pretty well with a much bigger country whilst Ireland and Wales were getting beaten by us frequently and easily? Ireland (until 1953 when they split) is 48 wins for Scotland and 6 defeats. We totally crushed them. Scotland vs England is a modest 48 defeats and 41 victories. 

I'm not saying Wales fans shouldn't be happy, quite the opposite - they should be deligthed! This is their moment in the sun, their golden era. It probably won't last, that's numbers and trends more than my personal view, but that's even more reason to enjoy it.

 

16 minutes ago, John Lambies Doos said:

What really annoys me is that as a country we accept this mediocre pish.
In essence, football is our only sport... Wales is a rugby country, ROI a GAA country.
We have a population of 6 million. With that we can't even qualify for tournaments..never mind go deep at them. Do you think teams like Croatia are happy to get papped out in group stages.
The SFA are an absolute disgrace, they have failed us for years....yet there has never been any dramatic overhaul
What was it Einstein said......
 

Scotland has never had a population of 6m, and accept it? Scottish football fans are obsessively negative and this thread proves it...

But tell us about what major overhaul you would do, and why you would time it just after our first qualification in 20 years.

[thew2020]

51 minutes ago, Satoshi said:

Well, yeah that's kind of point. Many Scotland fans are seething messes generally and will always talk their team down. They would rather qualify for 2 world cups and win 1 in 5 games, than qualify for 9 and win 4 in 23. Nobody else would think that, it's really just us I think.

Having not lived in Scotland for a while now the stark negativity many people hold doesn't exist in most other countries in the world.

Well at least this is more balanced than many of the posts!

It misses out that we qualified for three consecutive world cups in the 50s, and our excellent pre war history.

The Euros wasn't quite as important in the past as it is now, but still we have underperformed in it.

Have a look back if you want to see how our number of qualifications compare to our peer group countries (and many more). Did you know we have qualified for three times as many tournaments as huge football mad countries like Turkey? 

Wow, impressive counting! It's a result that kinda proves my point, even in Wales' golden decade they have had some stinking results. Their highs have been better than Scotland, but their lows much lower. We are more consistent and don't have the same horror results they in their recent (and long term) history.

It's interesting you mention England, despite being 10x our size (Scotland is only around 40% bigger than Wales) our head to head record is much much closer to England than Wales' is to ours (or Ireland for that matter). So why can we compete pretty well with a much bigger country whilst Ireland and Wales were getting beaten by us frequently and easily? Ireland (until 1953 when they split) is 48 wins for Scotland and 6 defeats. We totally crushed them. Scotland vs England is a modest 48 defeats and 41 victories. 

I'm not saying Wales fans shouldn't be happy, quite the opposite - they should be deligthed! This is their moment in the sun, their golden era. It probably won't last, that's numbers and trends more than my personal view, but that's even more reason to enjoy it.

 

Scotland has never had a population of 6m, and accept it? Scottish football fans are obsessively negative and this thread proves it...

But tell us about what major overhaul you would do, and why you would time it just after our first qualification in 20 years.

I've just looked back at Wales results at that time, Wales beat Scotland 1 month after the 6-1 loss - surely that counts as a serious low for Scotland based on this logic? In my eyes Wales were crap until 2014 anyway, they got good from then, and will fade away in the next two years IMO - but continually focusing on a result in 2012 is odd when comparing Scotland to Wales (and their respective position within Europe) right now.

[John Lambies Doos]

Scotland has never had a population of 6m, and accept it? Scottish football fans are obsessively negative and this thread proves it...
But tell us about what major overhaul you would do, and why you would time it just after our first qualification in 20 years.

OK...5.5 and rising.
Nope don't think we are negative one bit, just expect much more from a country whose only mainstream sport is football and has been at it for centuries.
Re. Qualifying, we did so by squeezing through 2 pen shoot outs and managing to take our place within top 24! In Uefa.
We were nothing short of a disgrace in our 2 home fixtures in tournament.

[Satoshi]

1 hour ago, thew2020 said:

I've just looked back at Wales results at that time, Wales beat Scotland 1 month after the 6-1 loss - surely that counts as a serious low for Scotland based on this logic? In my eyes Wales were crap until 2014 anyway, they got good from then, and will fade away in the next two years IMO - but continually focusing on a result in 2012 is odd when comparing Scotland to Wales (and their respective position within Europe) right now.

I remember it! Wales beat us home and away in that group (once courtesy of a very dodgy Bale dive) but still contrived to finish below us in that group. And no, losing to Wales narrowly isn't a low comparable to a 6-1 defeat to Serbia.

But good you agree it's 8 years, rather than the 10 others have proposed.

But yeah it is curious why Scotland vs. England is much closer than Scotland vs Wales or Scotland vs. Ireland. It's the opposite corrleation you would expect, and certainly indicates how consistent Scotland have been (both versus bigger countries and small).

1 hour ago, John Lambies Doos said:

OK...5.5 and rising.
Nope don't think we are negative one bit, just expect much more from a country whose only mainstream sport is football and has been at it for centuries.
Re. Qualifying, we did so by squeezing through 2 pen shoot outs and managing to take our place within top 24! In Uefa.
We were nothing short of a disgrace in our 2 home fixtures in tournament.

Current predicitions are that it will peak below 5.5m (in around 6 years) and will never get close to 6 without major demography change (or a dramatically increased birth rate). So, not 6 in other words.

If you really don't think Scottish people are negative then I have shocking news for you...

"It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine." 

It's been a stereotype for centuries, and rightly so. You then later call us a disgrace so keep up the boundless positivity 

Edited June 7, 2022 by Satoshi

[denltfc]

All these mentions of population size remind me of some old poster on here ! The Dutch did f**k all till 1974 so are Scotland better than the Netherlands ?

Its alright anytime Ireland are totally shite, I just go we are a GAA country and football is not the no1 spectator sport. indeed I am raging I have tickets to Croke Park on Saturday for the GAA and missing seeing my county play in the Championship but promised my wives nephew I would bring him to the Scotland game as a birthday treat.  I will be watching the GAA on sky on the phone for the first 15/20 minutes of the nations cup game. 

[Satoshi]

9 hours ago, denltfc said:

All these mentions of population size remind me of some old poster on here ! The Dutch did f**k all till 1974 so are Scotland better than the Netherlands ?

Its alright anytime Ireland are totally shite, I just go we are a GAA country and football is not the no1 spectator sport. indeed I am raging I have tickets to Croke Park on Saturday for the GAA and missing seeing my county play in the Championship but promised my wives nephew I would bring him to the Scotland game as a birthday treat.  I will be watching the GAA on sky on the phone for the first 15/20 minutes of the nations cup game. 

Well, no, long term trend the Dutch are clearly better. Which is my whole point.

And indeed a few years ago people would be saying Ireland was a better footballing nation than Scotland - they aren't saying that now. Their hitting lows we don't often hit.

Occasionally Ireland and Wales will be better than us, but most of the time they won't be. Which is my whole point.

Nothing against those two countries of course, just how it is.

[2426255]

I think the evidence points towards us being a League B team but we're still knocking on the door of League A and have been for a wee while now. We'll have another chance to reach that goal come September and hopefully become a Pot 2 seed into the bargain. 

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

2 hours ago, 2426255 said:

I think the evidence points towards us being a League B team but we're still knocking on the door of League A and have been for a wee while now. We'll have another chance to reach that goal come September and hopefully become a Pot 2 seed into the bargain. 

World ranking can be slow to move and reflect current standards, but we realistically are a top 20 side in Europe now.

We should be a second seed on that basis, but when you put sides in mini leagues, minor variation causes big relative ranking changes.

England could conceivably be top 6 in the world, and simultaneously be outside the top 10 in Europe by UNL rankings. The same is true on a more extreme case for France. 

Being a second seed should be not only our immediate goal, but somewhere we want to stay. 

 

[Monkey Tennis]

On 07/06/2022 at 14:51, Satoshi said:

 

If you really don't think Scottish people are negative then I have shocking news for you...

"It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine." 

It's been a stereotype for centuries, and rightly so. You then later call us a disgrace so keep up the boundless positivity 

One old, but quite good, witticism isn't really the incontrovertible evidence you suggest though, is it?

 

I'm not convinced that this negative thing is really part of our national character at all anyway.  If it was, I'd quite like it though.

[Satoshi]

2 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

One old, but quite good, witticism isn't really the incontrovertible evidence you suggest though, is it?

 

I'm not convinced that this negative thing is really part of our national character at all anyway.  If it was, I'd quite like it though.

Simple test, we have the best competitive record in the last 10 games in UEFA yet this sub forum has mostly negative posts and a long thread about sacking the manager.

But even better evidence, travel the world and see if anywhere is like Scotland in terms of its attitude towards things like football, or self depreciation. It's pretty unique, I haven't found anywhere even remotely comparable (some places are very up and down in terms of psyche, Scotland is just down).

[Monkey Tennis]

4 hours ago, Satoshi said:

Simple test, we have the best competitive record in the last 10 games in UEFA yet this sub forum has mostly negative posts and a long thread about sacking the manager.

But even better evidence, travel the world and see if anywhere is like Scotland in terms of its attitude towards things like football, or self depreciation. It's pretty unique, I haven't found anywhere even remotely comparable (some places are very up and down in terms of psyche, Scotland is just down).

I think you're confusing the exercising of critical faculties with a collective depression.

That 10 game run featured some dismal, stuttering performances such as Moldova at home and the Faroes away, where we came within a whisker of undoing some other good work.  A capacity to recognise that is not an example of delusion.

Your second paragraph just features unsupported assertion.  As such, it's not worthy of a great deal of attention.

Its claim that we're always "just down",  can be challenged by a visit to the thread for our home game against Denmark.  

[Jambomo]

19 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

I think you're confusing the exercising of critical faculties with a collective depression.

That 10 game run featured some dismal, stuttering performances such as Moldova at home and the Faroes away, where we came within a whisker of undoing some other good work.  A capacity to recognise that is not an example of delusion.

Your second paragraph just features unsupported assertion.  As such, it's not worthy of a great deal of attention.

Its claim that we're always "just down",  can be challenged by a visit to the thread for our home game against Denmark.  

I think fans in general have more of a recency bias than anything else. When we put in good performances like Denmark, we go mad and overestimate exactly how good we are, time like now when we have a shocker, everything is pish and we need to start again.

Games like the ones you mention in Moldova and Faroes are good examples. At the time people recognised the performance wasn’t great but those were the games we’d maybe draw in the past, and drop points but now we are winning them. Now people are dismissing the fact we won (and other games) because it was not in their eyes a good enough performance.
 

That’s just daft, no team plays at 100% all the time and sometimes it’s the opposition who drag you down to their level a bit - do the likes of Germany, France, Brazil etc care if they win badly? If we were always playing badly that would be different but we aren’t, in there we have some very good performances as well.

[craigkillie]

I think you're confusing the exercising of critical faculties with a collective depression.
That 10 game run featured some dismal, stuttering performances such as Moldova at home and the Faroes away, where we came within a whisker of undoing some other good work.  A capacity to recognise that is not an example of delusion.
Your second paragraph just features unsupported assertion.  As such, it's not worthy of a great deal of attention.
Its claim that we're always "just down",  can be challenged by a visit to the thread for our home game against Denmark.  

We finished 7 points clear of Austria and Israel, drawing with Moldova or the Faroes (which we didn't actually do) would not have undone anything.

[Bing.McCrosby]

On 07/06/2022 at 13:32, Satoshi said:

Well, yeah that's kind of point. Many Scotland fans are seething messes generally and will always talk their team down. They would rather qualify for 2 world cups and win 1 in 5 games, than qualify for 9 and win 4 in 23. Nobody else would think that, it's really just us I think.

Having not lived in Scotland for a while now the stark negativity many people hold doesn't exist in most other countries in the world.

Well at least this is more balanced than many of the posts!

It misses out that we qualified for three consecutive world cups in the 50s, and our excellent pre war history.

The Euros wasn't quite as important in the past as it is now, but still we have underperformed in it.

Have a look back if you want to see how our number of qualifications compare to our peer group countries (and many more). Did you know we have qualified for three times as many tournaments as huge football mad countries like Turkey? 

Wow, impressive counting! It's a result that kinda proves my point, even in Wales' golden decade they have had some stinking results. Their highs have been better than Scotland, but their lows much lower. We are more consistent and don't have the same horror results they in their recent (and long term) history.

It's interesting you mention England, despite being 10x our size (Scotland is only around 40% bigger than Wales) our head to head record is much much closer to England than Wales' is to ours (or Ireland for that matter). So why can we compete pretty well with a much bigger country whilst Ireland and Wales were getting beaten by us frequently and easily? Ireland (until 1953 when they split) is 48 wins for Scotland and 6 defeats. We totally crushed them. Scotland vs England is a modest 48 defeats and 41 victories. 

I'm not saying Wales fans shouldn't be happy, quite the opposite - they should be deligthed! This is their moment in the sun, their golden era. It probably won't last, that's numbers and trends more than my personal view, but that's even more reason to enjoy it.

 

Scotland has never had a population of 6m, and accept it? Scottish football fans are obsessively negative and this thread proves it...

But tell us about what major overhaul you would do, and why you would time it just after our first qualification in 20 years.

I think your point gets lost when you refer to anyone with an alternative opinion as a seething mess.

Its not a cut and dried line, there's people who think were under performing, over performing or were doing as good as we should.

Personally I agree with @John Lambies Doos

What we really need is a route and branch clear out from the top. Were not a modern forward thinking outfit. Were run by a bunch of old guys picking their mates as managers and hoping for the best.

The performance schools seem to be working which is positive. But you can't help thinking the coaching structure is still just an old school jobs for the boys mentality.

Money is obviously an issue, do we have the money to be employing the best youth coaches with proven track records? No probably not.

Do we have the money to entice a small team capable or restructuring us and making sure the coachs we have are doing the right things? Yes probably we do.

The problem as I see it is that same as every other attempt at modernising or systems and thinking the results would be ignored. As they would go against the jobs for th boys we have at the moment.

Just look at the highest level of our youth systems, the u21 and u19 manager positions. On any criteria used to judge their work they fail, yet its a job for life.

Have a read of Walter smiths take on what changes were made after the first review. The think tank. Ill save some reading, nothing was done.

 

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by BingMcCrosby

[Monkey Tennis]

10 hours ago, craigkillie said:

We finished 7 points clear of Austria and Israel, drawing with Moldova or the Faroes (which we didn't actually do) would not have undone anything.

A draw in the Faroes, which nearly transpired, really would have undone the good work of snatching late victory against Israel and winning in Vienna.

Nobody was banking on us beating Denmark and who's to say it would have developed as it did had we entered it differently placed?

What you're doing is akin to saying McAllister's penalty miss didn't matter because England eventually won 2-0 anyway.

[Monkey Tennis]

13 hours ago, Jambomo said:

I think fans in general have more of a recency bias than anything else. When we put in good performances like Denmark, we go mad and overestimate exactly how good we are, time like now when we have a shocker, everything is pish and we need to start again.

Indeed.  In other words, as in other countries, we're "up and down".  

That's explicitly what Satoshi claimed other countries are, with us somehow being very different.

[Mr Tourette]

Our standing in Europe historically (within the last 50 years) is of a team which sometimes qualifies for major tournaments but consistently fails to progress past a group stage.

We must have the worst record of any team of a similar standing, since Wales, Switzerland, Austria, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Romania, Bulgaria, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Czech Republic (to name a few) have all outperformed us at major tournaments, some reaching as far as semi finals or finals

As far as I can see, we are exactly where we should be. A team that sometimes qualifies for major tournaments but are not good enough to progress beyond the group stage. And I can’t see that changing any time soon as we just don’t have enough technically proficient players to achieve it

[Monkey Tennis]

37 minutes ago, Mr Tourette said:

As far as I can see, we are exactly where we should be. A team that sometimes qualifies for major tournaments but are not good enough to progress beyond the group stage. 

Does qualifying for just 1 of the last 12 tournaments really equate to "sometimes qualifies"?  

I suppose technically it does, but it feels like a stretch.

[Satoshi]

6 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Indeed.  In other words, as in other countries, we're "up and down".  

That's explicitly what Satoshi claimed other countries are, with us somehow being very different.

I think the extremes of the reaction are greater in Scotland, the negativity is pretty extreme at times.

And it's a well known and commented on part of our national psyche, it's what Scottish cultural cringe is a thing.

4 hours ago, Mr Tourette said:

Our standing in Europe historically (within the last 50 years) is of a team which sometimes qualifies for major tournaments but consistently fails to progress past a group stage.

We must have the worst record of any team of a similar standing, since Wales, Switzerland, Austria, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Romania, Bulgaria, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Czech Republic (to name a few) have all outperformed us at major tournaments, some reaching as far as semi finals or finals

As far as I can see, we are exactly where we should be. A team that sometimes qualifies for major tournaments but are not good enough to progress beyond the group stage. And I can’t see that changing any time soon as we just don’t have enough technically proficient players to achieve it

Don't know what you mean of similar standing, but Scotland have qualified for more world cups than pretty much all of those teams (except Sweden and Switzerland and counting Czech Republic since split from Czechoslovakia - if you count Czech Republic and Czechoslovakia combined we are tied on 9).

Iceland have qualified for two tournaments in their entire history.

If you offered me the chance to qualify for two tournaments, and reach the second round, Vs qualifying for 9 like any sensible person I would chose the latter.

Scotland have been in the last 8 of the euros and the last 16 of the world cup 5 times.

If you want an example of extreme negativity, thinking we are worse than Wales, Northern Ireland or Iceland is an excellent example of this.

Norway have a far worse qualification record than us and haven't qualified for anything since 2000.

We have qualified for more world cups than Norway, Ireland, northern ireland and Iceland combined.