A reality check: Our standing in Europe

[Lurkst]

Wales have certainly benefited from Barclays megabucks being thrown at developing their youngsters to a greater extent than us.

I remember Croatia being discussed on the news during the last Euros, and it was mentioned by a Scot who worked out there that kids from that part of the world for some reason have a great natural aptitude for playing ball sports. Coupled with their perfect climate for playing outside, they have the required ingredients for continued success.

 

[TheScarf]

8 minutes ago, Satoshi said:

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.

They do that because their leagues are Scottish League One standard at best.

[G51]

All of our best youngsters end up getting poached by EPL clubs already. That part has already been "outsourced".

[craigkillie]

I genuinely don't think we have anything to worry about in terms of developing players, we must have more young guys being picked up by big clubs than at any point in the last 30 years.

[54_and_counting]

1 hour ago, Satoshi said:

Just qualifying for more tournaments doesn't necessarily make them better if they're having other horror campaigns and results.

Except it probably does

[invergowrie arab]

3 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

I genuinely don't think we have anything to worry about in terms of developing players, we must have more young guys being picked up by big clubs than at any point in the last 30 years.

I can think of 3 or 4 players from United going straight from 17s/19s to clubs down south in the past 3 years.

The only shiter now is when you hear of talent coming through you don't ha e any expectation of seeing them. 

[Satoshi]

48 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

They do that because their leagues are Scottish League One standard at best.

Probably not even that good.

43 minutes ago, G51 said:

All of our best youngsters end up getting poached by EPL clubs already. That part has already been "outsourced".

True, but not all. John McGinn is a classic example of someone who developed later (statistically it's usually linked to their birth month).

35 minutes ago, 54_and_counting said:

Except it probably does

Maybe for some people, if you are beating top teams home and away and coming close in each qualification group this for me would be better than fluking one qualification, and stinking the place out for the other 20 years.

Personal preference though.

For me not a blanket statement that success = no. of times qualified over the past 20 years. There's nuance and context to it.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Satoshi

[54_and_counting]

13 minutes ago, Satoshi said:

Probably not even that good.

True, but not all. John McGinn is a classic example of someone who developed later (statistically it's usually linked to their birth month).

Maybe for some people, if you are beating top teams home and away and coming close in each qualification group this for me would be better than fluking one qualification, and stinking the place out for the other 20 years.

Personal preference though.

For me not a blanket statement that success = no. of times qualified over the past 20 years. There's nuance and context to it.

You never said fluking one qualification, you said qualifying for more tournaments, if a team is qualifying for more tournaments that surely makes them better, 

[SpoonTon]

3 hours 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.

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.

I certainly didn't say that all those teams are better than us. We just haven't stood out as being a good team. For the most part we've been consistent at being not quite good enough to qualify for tournaments. For me that means we're around the right baseline but haven't managed to step it up a level at any point. I would take an argument for consistent decent for a nation our side, but we haven't had a good team for a long time. 

 

[Stoo61]

I know its not this simple but having spent time in the poorer part of Croatia (Slavonija) and currently in Northern Bosnia in the last 10 days I was shocked at how every single, back water, rural, tiny village has a good football pitch, quality netted goals, usually floodlit and often with a club house, dugouts and a wee stand. Can't hurt. 

[Diamonds are Forever]

6 hours ago, craigkillie said:

I genuinely don't think we have anything to worry about in terms of developing players, we must have more young guys being picked up by big clubs than at any point in the last 30 years.

 

True, but is that not just because big clubs are hoarding young players to a much greater extent than they ever have? I'd bet if you asked most nations they'd say they feel the same. These clubs have the money and capacity to take in huge numbers of youngsters in a way they couldn't 20+ years ago. It's probably even more exaggerated because of the ever growing disparity in finances between England and Scotland so English clubs can take cheap punts on Scottish players.

The problem remains that most players are going down to England and getting stuck in that bottleneck from youth football to first team football. With the exception of Gilmour we've yet to see any real evidence that the national team is benefitting from more youngsters being picked up by big clubs.

[Satoshi]

7 hours ago, 54_and_counting said:

You never said fluking one qualification, you said qualifying for more tournaments, if a team is qualifying for more tournaments that surely makes them better, 

Well my post outlines why I disagree with that.

But as I said personal preference. Would I take Scotland qualifying more if it meant getting hammered in the tournament itself (a la Ireland) or getting horsed 6-1 off Serbia and losing to the Faroe Islands? Not sure tbh, but probably not, better to be consistently good and demonstrating you can compete with better nations when you have a tough qualifying group.

5 hours ago, SpoonTon said:

I certainly didn't say that all those teams are better than us. We just haven't stood out as being a good team. For the most part we've been consistent at being not quite good enough to qualify for tournaments. For me that means we're around the right baseline but haven't managed to step it up a level at any point. I would take an argument for consistent decent for a nation our side, but we haven't had a good team for a long time. 

 

I agree with all of this until the last sentence - we do have a good team at the moment and a lot of impressive young players. Things are a lot brighter than they were 5 or 10 years ago and a 24 team Euros gives us plenty of hope.

5 hours ago, Stoo61 said:

I know its not this simple but having spent time in the poorer part of Croatia (Slavonija) and currently in Northern Bosnia in the last 10 days I was shocked at how every single, back water, rural, tiny village has a good football pitch, quality netted goals, usually floodlit and often with a club house, dugouts and a wee stand. Can't hurt. 

Indeed, always astonishes me how popular football is here yet how badly it is treated by the establishment - it still retains a reputation for boozing, sectarianism and thuggery. Little Iceland has better facilities than us, these are small countries who can't hold a candle to Scotlands domestic game yet they get Government support we lack (and often a domestic broadcaster with a better TV deal).

1 hour ago, Diamonds are Forever said:

 

True, but is that not just because big clubs are hoarding young players to a much greater extent than they ever have? I'd bet if you asked most nations they'd say they feel the same. These clubs have the money and capacity to take in huge numbers of youngsters in a way they couldn't 20+ years ago. It's probably even more exaggerated because of the ever growing disparity in finances between England and Scotland so English clubs can take cheap punts on Scottish players.

The problem remains that most players are going down to England and getting stuck in that bottleneck from youth football to first team football. With the exception of Gilmour we've yet to see any real evidence that the national team is benefitting from more youngsters being picked up by big clubs.

It's working for England though, after years of pretty awful youth development they have cracked it - mostly through throwing money at it. Their u21 coach is probably paid more than Steve Clarke, and their youth teams will have psychologists, fitness coaches, sports scientists etc.

We can never compete with that, but we can get our youth players ready to go into the English (or another top 5 league youth set up) system. The benefit is that you get your youth players exposed to the best staff and cutting edge technology, the downside is that English players will always be prioritised (and although getting more diverse it's still only one league, ideally like Uruguay you would spread the players amongst Spain / Germany / Italy / France / England.)

But agreed with the above post that our youth development is actually pretty good now, it could always be better but it's not bad. We should be restoring some positivity to our national team, lets win the nation's league games we are certainly better than the teams we are playing there.

[Diamonds are Forever]

8 hours ago, Satoshi said:

Well my post outlines why I disagree with that.

But as I said personal preference. Would I take Scotland qualifying more if it meant getting hammered in the tournament itself (a la Ireland) or getting horsed 6-1 off Serbia and losing to the Faroe Islands? Not sure tbh, but probably not, better to be consistently good and demonstrating you can compete with better nations when you have a tough qualifying group.

I agree with all of this until the last sentence - we do have a good team at the moment and a lot of impressive young players. Things are a lot brighter than they were 5 or 10 years ago and a 24 team Euros gives us plenty of hope.

Indeed, always astonishes me how popular football is here yet how badly it is treated by the establishment - it still retains a reputation for boozing, sectarianism and thuggery. Little Iceland has better facilities than us, these are small countries who can't hold a candle to Scotlands domestic game yet they get Government support we lack (and often a domestic broadcaster with a better TV deal).

It's working for England though, after years of pretty awful youth development they have cracked it - mostly through throwing money at it. Their u21 coach is probably paid more than Steve Clarke, and their youth teams will have psychologists, fitness coaches, sports scientists etc.

We can never compete with that, but we can get our youth players ready to go into the English (or another top 5 league youth set up) system. The benefit is that you get your youth players exposed to the best staff and cutting edge technology, the downside is that English players will always be prioritised (and although getting more diverse it's still only one league, ideally like Uruguay you would spread the players amongst Spain / Germany / Italy / France / England.)

But agreed with the above post that our youth development is actually pretty good now, it could always be better but it's not bad. We should be restoring some positivity to our national team, lets win the nation's league games we are certainly better than the teams we are playing there.

 

Despite the hype I remain to be convinced that England are producing better players than they have in the last 20 years. But anyway, how much of that is down to the English FA though? Seems to me to just be down to clubs like Chelsea and Man City producing players. And I think similar in Scotland, by far and away the biggest factor in how players develop is the experience they get at their club side. Both England and Scotland basically outsource player development to clubs, we've tried to have more involvement by setting up performance schools but their development is still largely down to their club sides.

I feel like we've always claimed that we've had good young players, right back to the Berti days with Fletcher, McFadden, Gordon, that Under 19s side who reached the Euros final, and through the 15/20 years since we've always had 4 or 5 guys people were really excited about and we told ourselves we just had to wait a few years. Of course when those players don't develop you forget that you ever thought they'd be any good, and then pin your hopes on the next bunch of youngsters, and so the cycle has repeated. In 5 years time if the current crop don't turn out to be anything special we'll pin our hopes on another group.

Obviously it's hugely important that we continue to do what we can to produce better players, but as a fan all I really care about is the end results in the national team and until we actually start to see some real evidence that we're producing top quality players it's hard not to be cynical given the last 20 years.

[Satoshi]

Well we did qualify for the last Euros, maybe it's best to moderate your expectations. The last 5 years have been better than the 15 years before that.

I would be happy with Scotland regularly qualifying for the 24 team Euros and making a good attempt at the world cup and occasionally getting there. Which is quite close to what's actually happening.

All nations go through cycles but it's more pronounced if you're a small country with less depth. There will be worse Scottish teams in future and better ones. There's no real doubt that both Croatia and Uruguay will have shocking teams in the next 10-20-30 years too. It's just how it is.

Not to say we shouldn't try to do better, against Ukraine was a disappointing result and performance no doubt about it. And although youth development has improved a lot we can always do better and seek (and create) best practice.

Edited June 3, 2022 by Satoshi

[Donathan]

5 minutes ago, Satoshi said:

Well we did qualify for the last Euros, maybe it's best to moderate your expectations. The last 5 years have been better than the 15 years before that.

I would be happy with Scotland regularly qualifying for the 24 team Euros and making a good attempt at the world cup and occasionally getting there. Which is quite close to what's actually happening.

All nations go through cycles but it's more pronounced if you're a small country with less depth. There will be worse Scottish teams in future and better ones. There's no real doubt that both Croatia and Uruguay will have shocking teams in the next 10-20-30 years too. It's just how it is.

 

 

Would it be fair to say that Clarke has taken us from punching below our weight, to punching at our weight?

 

The next challenge of course is to get us to punch above our weight.

[eez-eh]

1 hour ago, Satoshi said:

There's no real doubt that both Croatia and Uruguay will have shocking teams in the next 10-20-30 years too. It's just how it is.

Uruguay have consistently been a good team for about 100 years. In what way is there “no real doubt” that they’ll have a shocking team within the next 30?

[lubo_blaha]

 
Despite the hype I remain to be convinced that England are producing better players than they have in the last 20 years. But anyway, how much of that is down to the English FA though? Seems to me to just be down to clubs like Chelsea and Man City producing players. And I think similar in Scotland, by far and away the biggest factor in how players develop is the experience they get at their club side. Both England and Scotland basically outsource player development to clubs, we've tried to have more involvement by setting up performance schools but their development is still largely down to their club sides.
I feel like we've always claimed that we've had good young players, right back to the Berti days with Fletcher, McFadden, Gordon, that Under 19s side who reached the Euros final, and through the 15/20 years since we've always had 4 or 5 guys people were really excited about and we told ourselves we just had to wait a few years. Of course when those players don't develop you forget that you ever thought they'd be any good, and then pin your hopes on the next bunch of youngsters, and so the cycle has repeated. In 5 years time if the current crop don't turn out to be anything special we'll pin our hopes on another group.
Obviously it's hugely important that we continue to do what we can to produce better players, but as a fan all I really care about is the end results in the national team and until we actually start to see some real evidence that we're producing top quality players it's hard not to be cynical given the last 20 years.

The Scottish FA do set fairly strict criteria on coaches, facilities etc through Club Academy Scotland so they do have some influence but yes, what happens at their clubs is the biggest factor.

It is encouraging that we’ve got more players who are capable of making their debuts at 19/20/21 rather than 26/27/28. This hasn’t been the case for most of the last 25 years. The quality of young players we’re producing has undoubtedly improved but not to the extent where we’re now a top nation in Europe unfortunately.

[Donathan]

57 minutes ago, eez-eh said:

Uruguay have consistently been a good team for about 100 years. In what way is there “no real doubt” that they’ll have a shocking team within the next 30?

This is nonsense. Until their run to the semi finals in 2010 they’d done very little for several decades. 

[eez-eh]

10 minutes ago, Donathan said:

This is nonsense. Until their run to the semi finals in 2010 they’d done very little for several decades. 

Interested to know by what definition winning Copa America several times is doing very little.

[2426255]

On 02/06/2022 at 13:17, Donathan said:

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.

Spot on - well thought out post.  

If someone said Scotland are a League B team I would say that 's a simple, easy and accurate way to explain where we stand in Europe.