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Would Scotland or Northern Ireland win our league?


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22 minutes ago, The_Kincardine said:

This is playground, 'They beat A so you'll lose to B' shite 

It's a perfectly cromulent point. If dogshit SPFL teams can take points from the OF, it stands to reason that a side made up of English Premiership players, plus the best Scots in the league would have little difficulty in doing so.

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1 minute ago, Ervin H Burrell said:

It's a perfectly cromulent point. If dogshit SPFL teams can take points from the OF, it stands to reason that a side made up of English Premiership players, plus the best Scots in the league would have little difficulty in doing so.

Maybe in your Top Trumps world.

Rangers, the 10th ranking team in Europe over the past five years, would have battered Scotland last Wednesday.

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9 minutes ago, The_Kincardine said:

Maybe in your Top Trumps world.

Rangers, the 10th ranking team in Europe over the past five years, would have battered Scotland last Wednesday.

Now who's playing Top Trumps you auld fool.

Rangers, the 10th ranking team in Europe over the past 5 years were battered by fucking Hibs of all teams at Hampden.

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2 minutes ago, Ervin H Burrell said:

Now who's playing Top Trumps you auld fool.

Rangers, the 10th ranking team in Europe over the past 5 years were battered by fucking Hibs of all teams at Hampden.

'auld fool'?  silly boy.

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1 hour ago, The_Kincardine said:

I'm really surprised that anyone starting with the potent attacking force of Adams and Dykes thinks they can actually score a fucking goal.

Dykes scored 9 in this league with Livingston last time he played in it, I'd be astounded if he didn't bag 15+ with Gilmour/McGregor/Christie/McGinn feeding him.

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Scotland would definitely win the league, mainly because none of the glasgow sides could afford the majoriity to weaken them. 

NI are gash and any decent player would end up in Glasgow depending on religion. 

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15 hours ago, The_Kincardine said:

I'm really surprised that anyone starting with the potent attacking force of Adams and Dykes thinks they can actually score a fucking goal.

You surely wouldn't play Scott Wright instead?

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Interesting thread tbf.

I reckon it would be pretty close and no one would be ‘clear’ at the top. 

You’d want to keep the midfield three, left back and probably the keeper from the Scotland side. Tierney as well actually. Bassey wouldn’t make the starting team but would be a very adequate replacement.

Other than that, I’d mostly prefer Old Firm non-Scottish players. You’d prefer Juranovic and Tavernier at right back. I’d say probably Carter-Vickers and Goldson at centre half, although it’s quite tight. Jota, Kyogo Kent & Morelos would all be preferable options going forward IMO.
 

 

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On 06/06/2022 at 19:41, Ervin H Burrell said:

What ?

Are you seriously claiming here that for example the Welsh national side would not win the Wesh Premier ? Or the Danish national team wouldn't win the Danish league ?

Or that England would get anywhere near the Premiership

Scotland's relatively even balance between talent exported and talent imported make it one of the band of countries where this hypothetical question is interesting and you could make a case on either side

Personally I reckon that the sheer depth of squad (Everybody born in Scotland, or with a Scottish parent, or with a Scottish Grandparent) would give them the edge over smaller clubs when injuries and suspensions start piling up later in the season

I'm hoping for a squad number around 1,800,000

Edited by topcat(The most tip top)
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On 07/06/2022 at 11:14, AndyX said:

You surely wouldn't play Scott Wright instead?

Scottish Cup-winning Scotty Wright?

I watched Scott Gemmill's risk-averse U21 get all but pumped by Denmark this afternoon.
Steve Clarke's 'full international' team were, equally, no great shakes against an utterly dreadful Armenia side - though well deserving of the win.

'Young Rangers' and 'Full team Rangers' would have done better against both.

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Im sort of skimming the thread so not sure if touched on but given what usually wins leagues is squad depth then surely it stands to reason a Scotland "select" - even if limited to a squad of say 25 players - would win the league?

Its a little weirder in the abstract because in theory Scotland wouldnt get the relative advantage of, say, selling a player for big bux to reinvest with more flexibility, but at the same time they could shuffle the squad about in january even more flexibly than any club can based on who's playing well/badly/injured. Bizarro lands super scoreboard would be some listen when a promising scottish player breaks through in the top flight and rather than being the next Kieran Tierney/Kris Boyd theyre drafted straight to the National Select Squad.

Edit: beaten to it a bit by the most tip top cat

Edited by Thistle_do_nicely
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This is a fun idea for a thread. And thanks to the glory of chess, we can actually take a bit of a stab at some of these using Elo scores for clubs and nations. Obviously has it's limitations (the nations one in particular) but it's just a bit of fun, so...

Assuming the "cloned-player theory" rather than any of the alternatives:

- Scotland would effectively be in a straight shootout with Rangers and Celtic for the title, and it would basically come down to the H2H results for those sides. All three teams have similar Elo scores (Rangers 1711, Scotland 1709, Celtic 1638). 

- Wales (1823) would thrash everyone, apparently.

- This may be somewhat surprising, but... Northern Ireland would be comfortably the best of the rest. Their Elo score (1511) is significantly better than Hearts (1360), who have the highest rating of the diddies. This also, unsurprisingly, applies to the Republic (1649), who would probably be looking to mount a title challenge instead. National teams that have a similar ranking to Hearts include Trinidad and Tobago (1360), Vietnam (1374), Reunion (1370) and Sierra Leone (1354). Closest European team would be Latvia (1378). 

- The Elo scores for the rest of the league are really very close - take out the top two (and the bottom one) and it's a competitive league. Hearts and Livingston (1339) lead the way, but there isn't much between them and St Johnstone (1272). Very much "anyone can beat anyone" territory, which does feel kinda close to real life. 

- So the real question - how bad would an international team have to be to be worse than Dundee (1217) and get relegated? Well... even the Faroe Islands have a better rating than Dundee (1230). Guyana (1213) are the highest-ranked team that are worse than Dundee. Others in the mix include Lesotho (1218), New Caledonia (1211) and Guadeloupe (1210). The highest ranked European team worse than Dundee would be Moldova (1200). 

There's a website floating around that has a complete Scottish football Elo rankings all the way down the pyramid. If anyone can remember what the website is called, I'd appreciate it. Would be very interested to see how far down the pyramid you'd have to go to find a team worse than bottom-ranked Palau (403).

Edit: found it, isn't any use sadly.

Edited by G51
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2 hours ago, The_Kincardine said:

Scottish Cup-winning Scotty Wright?

I watched Scott Gemmill's risk-averse U21 get all but pumped by Denmark this afternoon.
Steve Clarke's 'full international' team were, equally, no great shakes against an utterly dreadful Armenia side - though well deserving of the win.

'Young Rangers' and 'Full team Rangers' would have done better against both.

I'd sooner have Scottish Cup-winning John McGinn😉

And should I remind you haw 'Full team Rangers' got on against Alashkert?

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1 minute ago, AndyX said:

I'd sooner have Scottish Cup-winning John McGinn😉

And should I remind you haw 'Full team Rangers' got on against Alashkert?

36 posts and you're using the same dreary old 'whit aboot' tripe that has been clogging up the board for a decade.

You'll be popular.

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