Decline of Scottish National Football Team

[J-C]

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I'm going to see if i have any Dutch or Italian heritage so i can start following them. It's pish being Scottish. Quite fancy taking in a Euros/World cup and i ain't supporting England.

My great grandfather was Spanish, I might use that loophole.

[Sudds_1]

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Or maybe they just enjoy video games more than playing football.

Yeah...fifa 2018?

[theonlywayisup]

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You must be really,really ancient if there were no boys clubs in your day.In the 1950s I was in Crossroads Boys Clubs,run by the great Eric Gardiner,and even then it was producing players who went on to have good professional careers.

I come from the Highlands, there was no boys club in my town. Only football was school football or a kickabout with your pals.

[MSK]

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My great grandfather was Spanish, I might use that loophole.

My late Gran was born and raised in Montreal Canada, my great Grandad was born in Castlebar Co Mayo, think I will stick to Scotland 😆

[Hibby Bairn]

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There is a subtle difference between the "football in the street" and "playstation, smartphones" argument.

I remember seeing stats on an article a while back in relation to rugby, and it was about the number of people in a particular country who "play that sport regularly". There was a direct correlation between the number of people who play rugby regularly and the quality of the national side. Smaller countries like Ireland, New Zealand or Wales had huge numbers of people per head of population who actually played rugby regularly when compared to much bigger countries like England or France.

I wonder how many Scots genuinely play football regularly compared to Uruguay or Croatia, forgetting for a minute countries like Brazil, Russia or the USA?

I'm speculating here, but if we're not playing enough (or as much), why aren't we playing enough?

I think this theory is more or less proven by the current better countries in the women’s game. For example I think the ratio of girls playing football in Sweden v Scotland is something like 10:1.

[Jones28]

I’ve been thinking a lot about this today - would it be unreasonable to suggest that the SPL trying to get sky to give them more money is where the cracks start to show?

It’s a long time ago but the malaise around the Scottish national team really started around that time, and what we’re seeing now is the general decline of the standard of the Scottish game because we can’t compete with England to hold on to the best Scottish players. As a result a lot of them will go down south, bumble about for a few years and come back again or stay in Scotland playing lesser opposition. So we then have a situation where all we do (or this seemed to be the case a few years ago) is look for anyone who is eligible and playing in England and offer them caps.

[Brightside]

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Or maybe they just enjoy video games more than playing football.

Because it’s easier and parents make life so easy for kids now in general. We were out all day and night coz the best we had was an Atari. Now they are online with pals all night playing Fifa. They hardly even socialise f2f.

[The dalmeny]

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My late Gran was born and raised in Montreal Canada, my great Grandad was born in Castlebar Co Mayo, think I will stick to Scotland 😆

Ice hockey?

[MSK]

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Ice hockey?

Nah, shinty

[mjhibby]

Here's my tuppence worth. Two things need to change or we will be stuck in this decline.
Firstly we need to coach kids properly at youth level. They are being taught all about fitness and pace and are not coached in game awareness and touch.The russians looked like they had an extra man such was their movement but they are an average team. The bigger youth setups just hoover up the best players and win trophies.
You only have to look how few guys we are producing for the hibs first team. The talent is there if coached properly and countries like Croatia have shown its nothing to do with population.
Secondly we have to make the spl competetive. Its no coincidence we struggled internationally since tbr bigot bros stopped having fetgie to deal with. I know it wont happen but unless we have hibs, Hertz snd the dons up there then the bigot Bros will just have teams full of non scots.Im not optimistic at either youth level or spl so im afraid we are in for years of turgid stuff im afraid.

[Joe6-2]

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My great grandfather was Spanish, I might use that loophole.

I would! 🇪🇸

[Northern Hibby]

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This No Ball Games thing is a red herring. Hundreds of pitches lie empty away from organised football. The culture has just changed in the UK especially. Kids are just allowed to lie about in houses all day/night. And have to carry a water bottle for fear of falling down dead. More and more kids just can't be bothered to play football in their spare time.....ive no idea how that will change if parents arent interested in pushing it and actually parenting.

The kids were playing football.

[Onceinawhile]

I listened to the podcast about Belgian football that was put up either on this thread or one of the similar ones. The bits about encouraging dribbling instead of passing at a young age was quite interesting, because it's easy to pass, but more difficult to learn to dribble. That was something I'd never thought of.

Also listened to the podcast with a Croatian coach. A Croatian grass roots coach needs to go through nearly 200 hours of learning to take a team. For a Scottish coach it's only about 6! No wonder their coaches are better than ours.

[Smartie]

So what do we all make of our U21s winning in Croatia tonight then?

[The Modfather]

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So what do we all make of our U21s winning in Croatia tonight then?

A good win, but changes nothing in terms of the deep rooted problems with Scottish football and the national team.

[WhileTheChief..]

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Or maybe they just enjoy video games more than playing football.

Agreed. I said as much earlier in the thread.

[ballengeich]

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So what do we all make of our U21s winning in Croatia tonight then?

The Scotland team included Jordan Holsgrove. Is he the son of Paul Holsgrove who played for us under McLeish?

[Smartie]

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The Scotland team included Jordan Holsgrove. Is he the son of Paul Holsgrove who played for us under McLeish?

Yes, he is.

A good player by all accounts.

[ballengeich]

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Yes, he is.

A good player by all accounts.

Thanks

[Scorrie]

Scotland u21s beat Croatia away last night. Perhaps there are decent Scottish players coming through now...?

[bingo70]

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Scotland u21s beat Croatia away last night. Perhaps there are decent Scottish players coming through now...?

I always think the results at the under age groups doesn’t tell us anything about how well our game is doing.

A far better indicator is how many under 21’s are in the full national squad. On the face of it beating Croatia is a great result but how many of the best Croatian under 21’s are in their full set up? I’ve no idea if the answer to that question by the way, it could be none, as a general rule though I don’t think results for the under age groups is really a pointer either way. I’d rather we lost 10 nil last night but had 4 under 21 players making a positive impact in the senior side, same applies to the younger age groups at Hibs.

That said, still nice to see Scotland winning at last and won’t do the confidence of the youngsters any harm.

[Brightside]

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I always think the results at the under age groups doesn’t tell us anything about how well our game is doing.

A far better indicator is how many under 21’s are in the full national squad. On the face of it beating Croatia is a great result but how many of the best Croatian under 21’s are in their full set up? I’ve no idea if the answer to that question by the way, it could be none, as a general rule though I don’t think results for the under age groups is really a pointer either way. I’d rather we lost 10 nil last night but had 4 under 21 players making a positive impact in the senior side, same applies to the younger age groups at Hibs.

That said, still nice to see Scotland winning at last and won’t do the confidence of the youngsters any harm.

I think a lot of the good stuff that happens with the younger groups goes out the window at full cap stage. For me thats part of the problem. Stick to a style and build a team from 19s onwards and take that team all the way. What actually happens is we suddenly go out and try and cap players that are generally not scottish, or have not been through the pathway. We know we are murder right now so actually implement a 10 year plan to take all these performance kids all the way to a full squad. Bang average physical players is not the way forward.

[MWHIBBIES]

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Because it’s easier and parents make life so easy for kids now in general. We were out all day and night coz the best we had was an Atari. Now they are online with pals all night playing Fifa. They hardly even socialise f2f.

Or because they actually just prefer playing video games? There isn't some template that kids must fit into, they can do what they like with their free time and if the prefer to play FIFA with friends rather than going out, why not?

[Smartie]

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Or because they actually just prefer playing video games? There isn't some template that kids must fit into, they can do what they like with their free time and if the prefer to play FIFA with friends rather than going out, why not?

Computers aren't new. I had one as a kid and left to my own devices I'd have played it all day every day. My mum had to scream at me to go out and do something constructive instead - which I'd do, and enjoy.

I wonder how much time those on here who are castigating the PlayStation generation spend glued to a mobile phone or laptop themself, quite possibly arguing the toss on this site?

[GreenCastle]

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Scotland u21s beat Croatia away last night. Perhaps there are decent Scottish players coming through now...?

Croatia were missing...

Vlasic, Brekalo, Katie, Benkovic, Caleta-Car and Palaversa.

I wouldn't use a fluke u21 win to say the game will improve any time soon.

[cabbageandribs1875]

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Croatia were missing...

Vlasic, Brekalo, Katie, Benkovic, Caleta-Car and Palaversa.

I wouldn't use a fluke u21 win to say the game will improve any time soon.

the history books won't show that, the score stands

[cabbageandribs1875]

we do appear to be a bit of a hoodoo to the full croatian team over the years


P5 W2 D3...........can we play them every week :)

[Scorrie]

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Croatia were missing...

Vlasic, Brekalo, Katie, Benkovic, Caleta-Car and Palaversa.

I wouldn't use a fluke u21 win to say the game will improve any time soon.

I was trying to be positive and having seen the highlights, Scotland played with pace and skill. Gemmill made the changes and got the result. A win is a win but good to see decent coaching at least

[neil7908]

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Computers aren't new. I had one as a kid and left to my own devices I'd have played it all day every day. My mum had to scream at me to go out and do something constructive instead - which I'd do, and enjoy.

I wonder how much time those on here who are castigating the PlayStation generation spend glued to a mobile phone or laptop themself, quite possibly arguing the toss on this site?

This. Again, all the stuff about computers, phones, games etc is a complete red herring. These things exist in North Ireland, Holland, Belgium, Iceland, Croatia etc. Unless someone can point me to a stat showing our kids are online significantly more than other countries its a pointless argument.

In fact our under 21s, who are unquestionably part of the social media generation just beat Croatia on their own patch last night.

What the answer is I don't know but blaming screens isn't it.

[cabbageandribs1875]

shut off streets from traffic and let the kids play football....with a tennis ball, that's how we honed our technical skills back in the day