Decline of Scottish National Football Team

[Ozyhibby]

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Another embarrassing defeat. We can blame the manager. We can blame the players. But this has been going on for years.

When will those that administer Scottish football start doing something about it.

They won’t because fans in Scotland will keep letting them get away with it.


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[green day]

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Its the same in Holland to an extent, facilities are great and all fenced off or moated so the neds cant run amok. Great training facilities, all weather and grass pitches, bars/restaurants, even in the small villages they have decent facilities. In the centre of cities there are 5 a side cages for kids to play in, all in all well organised and funded.

Its interesting, in this country we have huge lottery funding at our disposal for sports - however we seem to aim it more at the elite level (certainly other countries have complained about this advantage when it comes to olympic medals etc).

Whereas in other countries they do concentrate a lot more on the grass roots - its the same in France, even wee diddy villages apply for and get money for decent pitches / changing facilities etc.

I was out last night and two of my mates are youth coaches, both thinking of jacking it in as its just getting too much hassle to be worth it.

[jakedance]

Are at a new low? We had some pretty brutal teams in recent years, seemed to improve a bit under Strachan but look awful just now. I don’t share the view held by some that we’ve got some good players. They’re pretty mediocre all over the park by international standards.

It seems every country produces a great world class player every now and again but it’s literally been decades for us. I watch and support Scotland and go to the odd game but I can see why people don’t care about them.

[SirDavidsNapper]

Are we obliged to have a national team? Just seems a waste of time and money

[Leith Green]

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Are at a new low? We had some pretty brutal teams in recent years, seemed to improve a bit under Strachan but look awful just now. I don’t share the view held by some that we’ve got some good players. They’re pretty mediocre all over the park by international standards.

It seems every country produces a great world class player every now and again but it’s literally been decades for us. I watch and support Scotland and go to the odd game but I can see why people don’t care about them.

Going from strachan to mcleish was never going to improve us short or long term

[OsloHibs]

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Gylfi Sigurdsson is now 29.
I predict Iceland have one 4 year cycle left in their team before falling back into the also ran pack.

Nonsense. What has happened in Iceland national team the last few years is just the beginning. I'm very jealous!

[hibbydog]

Shouldn’t even bother having a national team any more.

It’s been a whole generation now since we made a tournament and for me the enthusiasm is just not there.

There were players there tonight were so bad it was embarrassing.

International breaks are awful

[Smartie]

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Are at a new low? We had some pretty brutal teams in recent years, seemed to improve a bit under Strachan but look awful just now. I don’t share the view held by some that we’ve got some good players. They’re pretty mediocre all over the park by international standards.

It seems every country produces a great world class player every now and again but it’s literally been decades for us. I watch and support Scotland and go to the odd game but I can see why people don’t care about them.

You can take a bunch of fairly mediocre players and turn them into a stuffy unit that is hard to beat, only we can't even do that right now.

I'd back Hibs to beat that Scotland team. You could make a better back 3/ back 5 with Scottish Hibs players than you could with that rabble.

I think the main problem we have is that players would rather play for their club than play for Scotland - see the call-offs. Players will use Scotland as a necessary stepping stone to get a big bucks move and when they're earning big they don't give a hoot, leaving us with raw, eager but poorer players and disinterested primadonnas.

And I don't think changing manager can change that.

[SquashedFrogg]

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Gylfi Sigurdsson is now 29.
I predict Iceland have one 4 year cycle left in their team before falling back into the also ran pack.

Head in the sand stuff I'm afraid. I would also love to know where Scotland are in relation to the 'also ran' pack?

[CMurdoch]

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Head in the sand stuff I'm afraid. I would also love to know where Scotland are in relation to the 'also ran' pack?

We are in the also ran pack where we have been stuck since the beginning of time

[hibsbollah]

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Nonsense. What has happened in Iceland national team the last few years is just the beginning. I'm very jealous!

They produce UEFA B qualified coaches at the same speed as Edinburgh council churns out traffic wardens. Andthefacilities they've built will inspire and produce players for generations. I'm in rural France at the moment. Every small town round here ten miles apart has a proper stadium with fenced off training pitches for the local schools/clubs. Every morning you drive past you see young players practicing in small groups, shooting on a proper surface. They want to improve and they have the opportunity to do so.

It's not complicated. Scotland needs to spend some proper money on infrastructure.

[murray26]

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They produce UEFA B qualified coaches at the same speed as Edinburgh council churns out traffic wardens. Andthefacilities they've built will inspire and produce players for generations. I'm in rural France at the moment. Every small town round here ten miles apart has a proper stadium with fenced off training pitches for the local schools/clubs. Every morning you drive past you see young players practicing in small groups, shooting on a proper surface. They want to improve and they have the opportunity to do so.

It's not complicated. Scotland needs to spend some proper money on infrastructure.

👍

[G B Young]

Perceptions of Scotland's supposed potential are distorted by the fact we qualified for five World Cups in a row from the mid-70s to 1990. Looking at the wider picture we have actually played at well under half the World Cups which have been staged and qualified for only TWO European Championships. The reality is we are, for the most part, a minnow on the international stage.

A large percentage of fans now watching football at club and international level (as well as a very large number of players) will not have been born the last time Scotland played at a major tournament and, for them, being also-rans is the norm. The pressure comes from a large section of media/pundits who are old enough to remember when we did used to qualify and are therefore measuring today's teams against a long-gone golden era. They need to ditch this perception of Scotland as under-achievers and accept that we're down among the also-rans because we're simply not a significant football power. By doing so they might relieve the pressure on the team and give them some breathing space to improve over time rather than seeing the pressure ramped up to unrealistic levels every two years.

[Kato]

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It's not complicated. Scotland needs to spend some proper money on infrastructure.

Been promised by the SFA since the Argentina debacle, never going to happen.

[tamig]

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We are in the also ran pack where we have been stuck since the beginning of time

It hasn’t always been thus.

[silverhibee]

Should head hunt Shaun Maloney for the job.

[ancient hibee]

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They produce UEFA B qualified coaches at the same speed as Edinburgh council churns out traffic wardens. Andthefacilities they've built will inspire and produce players for generations. I'm in rural France at the moment. Every small town round here ten miles apart has a proper stadium with fenced off training pitches for the local schools/clubs. Every morning you drive past you see young players practicing in small groups, shooting on a proper surface. They want to improve and they have the opportunity to do so.

It's not complicated. Scotland needs to spend some proper money on infrastructure.

Why do that when you can throw money away on a national stadium instead?

[Smartie]

Ole Gunnar Solsjkaer?

I was very impressed with the way he conducted himself when his team played us, and Molde looked a pretty well-drilled unit. Surely a national team job would be a step up from Molde? Michael O'Neill has raised his profile and got some decent offers as a result of doing well with Northern Ireland, who arguably don't have the players we have.

[G B Young]

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Ole Gunnar Solsjkaer?

I was very impressed with the way he conducted himself when his team played us, and Molde looked a pretty well-drilled unit. Surely a national team job would be a step up from Molde? Michael O'Neill has raised his profile and got some decent offers as a result of doing well with Northern Ireland, who arguably don't have the players we have.

As has surely been proven now after 20 years of appointing a new manager every couple of years, it doesn't matter who you appoint if the players at your disposal are simply not good enough. They could probably go back to the days prior to the mid-1950s when the team was picked by an SFA selection committee and we'd fare little better or worse. Solskjaer wouldn't see the Scotland job as a good career move. As has been shown, our status is such that the Northern Ireland job now carries more appeal.

[Sir David Gray]

We are now at the point where we are seriously struggling to qualify from the 3rd division of European nations in a group involving Albania and Israel.

The only level below where we are right now is groups involving nations like Gibraltar, San Marino and Kosovo.

We are light years away from qualifying for a major tournament, never mind actually being competitive in one.

Changing the manager will achieve absolutely nothing. We need major changes to the entire structure of the way that football is run in this country. Until that happens, the national team would be as well being disbanded.

[Smartie]

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As has surely been proven now after 20 years of appointing a new manager every couple of years, it doesn't matter who you appoint if the players at your disposal are simply not good enough. They could probably go back to the days prior to the mid-1950s when the team was picked by an SFA selection committee and we'd fare little better or worse. Solskjaer wouldn't see the Scotland job as a good career move. As has been shown, our status is such that the Northern Ireland job now carries more appeal.

To one Northern Irishman.

I don't think Scotland's problems are restricted to the manager's position, but I refuse to accept that the drivel served up over the past week is the best we can accept from the group of players eligible to play for Scotland.

The players either need to buck their ideas up and play for McLeish or he should be replaced.

Both performances over the past week were abject, with players looking lost, not knowing what their role was and not looking like they really want to be there.

Would that be the case with the same group of players under Solsjkaer? The Northern Ireland job has offered O'Neill a decent step up from Brechin via the Irish league to surely a good job next? Is it fantasy to consider that a manager being a relative success with Scotland could expect a similar career boost?

[blackpoolhibs]

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We are now at the point where we are seriously struggling to qualify from the 3rd division of European nations in a group involving Albania and Israel.

The only level below where we are right now is groups involving nations like Gibraltar, San Marino and Kosovo.

We are light years away from qualifying for a major tournament, never mind actually being competitive in one.

Changing the manager will achieve absolutely nothing. We need major changes to the entire structure of the way that football is run in this country. Until that happens, the national team would be as well being disbanded.

I disagree, it appears McLeish has upset more than enough players already since coming in, and a physio if the rumours are correct.

Add in the way he's set the team up to accommodate one player, and with some of his team selections being very strange, i'd say a different manager would sort that out right away.

I agree we are poor, but to deliberately make us poorer is a sackable offence in my book, and he should go now.

[hibsbollah]

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I disagree, it appears McLeish has upset more than enough players already since coming in, and a physio if the rumours are correct.

Add in the way he's set the team up to accommodate one player, and with some of his team selections being very strange, i'd say a different manager would sort that out right away.

I agree we are poor, but to deliberately make us poorer is a sackable offence in my book, and he should go now.

I agree with this. The ginger mess needs to go. Losing to a team like Israel is occasionally acceptable, poor teams sometime beat you on the counter, get lucky with a long range strike, defend like heroes, stuff like that. But, that didn't happen to us. We were systematically torn apart by Israel, where we couldn't have complained if we'd have lost 6-0. That's not acceptable.

Although it's also true as SDG says that our long term structural problems will continue to hold us back unless they're dealt with. At governmental level, probably.

[timewilltell]

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Perceptions of Scotland's supposed potential are distorted by the fact we qualified for five World Cups in a row from the mid-70s to 1990. Looking at the wider picture we have actually played at well under half the World Cups which have been staged and qualified for only TWO European Championships. The reality is we are, for the most part, a minnow on the international stage.

A large percentage of fans now watching football at club and international level (as well as a very large number of players) will not have been born the last time Scotland played at a major tournament and, for them, being also-rans is the norm. The pressure comes from a large section of media/pundits who are old enough to remember when we did used to qualify and are therefore measuring today's teams against a long-gone golden era. They need to ditch this perception of Scotland as under-achievers and accept that we're down among the also-rans because we're simply not a significant football power. By doing so they might relieve the pressure on the team and give them some breathing space to improve over time rather than seeing the pressure ramped up to unrealistic levels every two years.

Very good accurate and realistic post. Well said.

[theonlywayisup]

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We are now at the point where we are seriously struggling to qualify from the 3rd division of European nations in a group involving Albania and Israel.

The only level below where we are right now is groups involving nations like Gibraltar, San Marino and Kosovo.

We are light years away from qualifying for a major tournament, never mind actually being competitive in one.

Changing the manager will achieve absolutely nothing. We need major changes to the entire structure of the way that football is run in this country. Until that happens, the national team would be as well being disbanded.

Which is all the reason why I posted the original post? We're getting progressively worse and it's been like that for years. We've had more missions and initiatives than I've had hot dinners and yet nothing improves.

When is the time that we say enough is enough? A radical change to how football in the this country is run. I'm not talking about tinkering around the edges, but radical changes.

[Smartie]

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Perceptions of Scotland's supposed potential are distorted by the fact we qualified for five World Cups in a row from the mid-70s to 1990. Looking at the wider picture we have actually played at well under half the World Cups which have been staged and qualified for only TWO European Championships. The reality is we are, for the most part, a minnow on the international stage.

A large percentage of fans now watching football at club and international level (as well as a very large number of players) will not have been born the last time Scotland played at a major tournament and, for them, being also-rans is the norm. The pressure comes from a large section of media/pundits who are old enough to remember when we did used to qualify and are therefore measuring today's teams against a long-gone golden era. They need to ditch this perception of Scotland as under-achievers and accept that we're down among the also-rans because we're simply not a significant football power. By doing so they might relieve the pressure on the team and give them some breathing space to improve over time rather than seeing the pressure ramped up to unrealistic levels every two years.

I don't think anyone expects Scotland to qualify for 5 finals in a row, or to reach the latter stages of a World Cup.

But if Croatia can reach a World Cup final, Wales can produce a player like Gareth Bale, Iceland can qualify for major finals with a small population and unkind climate for football, Greece, Denmark and Portugal all win the Euros - is it unreasonable to expect a football mad nation to do a wee bit better than it currently does?

Qualify for the finals 2-3 times every twenty years and once in a lifetime progress beyond the group stages?

[weecounty hibby]

Check out the 74 to 90 squads and then to todays squad and you will see the issue. Gone are the days of us having a squad full of players playing at top English clubs and even European clubs, European cup winners as well. Our players, generally, now would prefer an easy 10/15 k a week in Glasgow rather than working hard to get to the top clubs and really improving their game. We also have a totally **** manager who was past his sell by date 10 years ago

[jakedance]

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I don't think anyone expects Scotland to qualify for 5 finals in a row, or to reach the latter stages of a World Cup.

But if Croatia can reach a World Cup final, Wales can produce a player like Gareth Bale, Iceland can qualify for major finals with a small population and unkind climate for football, Greece, Denmark and Portugal all win the Euros - is it unreasonable to expect a football mad nation to do a wee bit better than it currently does?

Qualify for the finals 2-3 times every twenty years and once in a lifetime progress beyond the group stages?

Spot on. Our small(ish) population is a tired old excuse. We’ve underperformed as a footballing nation for decades.

[Kato]

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Check out the 74 to 90 squads and then to todays squad and you will see the issue. Gone are the days of us having a squad full of players playing at top English clubs and even European clubs, European cup winners as well. Our players, generally, now would prefer an easy 10/15 k a week in Glasgow rather than working hard to get to the top clubs and really improving their game. We also have a totally **** manager who was past his sell by date 10 years ago

Players don't go to top English clubs because not many of them are good enough. Updating the manager is like tinkering with the car horn when the vehicle is a right off.

[heretoday]

It's ridiculous that Britain punches so much above its weight in the Olympics but performs so poorly at football which we're all daft about.