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Antifa Hibs
21-08-2009, 02:05 PM
....Hearts get pumped last night, it just shows how ****** Scottish football is.

Populations
Scotland - 5 million +
Croatia - 7 million +

Edinburgh - 500k
Zagreb - 700k

Attendences
Hertz - 14k (average)
DZ - 7k (average)

Croatia a bit bigger than Scotland granted, but the difference in footballing quality between Hearts-Zagreb and Scotland-Croatia national sides is world aparts. Croatia have players like Modric, Niko Kranjcar amongst other top quality players playing for Bundesliga sides, Shaktar, Dinamo Kyiv etc, who have Scotland got that is on par with them? No one. Why is that? Why can they produce top quality players but we can't?

Jonnyboy
21-08-2009, 02:07 PM
....Hearts get pumped last night, it just shows how ****** Scottish football is.

Populations
Scotland - 5 million +
Croatia - 7 million +

Edinburgh - 500k
Zagreb - 700k

Attendences
Hertz - 14k (average)
DZ - 7k (average)

Croatia a bit bigger than Scotland granted, but the difference in footballing quality between Hearts-Zagreb and Scotland-Croatia national sides is world aparts. Croatia have players like Modric, Niko Kranjcar amongst other top quality players playing for Bundesliga sides, Shaktar, Dinamo Kyiv etc, who have Scotland got that is on par with them? No one. Why is that? Why can they produce top quality players but we can't?

Same reason Jamaica (pop 2.7m) can produce cracking athletes whilst GB (pop approx 65m) can't. They've got no Playstations in Jamaica/Croatia :greengrin

iwasthere1972
21-08-2009, 02:10 PM
Same reason Jamaica (pop 2.7m) can produce cracking athletes whilst GB (pop approx 65m) can't. They've got no Playstations in Jamaica/Croatia :greengrin


They've got loads of Playstations in Aberdeen. They're locally known as sheep. :greengrin

The_Todd
21-08-2009, 02:14 PM
All joking aside, it was a sobering reflection on the state of the Scottish game.

As much fun at the time that it was.

HibsNibs
21-08-2009, 02:17 PM
Croatian population is 4.56m according to WolframAlpha & 4.49m according to Wikipedia so less than Scotland. Pretty poor in terms of GDP per capita too but once this 'recession' is done with we'll be as poor as them so expect our football to improve markedly.

James70
21-08-2009, 02:28 PM
I see the team which knocked Aberdeen out 8-1 on aggregate were themselves pumped 4-0 away to Everton who lost 6-1 at home to Arsenal a few days ago. Imagine the score if Aberdeen had played Arsenal!

TheEastTerrace
21-08-2009, 02:32 PM
Indeed. :agree:

Once the laughter had stopped last night.....ach, who am I trying to kid? I am still laughing......but all the Scottish club results in Europe so far this season, plus the national team's debacle in Oslo, have been a very sobering experience for us as a football nation. There are a number of political, social and financial factors behind this I am sure, which is probably stating the obvious, but it would take a fair bit of analysis to document them all here. Safe to say, Scottish football is at a very low ebb at the moment and I can't see where the shoots of recovery will begin. The standard of the Scottish footballer is very poor these days. Sad times.

Mibbes Aye
21-08-2009, 02:34 PM
....Hearts get pumped last night, it just shows how ****** Scottish football is.

Populations
Scotland - 5 million +
Croatia - 7 million +

Edinburgh - 500k
Zagreb - 700k

Attendences
Hertz - 14k (average)
DZ - 7k (average)

Croatia a bit bigger than Scotland granted, but the difference in footballing quality between Hearts-Zagreb and Scotland-Croatia national sides is world aparts. Croatia have players like Modric, Niko Kranjcar amongst other top quality players playing for Bundesliga sides, Shaktar, Dinamo Kyiv etc, who have Scotland got that is on par with them? No one. Why is that? Why can they produce top quality players but we can't?

It's all relative I suppose. Austria has a bigger population than Croatia or Scotland yet is several places below us in the UEFA rankings. Stadiums in their top-flight are about the same size (and while they have a couple of big clubs, they're nowhere near the size of the OF) and their record in European club football over the years is nowhere near as successful as Scotland's.

Yet they're a country with a fine footballing tradition too, including one of the great international sides, back in the 1930s.

sambajustice
21-08-2009, 02:37 PM
I see the team which knocked Aberdeen out 8-1 on aggregate were themselves pumped 4-0 away to Everton who lost 6-1 at home to Arsenal a few days ago. Imagine the score if Aberdeen had played Arsenal!

172-0

over 2 legs of course!

jgl07
21-08-2009, 02:41 PM
It's all relative I suppose. Austria has a bigger population than Croatia or Scotland yet is several places below us in the UEFA rankings. Stadiums in their top-flight are about the same size (and while they have a couple of big clubs, they're nowhere near the size of the OF) and their record in European club football over the years is nowhere near as successful as Scotland's.

Yet they're a country with a fine footballing tradition too, including one of the great international sides, back in the 1930s.
That was before Hitler marched in and co-opted their players to the Germany team.

One player who refused to turn out for Germany met with a stick end in an alleged 'suicide'.

hibsdaft
21-08-2009, 02:48 PM
if we're comparing Croatia's biggest side (and current league Champions) to Scotlands, then we have to ask how the Old Firm would have done against them, not Hearts.

also we have plenty players in the EPL right now:

D Fletcher
B Ferguson
A Hutton
C Iwelomu
McFadden
O'Connor
S Caldwell
G Alexander
S Fletcher
C Gordon

then theres the Scots at the Old Firm who are regular Champions League players, Celtic's Scots were regularly getting to the knockout stages for a while there.

i remember one week recently when there were more Scots playing C/L football than English for example.

outside of the OF our clubs are poor i would agree though, and Hearts would have been beat by Croatias 3rd, 4th, 5th best sides too imo to be fair, but Hearts - Dynamo isn't a fair like to like on which to judge our league.

Sir David Gray
21-08-2009, 02:58 PM
Artmedia Bratislava 5-0 Celtic
Kaunas 2-1 Rangers
Dnipro 5-1 Hibs
Vetra Vilnius 1-0 Hibs
Dinamo Zagreb 4-0 Hearts
Gretna 1-5 Derry City
Aberdeen 1-5 Sigma Olomouc
Motherwell 0-1 Llanelli
Vaduz 2-0 Falkirk

Just some of the embarrassing defeats for Scottish teams in European competition in recent years. Unfortunately we are not blameless.

basehibby
21-08-2009, 03:18 PM
....Hearts get pumped last night, it just shows how ****** Scottish football is.

Populations
Scotland - 5 million +
Croatia - 7 million +

Edinburgh - 500k
Zagreb - 700k

Attendences
Hertz - 14k (average)
DZ - 7k (average)

Croatia a bit bigger than Scotland granted, but the difference in footballing quality between Hearts-Zagreb and Scotland-Croatia national sides is world aparts. Croatia have players like Modric, Niko Kranjcar amongst other top quality players playing for Bundesliga sides, Shaktar, Dinamo Kyiv etc, who have Scotland got that is on par with them? No one. Why is that? Why can they produce top quality players but we can't?

:agree: - Totally agree - as much as last night's entertainment was great for points scoring it was yet another night of embarassment for Scottish football.
Apart from the fact that Croatia DO seem to produce better players on the whole, I think part of the problem in Scotland is that any team outside the OF that has a good season and gets into Europe tends to lose all their best players very quickly and hence ends up going into the early rounds of Europe minus the talent which got them there in the first place and with replacements either not yet signed or at least not bedded in and almost certainly not of equivalent proven quality to the players they're replacing.

I'm hopeful that with the sustainable improvement model in place at Hibs that our next foray into europe might see us compete with a squad strengthened and built on from the one that got us there rather than a decimated work in progress as usually seems to be the case.

Jack
21-08-2009, 03:27 PM
Another statistic to consider is that the SPL has 137 foreign players 43.5%. The T-Com 1. HNL (Croatia) has 77 or 17.2%.

IMO our league doesnt bring through enough tallent nor is it big enough to support so many imports.

hibsbollah
21-08-2009, 03:33 PM
Croatia is an international football heavyweight; great record at international tournaments since independence, made the backbone of the old Yugoslavia side which was pretty menacing in the 80s, passionate fans (they invented the Ultra culture, not the Italians). That team also beat Leeds in a Euro final in the 60s. We're not talking San Marino here. As much as it fits the Scots national psyche to put ourselves down every five minutes, its not really warranted in this case.

500miles
21-08-2009, 04:31 PM
To be fair, I reckon Hearts will get hammered a few times this season. They are RANK.

The_Todd
21-08-2009, 04:34 PM
To be fair, I reckon Hearts will get hammered a few times this season. They are RANK.

They may well - but that's what finished 3rd last season. Rankness.

Says something about the rest of us (last season at least).

heidtheba
21-08-2009, 04:46 PM
Does it make much of a difference that the Hearts team last night contained few scots (Glen, Wallace, Black) and the rest were from overseas)? Or are we saying that Scottish teams can't sign quality or that if they do (or even regardless of that anyway) that playing here reduces teams to a level thats just not got it?
Not making a point...genuine question looking for opinions...

Mibbes Aye
21-08-2009, 04:49 PM
To be fair, I reckon Hearts will get hammered a few times this season. They are RANK.

:agree:

Pish squad, lost their best players and replaced them with nobodies. And still not signed a forward. Plus they will cash in on what they can, come January. Driver will be forced to play to put himself in the shop window, fit or not. And go for less than they would have got this window as a result.

I'm oozing with cringes of sympathy :rolleyes: :greengrin