As funny as last night is, why are Scottish clubs so bad in Europe?

[Antifa Hibs]

Obviously money comes into it when you're up against the "elite" teams but even against teams in leagues similar or worse to our own why do we struggle so much as a country to compete in European football competitions?

[Diclonius]

Scotland's TV deal is the fourth worst in Europe after Romania, Austria and Russia, and has actually gone DOWN compared to what it used to be. That's why.

[sean04]

Celtics wage bill is more than the 14 top flight teams in Romania. Terrible result

[Onceinawhile]

Lack of money and having a behemoth of a league next to us unfortunately.

Also, I worry that the next generation of kids aren't being brought up to support Scottish football clubs, I had a 2014s training session last night and out of the c.30 kids there was only two wearing a Scottish team's strip (Hibs and Celtic at 1 a piece). There was however plenty english teams, german teams, Barca, Real and even PSG strips.

If we aren't putting money into our clubs, how can we expect them to compete?

[Kojock]

It's every other SPL teams fault for not providing enough competition.

[weecounty hibby]

The old firm. That is the high level issue but they are the biggest problem. We will at some point over the next few days hear about a lack of competition for them in Scotland. But they fail to see the irony of that when they hoover up any talent from other clubs and then often have them playing for the stiffs. See Allan Scott, Riordan Derek as just two examples from us alone.

[Jones28]

For me the lack of money argument doesn’t work here. Celtic just got £25million for an academy graduate - it’s basically money for very very little input. Last nights result is a shocker, worse than our defeat to Malmo IMO, up there with rangers going out to that team from Luxemburg (Progres?).

We - as in everyone else - receive paltry sums in transfers fees and from tv, meaning we simply can’t afford the quality required to compete - which is why we went out last season.

[FilipinoHibs]

I think we have fallen behind in sports science, technical training of new skills and the culture of what it takes to excel mat sport.

If Scotland can produce a world class and world beating tennis player from a small nation that dies not even play tennis then we should be able to do so with football.

I would get Judy Murray to take a critical look at what we do. She rejected the LTA and sent Andy to Barcelona. She travelled the world to look at the latest coaching techniques and brought it back to Scotland. Worth a go. We need somebody to disrupt what we are doing.

[Cataplana]

We often meet teams from places like Scandinavia, who are in the middle of their season. It's probable that if we met them a month later we would progress to the group stages.

There may be a strong argument for summer football in Scotland. As it is our season starts in July anyway. Why not put that back a month, and finish in March/April instead?

[weecounty hibby]

The SFA/SPFL as well. Pandering to the OF at any opportunity, selling Scottish football as the OF plus a load of others instead of as a whole. The history and tradition of clubs like Hibs, hearts, Aberdeen etc are completely ignored. Consider the history etc of ours against a Bournemouth. Consider our average attendance against a Bournemouth. Why is it then that they are paid multi millions and used in selling Sky to the masses. Whenever Scottish football is being sold it's all about celtic and rangers. Sickening. Not sure I'm making my point too well but hopefully someone will understand

[G B Young]

There's no great mystery. Scottish football, unfortunately, isn't very good - and has not been for a long time now. Because of that there are very few players or managers/coaches involved in our game who have much experience or expertise when it comes to competing in Europe. It will be interesting to see how Rangers progress in Europe under Gerrard this season. He remains a rookie manager but brings with him a wealth of European/world experience at club and international level.

As for the players, well, the national side's record over the last quarter of a century speaks for itself and shows that we simply don't have enough quality Scottish players to make a mark outwith our domestic club competitions. However, even at club level, where there are plenty of non-Scots involved, the budgets clubs are working with simply don't allow for signings of the quality required.

[Antifa Hibs]

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Scotland's TV deal is the fourth worst in Europe after Romania, Austria and Russia, and has actually gone DOWN compared to what it used to be. That's why.

And yet teams from those countries have quite comfortably beat Scottish opposition in European competitions in the last few years?

For all our TV deal isn't the best, our ticket revenue and crowds will be much higher to compensate.

Celtic average 57000 a season. Tickets are £30+ compared to Cluj who average about the same as Killie and charge 4 quid!

Aberdeen average 15000 and tickets probably £25, Rijeka average 4000 and I couldn't find ticket prices for them but a Dinamo Zagreb SEASON ticket is £50.

They may make a million or more from TV but i'd imagine we'll turnover around the same or more in most cases. I include us v Molde in that so i'm not being biased ;)

[lyonhibs]

Because the pace and intensity of our league is so, on average, "helter skelter get the ball up top ASAP or you'll have someone on your ankles in a second" that when we come up against teams that play in a league where the style and pace of play is much more technical and the average player, especially midfield and up top, has such a better touch that getting a chasing from teams that, based on name alone, Scottish teams "should" be beating is almost inevitable.

It won't be changing any time soon either.

[Phil MaGlass]

Its a mix of all the above,
Scottish fitba is undersold as pointed out hy that boy to the SFA a couple of years ago.
Sports science, technical training of new skills,
SFA pandering to OF for the sake of TV and ignoring the rest,
Our season not starting early enough,
**** managers that are stuck in the past.
Small countries like Croatia can provide the world with world class players, how the hell can we not.

[DH1875]

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Scotland's TV deal is the fourth worst in Europe after Romania, Austria and Russia, and has actually gone DOWN compared to what it used to be. That's why.

So do the Welsh and Irish leagues have a better TV deal than us? What about places like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuanian etc.... Do they genuinely have a better TV deal than Russia? Genuine question cause if its true, I find that amazing.

[James Stephen]

Because the default style in Europe is better - more technical, more suited to European refs, posession style suits two legged competition.

As long as Scottish football (including us fans by the way, who still groan and demand 'get stuck in') exists in a technical and intellectual time warp, I think we will always be left behind.

I also think the old firm are part of the problem, as they are so obsessed with beating one another, that they do not focus on more progressive styles. Celtic under rodgers were an exception, but now they have reverted back to a 'tried and trusted' type

[Keith_M]

Is it because all the others countries produce better players?

[SRHibs]

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So do the Welsh and Irish leagues have a better TV deal than us? What about places like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuanian etc.... Do they genuinely have a better TV deal than Russia? Genuine question cause if its true, I find that amazing.

Na, there was a list of the 20 top deals quoted and we were 16th. It's not as bad as people make out.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domestic_football_league_broadcast_deals_b y_country

[Antifa Hibs]

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Na, there was a list of the 20 top deals quoted and we were 16th. It's not as bad as people make out.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...als_by_country

And thats for the world. Take out Canada/USA and Brazil and we'd be 14th in Europe. We're actually 8th in the value per game aswell. Some countries may be getting more TV cash for the season but that's for broadcasting anything from 150 live games to the whole season for each team. We only broadcast 48 games per season.

As others have pointed out i think its our mentality as a country and technical ability. See kids football training sessions now and its the same drills they're doing still as I was back in 1991 - games evolved just slightly since then...

[The 90+2]

Lack of preparation. Most teams start with **** loads of new players in the summer not ready for big competitive games. I’ve no idea why Celtic especially don’t spend the big bucks in January to mould a team to play the qualifiers. Other teams like Killie come up against teams that know how to play two legged football and have done for years and years and one out of ten they will win a qualifier against a bigger team.

Celtic looked a shambles last night. They should be building on what made them successful last season instead of trying all new kind of ****.

[The 90+2]

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So do the Welsh and Irish leagues have a better TV deal than us? What about places like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuanian etc.... Do they genuinely have a better TV deal than Russia? Genuine question cause if its true, I find that amazing.

Are the Welsh and Irish leagues at the beginning of their season? You usually find regardless of how small the team is from they countries it’s the same ones over and over again in the competition playing over two legs, finding ways to snatch wins with managers who have played or managed lots of competitive football in Europe even if the majority of they games are pumpings.

[greenlad]

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Because the default style in Europe is better - more technical, more suited to European refs, posession style suits two legged competition.

As long as Scottish football (including us fans by the way, who still groan and demand 'get stuck in') exists in a technical and intellectual time warp, I think we will always be left behind.

I also think the old firm are part of the problem, as they are so obsessed with beating one another, that they do not focus on more progressive styles. Celtic under rodgers were an exception, but now they have reverted back to a 'tried and trusted' type

This is it in a nutshell. You could also add the prevailing attitude in this country that football's "still a physical game" which manifests itself in the playing style of most teams, and also the refereeing. We get a domestic product more akin to rugby or the English lower leagues derided so much, than to the technical skillfest of a top Champions League game.

This differential means that we are nearly always badly exposed when coming up against more technical teams from so-called lesser nations. The game has moved on, but Scotland hasn't.

The TV deal excuse is nearly a complete red herring and improvement will only come when we up the skill level of our players and leagues, that way we'll be able to sell players to English clubs for more money and get a better TV deal for a more attractive product. Even with incremental improvement in that way we'll never compete with the top leagues in a commercial sense, although I don't think we'd want to anyway.

We should aspire to match the likes of Croatia, Portugal & Slovakia. All small countries with a lower GDP and dominated by a couple of larger clubs so doubt there is great broadcast revenue but the calibre of players produced is consistently better than ours over a period.

[Ozyhibby]

I think it’s down to the fact we play a very different game. The tackles, challenges and all round physicality of the game in Scotland is very different to what is played in Europe. Things that our refs let go would not be tolerated in Europe or England for that matter.
This encourages teams here to go for more physical players both in their academy recruitment and their first team recruitment. And when they go to play against European teams with European refs it is difficult to change your style of play with less technical players.


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[ballengeich]

Are our clubs really doing so badly for a country our size? We're currently 19th in the UEFA ranking. The only higher-placed countries with a smaller population are Cyprus and Croatia. Below us you'll find a number of bigger countries such as Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Switzerland et al.

What's more worrying is the lack of Scots playing in the top European leagues. There's a few in England, but the only one I can think of who's outside the UK is Liam Henderson.

[Sammy7nil]

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It's every other SPL teams fault for not providing enough competition.

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The old firm. That is the high level issue but they are the biggest problem. We will at some point over the next few days hear about a lack of competition for them in Scotland. But they fail to see the irony of that when they hoover up any talent from other clubs and then often have them playing for the stiffs. See Allan Scott, Riordan Derek as just two examples from us alone.

Both those are correct listen to sportssound tonight it ia cert to be mentioned. They dont do irony.

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There's no great mystery. Scottish football, unfortunately, isn't very good - and has not been for a long time now. Because of that there are very few players or managers/coaches involved in our game who have much experience or expertise when it comes to competing in Europe. It will be interesting to see how Rangers progress in Europe under Gerrard this season. He remains a rookie manager but brings with him a wealth of European/world experience at club and international level.

As for the players, well, the national side's record over the last quarter of a century speaks for itself and shows that we simply don't have enough quality Scottish players to make a mark outwith our domestic club competitions. However, even at club level, where there are plenty of non-Scots involved, the budgets clubs are working with simply don't allow for signings of the quality required.

Lennon has a wealth of experience as a player and manager in Europe he got it wrong. Simples

[broondog]

Because our league has been on a downward spiral and is garbage now compared to other European leagues which have seen the opposite.prty simple reely

[#2 Double Tap]

it is because we have below average managers and the biggest factor is clubs lack the foresight to sign players who will be sold on for profit.....when we sell players for big money, it is never reinvested in the team, so the teams will never progress......

people say it is impossible to do it but you have to speculate to accumulate IMO, for example think back to mcarthy and mcarthur at hamilton or naismith and boyd at killie.......even last year Kamara at dundee was there for the taking........why a club like HIBS was not signing these players to then sell on for double is why we never progress like other european teams.

[ancient hibee]

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Lack of preparation. Most teams start with **** loads of new players in the summer not ready for big competitive games. I’ve no idea why Celtic especially don’t spend the big bucks in January to mould a team to play the qualifiers. Other teams like Killie come up against teams that know how to play two legged football and have done for years and years and one out of ten they will win a qualifier against a bigger team.

Celtic looked a shambles last night. They should be building on what made them successful last season instead of trying all new kind of ****.

Celtic should have signed a quality left back in January as they knew Tierney would be leaving.Instead they rushed into buying someone who was terrible in the tie last week and couldn’t be risked this week.Suspect Lawell will be “taking up interesting opportunities” outside Celtic in the not too distant
future as their recruitment has been pretty poor in the last couple of years.

[The 90+2]

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Celtic should have signed a quality left back in January as they knew Tierney would be leaving.Instead they rushed into buying someone who was terrible in the tie last week and couldn’t be risked this week.Suspect Lawell will be “taking up interesting opportunities” outside Celtic in the not too distant
future as their recruitment has been pretty poor in the last couple of years.

Yep. They sit about being reactive instead of proactively knowing Tierney was off. Their signing policy has been honkin’ recently meanwhile the huns have caught up big time. Again they had years to sort it out and especially last January to build for the summer - maybe Brendan didn’t give a ***** though.

[chrisski33]

Because scottish football is pish and alot of folk wont admit it. Yes we maybe have 2 or 3 good players at the moment but in general Scottish clubs dont do well in Europe because Scottish football isnt good. Simples really