Che Dail
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Posts posted by Che Dail
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15 minutes ago, morrison said:
That's good to hear. Clearly, a club paying to put a second team into the middle of the established pyramid, relegating 200+ clubs in the process, isn't equitable. I look forward to a sensible proposal being put forward after appropriate consultation with all clubs in due course.
I know, I don't disagree.
However, I think there's little merit starting at Tier 8 - not for the elite clubs, or those in the lower leagues.
But they shouldn't be jumping ahead of existing Licensed clubs in the Lowland League, and probably not those competing at the top level EoSFL / WoSFL - there should be a place to get them in together.
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On 08/05/2023 at 11:59, Gordon EF said:
OK. We're going the UEFA coefficient. By that metric, Scotland is currently 9th in Europe. Above 6 of the 11 countries you refererence in your origianal post - Poland, Norway, Czech Rep, Austria, Finland, and Croatia. I think anyone would agree that's pretty good. There's currently no country ranked above Scotland that isn't at least twice our size, in terms of population.
But then we're saying "Well, if you took the old firm out of that, our ranking would drop significantly". Well... yes. Show me a country that isn't true for. Taking away the ranking points of their biggest, richest, and most successful clubs, their UEFA coefficient would plummet. That is true for every single country in Europe. Take Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletico, Sevilla, and Villareal away from Spain and they'd drop to the same level as a Belgium. Take Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Man Utd away from England and they'd drop to the level of a Portugal or Austria.
Erasing the old form from existence would change Scottish football though. We can argue about whether it would be for the better or the worse, but Scottish football wouldn't be the same without them so these kinds of comparisons are pretty redundant.
But what I was really looking for is an answer to the question "How does our UEFA coefficient improve by adopting, for example, the Norwegian or Croatian league structure?".
Let's say we copy Croatia. That would give us a structure similar to:
Premier: Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibs, St Mirren, Livingston, Motherwell, St Johnstone, Dundee Utd
Champiosnhip: Kilmarnock, Ross County, Dundee, Ayr, Queen's Park, Partick Thistle, Morton, ICT, Raith Rovers, Arbroath, Hamilton, Cove Rangers
League One: Dunfermline, Falkirk, Airdrie, Alloa, QoS, Edinburgh, Montrose, Kelty, Clyde, Peterhead, Stirling, Dumbarton, Annan, East Fife, Forfar, Stenhouemuir
And we relegate Stranraer, Bonnyrigg, Elgin, and Albion Rovers to the LL/HL.
Tell me why you think effectively combining Leagues One and Two and dropping 4 clubs down to the LL and HL is going to help imprive Aberdeen, Hibs, Hearts, and Dundee Utd in European competition.
Is tha fact that Bonnyrigg play Elgin holding back Hearts?
How are you getting from thought A to conclusion B?
I'm very open to change as well but if you can't explain why a change is benficial, it's a good sign that it's not a very good idea.
Bit of a diatribe, but I'll respond to one particular bit I'm interested in, which is to borrow a league structure from another country and see what it looks like for Scotland.
Since you've mentioned Norway, I've run with that. Norway's performance at Beijing Olympics burnished its reputation as having the best sports system in the world, both in elite performance and making a meaningful contribution to communities and its democracy (aspen Institute). Football should be seen in that wider context.
Nonetheless, Molde and Bodo/Glimt appear at 42 and 46th in Europe, behind Celtic at 32. Molde's average attendance is about 5500, Bodo/Glimt is 6000. These are small clubs by comparison and punching well above their weight in Europe.
Molde: 31 player squad includes 1 Dane and 1 Swede. The rest are Norwegian.
Bodo/ Glimt : 31 squad, 25 are Norwegian.
Rosenburg: 26 squad, 18 Norwegian
It's an exporter of talent - its elite players are abroad, similar to Scotland.
There are 27 B teams in its league structure. This is not universally popular, and is regularly questioned by clubs (and fans) that don't have one. But the FA and participating clubs conclude, consistently, that there are more positives than negatives with the way it is organized now.
If Scotland was to adopt the Norwegian league structure (which, incidentally, is the same format as Spain, Czech Rep and Austria) it would promote just about every club, allow free-movement between leagues, and a necessary departure from woeful 10-team leagues.
There's a place for B-teams starting at the bottom of the 'semi-professional' game (licensed clubs). Feeder leagues below would be streamlined regionally further down - avoiding scenarios like Hawick v St Andrews at tier 7, for example.
Importantly, it would provide a far more satisfactory outcome for Dundee and P&K clubs via the Midland League - and competitive local football for amateur / semi-pro players at grassroots level.
Apologies if I've omitted a club, or duplicated one:
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Just now, Burnieman said:
B teams in the Pyramid won't fix that.
Not in itself, perhaps.
But I think it could be part of the solution, along with an actual pyramid-shaped league structure (with or without B teams).
We need to look at the whole picture and present a proposal that is equitable for all.
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4 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:
That's impressive for a club that's not played group stage football since 2008. How many of those above can say the same?
No idea, info is here:
https://www.uefa.com/nationalassociations/uefarankings/club/#/yr/2023
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On 08/05/2023 at 11:52, virginton said:
Why would you remove the performances of the two top qualifying clubs from Scotland - but not the top two performers from any other country?
What would the standard of Hearts, Aberdeen etc.'s squads be like, if they had access to the Champions route to the UCL (for progression through a couple of qualifiers) and an almost guaranteed route to the Europa League group stage?
The 'comparison' being made by roaster Scottish journalists is completely ridiculous.
Removing the top two teams from every other country would place Aberdeen 88th in Europe, with clubs from 23 countries above them.
This includes: 6 from Belgium, Netherlands = 5, Austria=4, Turkey= 4, Cyprus= 3, and 1 each from Switzerland, Israel, Norway, Denmark, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovakia and Romania.
The article (in case you didn't get to the end) concludes:
Any way you want to dress it up, Scottish teams’ under-performing in European competition when removing Rangers and Celtic from the equation doesn’t merely not add up; it is nothing short of criminal.
Having previously stated:
In coming up short with the best showings from the League Of Ireland, this ‘ah, but’ attitude falls apart when considering the scale of Scotland’s cinch Premiership compared to the Irish Premier Division. Sligo’s player budget is around a third of Motherwell’s outlay. In Irish terms, it is pretty average, which means that the squad wage bills of such as Aberdeen and Hibs were up to six times Dundalk’s when they made their group stage breakthrough two years ago.
On this performance, it is far-fetched to believe that Scottish clubs would progress to the Champions League in the absence of Celtic and Rangers from the league structure any time soon. In fact, we already have data from the period in which Rangers were absent from the top league.
Change is overdue - I don't like the Conference League proposal as it stands and I believe there's a better way forward following precedent from abroad.
Note that of those 23 countries with clubs performing better than ours, 18 allow B teams in their pyramid - close to 80%.
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10 hours ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:
A fantastic post, but wasted, I fear, on our resident "Furrin=guid, Sco'ish=rubbidge" poster.
Scottish Parochialism is 'rubbidge' when it holds our country back.
Football is just a microcosm of our collective "too wee, too poor, too stupid" mindset - while other small countries thrive.
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12 hours ago, Gordon EF said:
Totally accept that conservatism for it's own sake is not productive. But neither is just saying 'X country does this, so should we'.
When you say things like 'poor', 'weaken', 'better', what do you actually mean? Are you saying that Scotland currently has a poorer league system than all of the countries you mention above? If so, what are you basing that on and why do you think mirroring their structure would bring about an improvement? I'm not asking for some PhD thesis, just some justification for how you're getting from A - 'the Scottish league system is poorer than countries who have a wider pyramid structure' to B - 'the Scottish league would become better by intoducing increased regionalisation further up the structure'.
I'd like to see a change to our league structure but you have to take context and geography into account.
Spain, France, Poland, and Germany are much larger than Scotland geographically and in terms of population. I'm not sure they should be the best blueprint for Scotland.
Take Norway and Croatia. Norway has 32 clubs playing in national leagues (top two tiers). Only 10 fewer than Scotland. Do you think that's a truly significant difference? Do games in the Norwegian second tier represent "best vs best" in a way that games in Scottish Leagues One and Two don't? Then we've got geography. Norway is much larger than Scotland. The distances involved are vast compared to here. The average travelling distance for even a Norwegian regionalised league will be larger than a national Scottish league. Then we've got club size. The lowest attendeces in the Norweigin second tier is just over 500. Not far off Scottish League Two. So roughly speaking, Norway regionalises at around the same 'size' of club as Scotland does but also still asks clubs to travel much, much larger distances, on average. If you combined the four national Scottish leagues into 2 tiers, the top 3 tiers would actually look remarkably similar. So why do you think the Norwegian model is better than the Scottish?
The Croatian league has 38 clubs playing in national leagues - a whopping 4 fewer than Scotland. The average attendence in the second tier is just 362 - lower than tier 4 in Scotland. So in terms of size of clubs and resources, the Croatian system has much smaller clubs than Scotland playing at a national level. The average attendence of the lowest national level - tier 3 - is just 247. Given Croatia's geography and populaiton distribution, average distances travelled are probably comparable to those in Scotland.
So by what metrics do you think the Norwegian or Croatian league systems are better than the Scottish one and how are you attributing that to the extent of regionalisation? Given that Croatia has much smaller clubs playing at a national level and travel, for equivalently sized clubs, is far greater in Norway than it is in Scotland.
"Without Rangers and Celtic Scottish top flight has European standing of League of Ireland - Aberdeen and Hibs damned by the parallel"
The 'metric' referred to in this article is the points system set by UEFA - hope this is sufficient to answer that part of your long question.
Motherwell beaten by Sligo Rovers. Kilmarnock by Connah Quay Nomads. Hibs v Riejka. Aberdeen v Quarabaq of Azerbaijan. Dundee United v MyPa, Finland. These are our full-time, professional clubs - a world away from Tier 3, 4, 5 and 6.
I'd like Scottish clubs to improve in Europe, and willing to keep an open mind about progressive change - it is long overdue.
I'm not alone in thinking there's something wrong with the current structure, but I don't think adding another tier is the answer.
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12 hours ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:
Interesting how the English system is not included in the infographic provided by @Che Dail, with its famously weak league system (Are you sure? - Ed.) consisting of, err... 5 (FIVE) national divisions in a column before splitting into the "twin bollocks" model and beyond.
Almost as if the structure is irrelevant to whether B Teams should be present or not. Hint: the answer is "not".
England, like Scotland, is conservative in its detached ‘no thanks’ approach to change, and to adopting progressive ideas from the continent.
In terms of its league structure, I question the value of Crawley v Carlisle in League 2 (T4), or Gateshead v Torquay (T5), and think earlier regionalization of leagues, similar to Spain, France, Portugal & Germany would enhance the footballing offer.
The top tier is effectively a European Super League with its model based on ultra-debt and investment from questionable sources. The English 'system' is failing numerous clubs on the brink of insolvency, which is why there’s an ongoing government-led review and reform being planned.
Broadly, it is financially unsustainable: a £4bn gap between revenues of Premier League clubs and those of Championship clubs, the gap widening further down the ‘pyramid’.
I don’t think it’s a good example for Scottish Football to follow.
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Hopefully some good comes out of this supporters-led campaign to re-think the Conference proposal before it is realized.
The pause caused by COVID was an opportunity to make changes to Scottish football, but nothing meaningful has emerged yet.
In Europe, ‘Pyramid’ refers not only to promotion and relegation, but to the actual shape of the structure: a narrow top with a limited number of elite professional clubs (best v best), and a wide, strong base with numerous semi-professional and amateur sides split regionally - often at Tier 3 or 4.
In Scotland, we have a linear column-like structure, with a repeated 10-team national format in which semi-professional clubs play each other (fearfully) 4 times a season. It's poor as it is - adding another ‘storey’ into this column would weaken it further.
If the SFA were to design a structure first, learning from European examples, we’d have a much better system for the benefit of all - and 'promotion', of sorts, for most clubs.
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1 minute ago, MrWorldwideJr said:
At the risk of stating the obvious, you can't just pick a country with B teams integrated into their structure, reel off their good players and then say 'See, B Teams work!'. All that you've proved is that if B teams exist in a structure then young players tend to have played in them at some point.
You haven't proved that B teams are the reason they turned out to be good players or made any contribution to their development that they couldn't have gotten in another way.
You could just as easily pick out a nation without B teams and reel off a bunch of good players who never played in one and say 'See, B teams don't work!'.
Tell that to Pep Guardiola, and Ferran Soriano at Man City.
"Developing players in England is a problem. B teams aren't allowed and we have a development vacuum for players between the ages of 17 and 18".
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29 minutes ago, Burnieman said:
How can they be strong when they don't have B teams? England are producing better and better youngsters, their under age teams are very strong in tournaments. They don't have B teams.
They do have B teams - but not in the league structure.
With the size of the country, the wealth of its top-level clubs, and the quantity of them, perhaps there is sufficient competition and development opportunities in reserve leagues. It has been shown that this doesn't adequately work for Scotland, unfortunately.
Germany, as a comparator, does have B teams - as does France, and Spain.
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22 minutes ago, Bully Wee Villa said:
Still, fair play. Suggesting that Manchester City's success is down to the number of B team matches their players took part it rather than, say, the billion or so quid they've spent is certainly a bold take.
Eh, you've made that up.
The suggestion is that a number of elite players, including some of the very best in the world, at the best clubs in the world, have played in B Teams.
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6 minutes ago, FairWeatherFan said:
Yes please, that's two players out of 100s if not 1000s. One of whom left Norwegian football when just after turning 16. There ain't many 15 years old playing top flight football. I think a blind bat could tell you would jump at Odegaard.
Which is why I asked for players. Not one.
Oh ok - not content with Haaland and Odegaard. in fairness, they are probably the only two world-class Norwegian players .
Here are some full Norway Internationals for your list:
Alex Sorloth (27) - Rosenborg B - now Leipzig (on loan to Real Sociedad). 45 Caps.
Kristoffer Ajer (24yr old) - Lillestrom B - now Brentford. 27 Caps
Sander Berge (25) - Asker B, Valerenga B - now Sheff Utd. 32 Caps
Orjan Nyland (32) - Ingolstadt B - then Aston VIlla, now Leipzig. 42 Caps
and if I can be permitted Mats Moller Daehli (28) - Freiburg B (GER). 35 Caps.
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1 minute ago, the jambo-rocker said:
Nobody is saying that.
But you literally just did, again.
No, I didn't. Read it again.
There's a distinction between saying: "It played a part in their development"(fact)
and
"It's the only reason they got to the level they did" (not a fact)
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1 minute ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:
You think Rantic and the SFA are going to share a meaningful proportion of any transfer income with the rest of the league?
Hahahahahaha.
Ha.
When you have something that other people want, and it has value, you can sell it. That's how business works.
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3 minutes ago, the jambo-rocker said:
My favourite bit about this argument is that these players would not have went onto anywhere near the level they are at without playing B team football.
Talk about trying to prove a fucking negative.
Nobody is saying that.
But it is an undeniable fact that it played a part in their careers.
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Just now, Bully Wee Villa said:
What a tremendous boost to the England national team those players have been. Scotland will definitely win the World Cup if we have more B teams in the league system.
Well, it could be argued that they have.
Because without them, and other players of their ilk, the English Premiership would not offer the standard of competition that it currently does.
The England National team is strong because the best English players are playing with and against the best international players every week.
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1 minute ago, FairWeatherFan said:
Maybe reel off a list of world class players produced from Norweigian B teams? Sure that would help show that Haaland wasn't a generational talent.
Martin Odegaard: Stromsgodet C, B and 1st Team. Then Real Madrid, now Arsenal.
Or do you want more?
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Just now, Ranaldo Bairn said:
They successfully hoard more and more players and opportunities to a very small minority of clubs, to the detriment of the other clubs and leagues as a whole, I'll concede that.
And it doesn't have to be like that if clubs see it as an opportunity instead of a threat.
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27 minutes ago, craigkillie said:
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Erling Haaland might have turned into the best goalscorer in the world even if he hadn't played some games in the Norwegian lower leagues.
We'll never know the answer to that guess.
Same goes for Messi, Mbappe, deJong, Gakpo, Benzema, Lewandowski etc etc.
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1 minute ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:
Now repeat the exercise for good players who came up through the youth levels / reserve (or equivalent) team.
Oh look. It will massively outweigh B team graduates.
Yes, all development systems can co-exist, a 'blended' approach, as they do successfully across the continent.
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League clubs should negotiate a long-term stake in the success of professional B-Teams.
Benfica generated $1.5bn in transfer sale fees since 2000. That’s $65m per annum.
Other clubs in Portugal have played a part in their development by providing professional competition – they are invested.
It is possible that Rangers and Celtic could generate similar revenues over a period of time, and some of this should be shared with those who have contributed - if they can capitalize on this opportunity now.
A system should be created whereby everyone is incentivized to make the project a success, and they all are properly and fairly rewarded over time.
The Old Firm needs other clubs for their business model to work, therefore the other clubs deserve a share of the profit.
For example, 15% of a $130m pot (or £100m) trickling back to league clubs every year = £15m. Currently, Club Licensing and Club Academy Scotland payments generate what, £1.5m? Peanuts by comparison.
There was a similar model for community clubs to be remunerated for cross-border transfers (eg Craig Gordon to Sunderland) – I believe this still exists through the Player Passport scheme.
Carpe diem!
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Man City 7 last night:
Ederson, Dias, Silva – Benfica B (POR)
Rodri – Villareal B (SPA)
Akanji – Winterhur & Basel B (SWI)
Gundogan – Bochum and Dortmund (GER)
Haaland – Bryne, Molde (NOR)
7 world-class players, all with international caps, played B-team football in 5 different countries as part of their development.
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55 minutes ago, GNU_Linux said:
I for one think we should be taking notes from the successes of Norway
Yes, read Soccernomics, 'Chapter 16: The Curse of Poverty' and you'll find out why Norway is one of the most successful sporting nations in the world, per capita.
Football success includes the likes of Erling Haaland who played B team football for 2 clubs (Bryne and Molde) in Norway and was also exceptional at Handball and Athletics. Martin Odegaard played for B and C teams at Stromsgodet, then 58 times for Real Madrid Castilla.
Both are world-class players in the making, if not already.
Heia Norge.
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Conference League Good Guys List
in Lowland League
Posted
'Nobody wants B Teams' is not a correct statement.
We learned that once the 'No to B Teams' campaign stepped out of its P+B echo-chamber onto twitter... where people are allowed to express a different opinion.