If Scotland were...

[GordonS]

9 minutes ago, velo army said:

Ach I meant 2017. Cheers

I ought to have realised that. Sorry.

I think it was classic Scotland stuff of upping our game when it's already too late - the home draw with Lithuania and the two 3-0 defeats to England and Slovakia left us needing snookers. Some fun matches in there though - in our 6 qualifiers in 2017 we won 6 points in the last 4 minutes of matches with two wins and two draws.

[The OP]

Just now, welshbairn said:

Do you have the data or are you just trying to start a pointless argument?

Pointless argument all the way. Although your point seemed to be more “too many Playstations” than based upon data. That’s why I was being a dick.

[D.A.F.C]

I remember watching us throw away a two goal lead to ten man Belgium and we arguably had the better team on paper.

How have Belgium turned it around? We couldn’t get a player on their bench now.

We need to look at Iceland and other sides and invest properly in youth football. England has finally realised a good youth setup must be followed into the full side and they are only going to get better and better. Or we can keep pretending that getting second rate pseudo Scots from the English lower leagues will achieve something. Robertson and Tierney got a chance young, so did the Livingston and Hamilton lads. Let’s scrap throwing money at the full squad and look to have the best youth team around. We always seem to do well at the Toulon tournament. Where does this talent go?

[nsr]

We need to educate young Scottish lads that regularly getting drunk may be a fun way to spend a night out but it's not conducive to a career as a professional athlete.

[Peppino Impastato]

1 hour ago, No_Problemo said:

Some of the posts on here - f**k me.

The top of the billing - we are far better than Iceland. Genuinely scary opinion.

Some massive revisionism in saying that Costa Rica were on a different level from us in the recent friendly. They were slightly better until we brought some of our better players on at half time.

Yes, we should beat Panama and Saudi Arabia. We would give the likes of Iceland, Poland etc a game but they are clearly consistently better than us over the course of a campaign. After watching Iran and Morocco tonight they’re far better than us.

Which Iceland players would get a game for Scotland?  How many Scotland players do you think would get in the Iceland squad?  I think about fifty.

[Dindeleux]

Scotland were unlucky not to qualify and only really had one bad result in that qualifying campaign. Germany did the damage for us be giving 4 points to Ireland.

I think the attitude of it being down to luck is part of the problem. In the group for Euro 2016 we did very well for large parts of some of the big games. Poor game management when we threw away points cost us. Ireland produced when it mattered.

Which Iceland players would get a game for Scotland?  How many Scotland players do you think would get in the Iceland squad?  I think about fifty.

I know you love to troll but I think saying 50 players is just stupid. You would be down to players like, forgive me for saying this Hibees and my fellow Killie fans, Lewis Stevenson and Eammonn Brophy in that case.

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

2 hours ago, nsr said:

We need to educate young Scottish lads that regularly getting drunk may be a fun way to spend a night out but it's not conducive to a career as a professional athlete.

Absolute hogwash. The team that drinks together wins together. You'd be asking these lads to give up a key element of what it is to be Scottish and if you're willing to do that then we'd be as well just filling the entire team with England rejects. 

[Young Eddie]

It's been scary watching how good some of these teams are, the players just look totally comfortable and at ease on the ball. Scottish players often seem on the verge or miscontrolling or losing the ball and are ill at ease playing a possession game. Until we concentrate on training young players to develop technique we will continue to struggle. We don't have the physical size or stature of the Scandinavians either, so we need to come up with alternatives to succeed.

Our chronic lack of progress has also diminished our ambitions. Now it is seen as the holy grail for Scotland to qualify for a WC-  back in the 80s/90s we were ridiculed for never managing to get out of the group phase at WC finals. We've reset our goals so that success now is defined by qualifying for a major tournament. And who knows when that will happen.

That's actually quite depressing. I'm away for a cry now.

[GordonS]

3 hours ago, D.A.F.C said:

We always seem to do well at the Toulon tournament. Where does this talent go?

I watch a lot of age-grade international football, and Scotland have had the same pattern for a long, long time.

All our players know their positions. They know how to hold their shape, usually a 4-4-2. They track their runners, keep the lines tight when out of possession, know who's around them and know how to manage a game. They make good decisions.

Our opponents are usually weaker at these things, but they have much better technique. I've watched many games in which every single opponent has better technique than the best player on our team.

I think what happens is that our guys grow up playing loads of 11-a-side football on full-size pitches, in league and cup competitions, so they arrive at these matches with hugely more experience. Even our U17 players could easily be averaging over 150, 200 full-size competitive matches under their belts while their opponents might have fewer than 50. There's also positioning - in Scotland you can be anointed a left-back from the age of 9. That's considered madness in other countries, where they'll make everyone play every position, so it gives our boys an extra edge.

You can learn shape and tactical discipline as you get older, but you can't learn technique in your 20s. So countries we beat at age-grade level end up beating us at full international. They get better and we don't.

Another way you can see the problem is go through wiki and see the Scotland squads from previous age-grade tournaments that we qualified for. Hardly any of the players made it as pros. Then look at the squads of the other teams. Most of them made it as pros. We've been picking the biggest, strongest, fastest, most developed boys, not the best footballers.

I think that's all changed a lot very recently - the bits of the Toulon Tournament that I saw showed a Scotland team that's much more comfortable on the ball, from back to front. But we're still miles and miles behind Iceland and Belgium, never mind Spain or Germany.

Incidentally, the same is true of England, who are by far the biggest under-achievers among the major footballing countries. Their record is utter shit. Look at their peers:

Germany: World Cup: 4 wins, 4 runners-up, 5 other semi-finals. Euros: 3 wins, 3 runners-up, 3 other semis.

France: World Cup: 1 win, 1 runner-up, 3 other semis. Euros: 2 wins, 1 runner-up, 2 other semis.

Spain: World Cup: 1 win, 1 other semi. Euros: 3 wins, 1 runner-up.

Italy: World Cup: 4wins, 2 runners-up, 2 other semis. Euros: 1 win, 2 runners-up, 2 other semis.

England: World Cup: 1 win, 1 other semi. Euros: 2 semi-finals.

The last time England made semi-final anywhere other than Wembley was 1990. Since then all the big boys have been there several times, as have Sweden (2), Bulgaria, Croatia, Netherlands (6), Turkey (2), South Korea, Portugal (5 incl a win), Uruguay, Denmark (win), Czech Republic (2 incl a win), Greece (win), Russia and... Wales. England have lagged well behind their peers since 1972, without any excuse.

51 minutes ago, Young Eddie said:

It's been scary watching how good some of these teams are, the players just look totally comfortable and at ease on the ball.

 

In 2010 I saw Scotland U21 draw 2-2 with Azerbaijan in Falkirk. It was the first time I'd seen a promising young Dundee striker called Leigh Griffiths in the flesh, he came off the bench to score. Every single one of the Azeris had better touch than any Scotland players. It was really depressing. Our better game management got us a draw, but we were outclassed. By Azerbaijan.

I think it still more likely to get worse than better.

[velo army]

Very cogent analysis. Highly depressing too.

[Scary Bear]

Which Iceland players would get a game for Scotland?  How many Scotland players do you think would get in the Iceland squad?  I think about fifty.

None. They have already chosen Iceland.

None. They already play for Scotland.

50! That’s a big squad!

Can you name the 50 Scotland players who are better than Iceland players?

Have we got that many players who’ve currently been capped?

[Scary Bear]

Why does my [emoji174] feel so bad?

Why does my soul feel so bad?

Bring back Bertie. He had the measure of fucking Iceland.

[Cerberus]

I have no doubt we have decent talent coming through but it all falls apart because we have uber diddies like Andy Kirk and Paul Sheering coaching them.
What have those 2 learned in their career to pass along to anyone, never mind teenage footballers who are potentially better than them?

We need a generation of players who have never played in Scotland.
Ideally not even Scottish. Find 11 guys with English great-grannies.

[Lex]

I think Scotland are farther away now from a World Cup than we’ve ever been.

 

We used to regularly qualify. Then we used to nearly qualify. We don’t even nearly qualify anymore.

 

We have two excellent young left backs in Tierney and Robertson, but apart from that... Is there any other Scottish players who are under 25 who people think could play at the top level? If so, who?

 

Griffiths seems to be talked about as the up and comer, he’ll be 32 in 2022. And he struggles to get a game for his club.

 

It’s been 20 long years without a World Cup and I wouldn’t surprise me if it’s another 20 before we get back.

 

 

[nsr]

When he was that age, I would have said James McFadden. Never really happened for him though

Edit: obviously he contributed at international level and scored THAT goal against France, and played in the English top flight, but he never hit the heights we were hoping for.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Player for player some of the teams mentioned are not that greatly superior to us.

 

The difference is that their managers seem to get a lot more out of their squads than we do.

 

With us it seems to be the sum of the parts being less than the whole.

 

 

[ShaggysBeard]

I think we'll qualify for one sooner rather than later. We were a baw hair off a play off spot this time, effectively just a lack of concentration by Stuart Armstrong and picking the wrong pass for the situation.

If we were there this year we would be one of the utter pish teams, they are all faster and stronger than us.

[forameus]

1 hour ago, Lex said:

I think Scotland are farther away now from a World Cup than we’ve ever been.

We used to regularly qualify. Then we used to nearly qualify. We don’t even nearly qualify anymore.

We have two excellent young left backs in Tierney and Robertson, but apart from that... Is there any other Scottish players who are under 25 who people think could play at the top level? If so, who?

Griffiths seems to be talked about as the up and comer, he’ll be 32 in 2022. And he struggles to get a game for his club.

It’s been 20 long years without a World Cup and I wouldn’t surprise me if it’s another 20 before we get back.

I don't think it's necessarily Scotland that are farther away now, it's everyone below a certain group.  Northern Ireland and Wales have hit purple patches recently, and the latter were in the last four of the Euros, and yet they both got brushed aside pretty easily in the playoffs once it came down to facing other, stronger 2nd placed sides.  We were very, very close to the playoffs, but had we got there we'd likely have been in the same position.  The World Cup is harder to get to than it has ever been, and I'm not sure that's a particularly Scottish problem.   The expansion of the tournament will make it slightly easier, but even then it's not giving Europe that many more spots.

We should be concentrating all of our efforts on getting to 2020, like it's the end of the world if we don't.  It isn't, obviously, but we should be able to qualify for a 24 team tournament.  If we get that one out of the way then it ceases to be the monkey on our back.  World Cups should be treated as a stretch objective.  There's no reason why we can't, but until we build up a base of a squad that actually believes they can, and has the seeding to back it up, it'll always be difficult.

[The OP]

The downfall of Communism and the breakup of Yugoslavia has certainly increased the number of teams with names ending in -ia who we will drop points to.

[nsr]

6 minutes ago, The OP said:

The downfall of Communism and the breakup of Yugoslavia has certainly increased the number of teams with names ending in -ia who we will drop points to.

So you're saying that a Yes vote followed by changing our name to Caledonia would have sorted it out?