Scotland Under 19s

[Poet of the Macabre]

5 hours ago, The Moonster said:

It's not really strange though is it?

Clearly we had a group of decent young players who did well in one tournament. Spain have a conveyor belt of talent that allows them to challenge for finals at every age group, every year. Spain have top coaches and looking from the outside, a culture and work ethic that breeds good players. We have Ricky Sbragia, an awful drinking culture and a horrible negative outlook on everything. A quick Google search doesn't give a definitive figure, but you could say Spanish football brings in circa £100M in TV Deals, probably more? Our league takes in £32M a year in TV deals.

Surely the idea is these players had already been "produced" to a certain extent?

If anything the lack of resources our league has should mean younger players have a better chance of developing, as they'd be a far cheaper option than going for more expensive foreign imports.

It's quite depressing that almost none of the squad have went on to have elite careers. I don't think anyone could expect them to match up with the likes of Pique and Mata but I'd hope two or three were Scotland regulars at this stage.

[Poet of the Macabre]

Also, we got pumped 4-0 by Portugal and had two players sent off in the space of two minutes. Celtic's Robbie Deas and Rangers' Stephen Kelly were the guilty pair.

I think playing 40 minutes with 9 men, against one of the best youth sides on the planet, we should be glad they declared at 4.

[The Moonster]

39 minutes ago, Poet of the Macabre said:

Surely the idea is these players had already been "produced" to a certain extent?

If anything the lack of resources our league has should mean younger players have a better chance of developing, as they'd be a far cheaper option than going for more expensive foreign imports.

It's quite depressing that almost none of the squad have went on to have elite careers. I don't think anyone could expect them to match up with the likes of Pique and Mata but I'd hope two or three were Scotland regulars at this stage.

How many of those players were playing first team football at the time? They weren't "produced", they were in production, and the majority have fallen off the line. 

Your second paragraph has logic to it, but we all know that's not how it's worked in reality (hence we have our biggest clubs complaining that these boys need to be playing in Colt sides against other league teams rather than giving them a game themselves).

It's depressing, frustrating and annoying in equal measure but until Scottish culture changes, or we have a radical approach to sports education/coaching, I don't see how we markedly improve the number of players coming through and having good careers.