Karamoko Dembele

[Gordopolis]

17 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Given who they appointed to oversee it, the SFA are showing they don't particularly care about Project Brave, especially since it's obvious that Mackay would leave right away if a semi decent job offer came in. He's already said he wants the Scotland job full time (before the McLeish appointment), so aside from his utter lack of skills and experience for such a role, he isn't really committed, and as such the SFA aren't really committed.

 

Plus Project Brave is fucking garbage and will probably be scrapped within a few years.

The commitment aspect is always going to be shaky. Part of any good strategy should be a built-in resilience to turnover of personnel. I'm not saying PB has this resilience, but we don't know for sure it hasn't.

Re my bolded bit, personnel aside,  can you explain why PB is garbage? Does it advocate eating monster munch and playing kick and rush football? I genuinely don't know what  the mechanics of the system are and as such I'm struggling to buy into the 'it's shite full stop' narrative. What I do see is a system that has been put in place (where previously there was nothing but a vacuum) and seems to be engaged and trying to reach a level above where we're at. That sounds positive to me, though I do understand the way it has been done has left a lot of accusations of favouritism/elitism. 

 

7 hours ago, LondonSons said:

If, in a few years, results at senior level have markedly improved and we are holding on to players who could choose England, Ireland or any other country then great, it will have worked. 

At the moment however, are our youth teams showing progress and do young players with dual nationality want to play for us? Is the right man in charge of PB at the SFA? Does any other successful or improving European nation essentially leave youth development in the hands of the clubs? 

"At the moment however, are our youth teams showing progress and do young players with dual nationality want to play for us?"

--Youth teams aren't markedly worse of better results wise I'd say. TBC

--Dual nationality? The recent examples of Harry Souttar and (probably) Karamoko Dembele might suggest we are not catching the guys we could be. But both of those guys are not yet through the Scotland net. Also, you could point to John Souttar, Oli Burke, Scott McTominay and perhaps Oli McBurnie as examples of recent players who had options and chose us

 

"Is the right man in charge of PB at the SFA?"

--This one is contentious and subjective. It depends on whether your values lie in the 'everyone deserves a shot at redemption' or the 'tiger can never change its stripes' camp. I think this issue could have been easily avoided though. There were plenty of other candidates for this role.

 

"Does any other successful or improving European nation essentially leave youth development in the hands of the clubs? "

--I don't know! Hence my question - what's the difference between our 'shite' Project Brave and Belgium or Germany's 'wonderful' systems?

Edited April 23, 2019 by Gordopolis

[Savage Henry]

It's a good question.  I'm not even sure I know what Project Brave is.  

If recent events are anything to go by, it means scrapping the development league so that more 29 year olds can play in the reserves, and Scott Gemmill telling his players to smack the ball 60 yards after keeping possession for three seconds.  The under 21s went to Toulon and played hoofball against under 17 and under 18 players - and Keith Jackson et al use it as evidence to further the cause of Scot Gemmill, when in fact it was a complete horror show.

The concern, I'd say, is the lack of second or third generation immigrants coming into the national side.  Going back, Iwelumo and Anya are two of the very rare examples of players who have been genuinely successful within the Scottish system, whereas England, Wales and the ROI have been much more productive in  it.  This seems on the surface to be true in rugby as well.  In football, we seem to have a very small pool of central and southern Scots mixed in with English born Scots making up the number.

I'd hazard a guess that the problem is that "academy" in Scotland is a rebranding of the old YTS, where every team's young players are classed as "academy products", which only really serves to make clubs feel good about themselves.  I'd imagine that even in England, the word "Academy" has very specific meaning and qualifications.  

[Aufc]

Everywhere I read is says the biggest thing holding scotland back is putting B teams in the lower leagues like they do in holland and spain. Is that the case?

[LondonSons]

4 hours ago, Gordopolis said:

The commitment aspect is always going to be shaky. Part of any good strategy should be a built-in resilience to turnover of personnel. I'm not saying PB has this resilience, but we don't know for sure it hasn't.

Re my bolded bit, personnel aside,  can you explain why PB is garbage? Does it advocate eating monster munch and playing kick and rush football? I genuinely don't know what  the mechanics of the system are and as such I'm struggling to buy into the 'it's shite full stop' narrative. What I do see is a system that has been put in place (where previously there was nothing but a vacuum) and seems to be engaged and trying to reach a level above where we're at. That sounds positive to me, though I do understand the way it has been done has left a lot of accusations of favouritism/elitism. 

 

"At the moment however, are our youth teams showing progress and do young players with dual nationality want to play for us?"

--Youth teams aren't markedly worse of better results wise I'd say. TBC

--Dual nationality? The recent examples of Harry Souttar and (probably) Karamoko Dembele might suggest we are not catching the guys we could be. But both of those guys are not yet through the Scotland net. Also, you could point to John Souttar, Oli Burke, Scott McTominay and perhaps Oli McBurnie as examples of recent players who had options and chose us

 

"Is the right man in charge of PB at the SFA?"

--This one is contentious and subjective. It depends on whether your values lie in the 'everyone deserves a shot at redemption' or the 'tiger can never change its stripes' camp. I think this issue could have been easily avoided though. There were plenty of other candidates for this role.

 

"Does any other successful or improving European nation essentially leave youth development in the hands of the clubs? "

--I don't know! Hence my question - what's the difference between our 'shite' Project Brave and Belgium or Germany's 'wonderful' systems?

Answer is no, Belgium and others do not just leave it up to the clubs per Project Brave. That much we know.

[DA Baracus]

6 hours ago, Gordopolis said:

The commitment aspect is always going to be shaky. Part of any good strategy should be a built-in resilience to turnover of personnel. I'm not saying PB has this resilience, but we don't know for sure it hasn't.

Re my bolded bit, personnel aside,  can you explain why PB is garbage? Does it advocate eating monster munch and playing kick and rush football? I genuinely don't know what  the mechanics of the system are and as such I'm struggling to buy into the 'it's shite full stop' narrative. What I do see is a system that has been put in place (where previously there was nothing but a vacuum) and seems to be engaged and trying to reach a level above where we're at. That sounds positive to me, though I do understand the way it has been done has left a lot of accusations of favouritism/elitism. 

- The Elite level criteria mean only certain clubs can afford that level. These are the bigger clubs where youth players have been shown to get less chance

- The coaching of the coaches won't change. You'll still get dinosaurs like Billy Dodds who once read the ancient Largs handbook and thought that was enough

- The measurement of performance for each academy is like setting a hospital targets. This means that they'll strain and take shortcuts to mert those targets. Furthermore the MPOs are a way to rank clubs, and clubs below a certain position can't get in to a certain level and therefore can't secure more funding. But given some academies are newer, how can they possibly meet these arbitrary MPOs (which include number of youth players who have made the first team, who are out on loan and who have been capped)?

- There's too much emphasis on physical development at a younger age (rather than developing technique, you could end up with youth teams full of the biggest lads just bullying their way to wins, as as far as I can see the youth groups aren't seperated by weight and height, as each club has its own structure in their academy). Which leads to..

- Lack of consistency in structure. All academies can run their own structure as long as they meet the entry criteria

- It does nothing to address participation. All the noted models (Iceland etc) are big on this. They get more and more kids playing, and have them enjoy it. The last point re physicality can have an impact here. Tying in to this is..

- It does nothing to address facilities and access to them. Academies in Project Brave have to meet a criteria for facilities (depending on which level they're in; obviously the higher the level the higher the criteria), but usually those facilities are just for their academies (and why not?). The Iceland model saw them install thousands of pitches across their country and gave anyone who wanted access to one said access. We still hear, far too often, of teams here scrambling to find pitches to play on, or not being able to afford to hire one out.

- No emphasis on greater coaching numbers, to a high level, i.e more highly trained and qualified coaches. It does ask academies to have more coaches, but it doesn't go far enough.

- They hired an arsehole to head it, but worse, a guy with no experience or qualifications to head it and who isn't committed and who never was. The same guy is also a massive dickhead who does not encourage involvement due to what he said before.

 

Most importantly though is that Project Brave doesn't address the two key factors; our coaching and our players aren't good enough.

PB is designed to funnel the best players we have in to the first teams of our top clubs, and ultimately the national team. But these players aren't good enough. We're just funneling decent but not great players to the top, because we are incapable of producing and nurturing great players, in terms of both naturally gifted players and those who can be coached to be great. A large problem is that our coaches are not good enough and not numerous enough. We need to make them good enough before we increase the number. It seems that we churn out plenty of ok coaches, but the impression I get is that many think what the SFA courses and UEFA badges teach them is enough, and don't look any further beyond that. 

So basically Project Brave, for its apparent well meaning intentions, does not address the major issues. It's a deckchair on the Titanic rearrangement.

[craigkillie]

2 hours ago, LondonSons said:

Answer is no, Belgium and others do not just leave it up to the clubs per Project Brave. That much we know.

The SFA has several performance schools which form a big part of their strategy. They don't just "leave it up to the clubs", they have boys in from age 12 working together with elite coaches. Brian McLaughlin did a really good interview about them on the SFA podcast and came across very well. Several of the first intake are starting to break into first teams across the country.

[Savage Henry]

Billy Dodds is far from a coaching dinosaur. He may be a semi literate pug dog on the radio, but he’s an excellent and proactive coach.

Coaching dinosaurs, to me, are the guys at the top of the tree who pat each other on the back while exchanging jobs every other year.

[Andre Bo]

38 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

Billy Dodds is far from a coaching dinosaur. He may be a semi literate pug dog on the radio, but he’s an excellent and proactive coach.

Coaching dinosaurs, to me, are the guys at the top of the tree who pat each other on the back while exchanging jobs every other year.

 

[Enigma]

Best thing for we could do to produce better players would be to send our best off to Spain or somewhere else at age 14.

[The Moonster]

12 hours ago, Enigma said:

Best thing for we could do to produce better players would be to send our best off to Spain or somewhere else at age 14.

The Andy Murray approach.

[forameus]

14 hours ago, Savage Henry said:

a semi literate pug dog on the radio

Tremendous.  Just tremendous.

Maybe dundeebarry had it right all along.  He does really like fitbaw.

[DanMc99]

karamoko potbele

[Enigma]

The Andy Murray approach.

Pretty much.

[GordonS]

On 20/04/2019 at 22:03, Kuro said:

No voter found.  How about the fact he grew up here, and has lived here 95% of his life, and this country helped him become the player and person he is, and all his friends are from here etc etc etc.

Plenty of guys in that position who lived in England all their lives chose to play for us, and we all know it's because they would never have been capped for England so it was the only way they'd get international football. Fair enough. This boy is no different, he's picking from the countries for whom he's eligible to play. It's just that he has the choice of trading up rather than down.

[Miguel Sanchez]

12 hours ago, The Moonster said:

The Andy Murray approach.

The Antoine Griezmann approach.

[Kuro]

21 minutes ago, GordonS said:

Plenty of guys in that position who lived in England all their lives chose to play for us, and we all know it's because they would never have been capped for England so it was the only way they'd get international football. Fair enough. This boy is no different, he's picking from the countries for whom he's eligible to play. It's just that he has the choice of trading up rather than down.

It's still a.shameful thing to.do for a guy who has grown up in Scotland, inexcusable behaviour and reflects very badly on him.  

[Sharker]

He'll look very stupid when we win the world cup.

[forameus]

9 hours ago, Kuro said:

It's still a.shameful thing to.do for a guy who has grown up in Scotland, inexcusable behaviour and reflects very badly on him.  

I'm sure he's gutted you think so, even if it is just the IPFA you're a member of.

[RobbieD]

On 24/04/2019 at 10:56, The Moonster said:

The Andy Murray approach.

How did that work for the future of British tennis?

[Gordopolis]

KD playing live right now on BBC Scotland (old firm youth cup final)