Scots in our top flight falling - kids not getting a chance?

[Arab_R_us]

 

[Theroadlesstravelled]

No, we need kids to go to other leagues to be taught the game. Playing an 18 year old kid in frantic kick and rush SPFL game of heiders will prepare them for the top level? f**k off.

We know nothing about developing modern footballers. Start there.

[Richey Edwards]

I'd be tempted to start up and coming youngsters John Fleck and James Forrest in the next few Scotland games to let them show what they're capable of.

[DA Baracus]

2 hours ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

No, we need kids to go to other leagues to be taught the game. Playing an 18 year old kid in frantic kick and rush SPFL game of heiders will prepare them for the top level? f**k off.

We know nothing about developing modern footballers. Start there.

An SPFL game? That covers a lot of ground and the quality, obviously, varies between the divisions.

[Guest]

France, Germany, Spain and Italy won the last 4 world cups. They have 4 of the 5 strongest domestic leagues in football. Each of their leagues has a high non-domestic player ratio, higher than Scotland's. The strongest league is England and we can see the enormous benefit their young players have derived from the high foreign player ratio in the now hugely improved England team. Portugal won the next to last Euros, their non-domestic player ratio in Liga Nos is the highest of the major European leagues, much higher than Scotland's. 

To find an exception to this pattern of more foreigners in the domestic league producing a better national team, you have to go to lower economic nations. Croatia, for example. But their national team players nearly all come through at one club, Dinamo Zagreb, its not spread throughout the league. Argentina and Brazil pick national team players who were sold abroad very young in most cases. Argentina's best player Messi came through in the highly foreign Spanish league as a foreigner himself.

A stronger domestic league means a nation's best young players have access to a higher standard of competition and so develop better. Foreign players raise that standard. It does mean less Scottish youngsters being selected in first teams but guess which young Scottish players are the ones to miss out? The shitest ones. Scottish young players are cut from the weakest first not from the best first. Those shitest young Scottish players missing out has no impact on the national team. 

[lubo_blaha]

A key reason for this is that English clubs are picking up young Scottish players, partly because we’re producing better players and partly because they can no longer sign EU players under the age of 18. Instead of building up a few seasons of experience in Scotland, these boys are often leaving before they’ve made their debut. There’s probably more leaving with a few seasons under their belts now as well (Ferguson, Hickey, Doig etc).

The likes of Aberdeen and Hibs have looked abroad for new signings but this could also be a sign that clubs are finally able to command better fees for their players, meaning foreign markets represent better value.

The stats only tell part of the story as well. Aberdeen have the lowest average number of Scots in the table but we’ve just sold £7mil worth of Scottish talent and had seven former players in the most recent Scotland squad. We also have at least two young-ish Scottish prospects starting every week when fit and have the youngest squad in the league.

[Matty-RCFC]

Clubs have realised that there are more efficient markets to spend in rather than the Scottish one (Celtic - Japan, Hearts - Australia, County - Canada etc). Can’t see that changing any time soon given the relative success these players are having too.

Personally, I think teams should be made to name a minimum of 3 Under 21 homegrown players on the bench, but that’s just my opinion.

[gannonball]

The standard in Scottish football isn’t the best so let’s no pretend the league is full of high end mercenaries stopping those getting a game, if they are good enough they would normally get a chance.

Also speaking from my club we even cant keep our best youngsters now so ones that would have the best chance of breaking through are now elewhere.

[gannonball]

32 minutes ago, Matty-RCFC said:

Personally, I think teams should be made to name a minimum of 3 Under 21 homegrown players on the bench, but that’s just my opinion.

We did have something like that but it was scrapped  relatively recently as it was counterproductive as managers were forced to have them on the bench with little intention of playing them rather than putting them on loan.

[bdu98196]

Though this was the philosophy of the colts introduction that by giving places in the senior set up the youngsters would develop and jump up into the full team. Otherwise a cynic would suggest its just a way of bigger clubs to 'hoard' all the young talent for fear of a diddy club producing/developing that youngster into a competent performer that they will then have to pay decent money for

[DA Baracus]

5 hours ago, bdu98196 said:

Though this was the philosophy of the colts introduction that by giving places in the senior set up the youngsters would develop and jump up into the full team. Otherwise a cynic would suggest its just a way of bigger clubs to 'hoard' all the young talent for fear of a diddy club producing/developing that youngster into a competent performer that they will then have to pay decent money for

That, but mostly so that two clubs would have a 'place' in the setup should the 'A' teams f**k off to England.

I hope they do f**k off to England but their B clubs should be immediately expelled from the leagues and not allowed back in at any level evey again.

[LIVIFOREVER]

We've had some decent recent success from signing young players released from Sevco, Craig Halkett, Liam Kelly, and now Stephen Kelly also looks like a promising young player. We also got Alan Forrest from Ayr, and Lyndon Dykes from QotS, young players that can go/have gone on to better things and even play for Scotland.

[Cptn Hooch]

21 hours ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

We've had some decent recent success from signing young players released from Sevco, Craig Halkett, Liam Kelly, and now Stephen Kelly also looks like a promising young player. We also got Alan Forrest from Ayr, and Lyndon Dykes from QotS, young players that can go/have gone on to better things and even play for Scotland.

Even going further back and signing Pittman from the juniors. Scottish talent is there, as evidenced by the recent increase in young Scottish players going abroad. I do think the numbers are a little skewed by the ugly sisters and their legions of foreign players.

[SlipperyP]

On 08/12/2022 at 05:09, FreedomFarter said:

To find an exception to this pattern of more foreigners in the domestic league producing a better national team, you have to go to lower economic nations. Croatia, for example. But their national team players nearly all come through at one club, Dinamo Zagreb, its not spread throughout the league.

i've  not done the calculations for this WC yet.  However only 30% of players come from Dinamo Zagreb that have ever been selected for a major tournament that's is 35 players.

Hadjuk Split have had 25 players with a 21%

[coprolite]

On 07/12/2022 at 23:07, lubo_blaha said:

A key reason for this is that English clubs are picking up young Scottish players, partly because we’re producing better players and partly because they can no longer sign EU players under the age of 18. Instead of building up a few seasons of experience in Scotland, these boys are often leaving before they’ve made their debut. There’s probably more leaving with a few seasons under their belts now as well (Ferguson, Hickey, Doig etc).

The likes of Aberdeen and Hibs have looked abroad for new signings but this could also be a sign that clubs are finally able to command better fees for their players, meaning foreign markets represent better value.

The stats only tell part of the story as well. Aberdeen have the lowest average number of Scots in the table but we’ve just sold £7mil worth of Scottish talent and had seven former players in the most recent Scotland squad. We also have at least two young-ish Scottish prospects starting every week when fit and have the youngest squad in the league.

If it's the National team we're concerned about then the number of Scots starting in the Scottish premier is irrelevant. The question is how many qualifying players are playing at a decent level. 

If it's the standard of the league then foreign players probably help overall. I'd imagine that Ryan Duncan, for example, will improve more if he has to fight for a place against Duk and Besuijen than if he only had to be better than Connor McLennan. 

[Richey Edwards]

Pedro Caixinha did most of the hard work that eventually led to Sevco winning a league title.

[RandomGuy.]

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

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[Crawford Bridge]

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[Ewanandmoreagain]

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