Player Development and National Team Progress

[Piehutt]

Very tough to judge how good / bad / indifferent this is. Especially relative to other nations, but it's definitely more important than who the National Team manager is and whether we play Shankland up front or not.  

Saw Moyes making comments that he doesn't feel there is the government funding / investment in facilities required. Not sure he'd be the best to judge as a professional football coach who has worked in England almost all of his career, he'd be pretty insulated as to what the average youngster has available to them in Scottish towns / cities. Regardless of whether he's right or wrong, there's always room for improvement. 

I grew up in the 90s, so my generation of player didn't make a finals. I went to football 2 or 3 times a week, most weeks, which tended to be 30 mins of basic coaching / drills, then an hour of games, or just straight forward 7 a side games (30 mins each way). This was indoors in a gym hall in the winter, some of them were on blaze pitches and others during the summer were on grass. With regards to the games, any coaching or tactics was actively discouraged and I remember in my final year they changed the rules that when a team went 5 goals up, the score went back to 0-0. 

Feels like now a days it's much better and more structured and there clearly are facilities that most people can access as part of proper teams / groups / directed sessions with UEFA coaches. Ok, these aren't free and maybe the end result is no better than it was in the 90s, when Mark's Dad would take the coaching for 25 minutes. 

I suppose the bigger issue is how you take a decent 9 or 10 year old and make him or her a very good 14 or 15 year old with access to games against players of a similar standard and have a chance of developing into an elite pro. That's probably the bit we are missing and that becomes difficult. 

There's also a very wide margin between developing a few dozen full time pros who can make a living at football and just getting 1 elite professional who can play (and make a difference) at national team level. 

When you hear anecdotes that Andy Robertson was released from Celtic at u15 level and had to drop down to Queens Park, it seems that he has made it as an elite pro in spite of the development system in Scotland, not because of it. 

Edited June 25 by Piehutt

[ScotiaNostra]

Mentality comes into it, for example the Nordic countries with populations of a similar size have a culture of constant learning and improving at all ages. The eastern european countries are susually hungrier and want to keep learning and improving. I will be honest I dont see that in many Scottish players once they hit 20.

[GordonS]

14 minutes ago, Piehutt said:

I grew up in the 90s, so my generation of player didn't make a finals. I went to football 2 or 3 times a week, most weeks, which tended to be 30 mins of basic coaching / drills, then an hour of games, or just straight forward 7 a side games (30 mins each way). This was indoors in a gym hall in the winter, some of them were on blaze pitches and others during the summer were on grass. With regards to the games, any coaching or tactics was actively discouraged and I remember in my final year they changed the rules that when a team went 5 goals up, the score went back to 0-0. 

Feels like now a days it's much better

It's not. While all the western and northern European countries we should be beating have been learning football the right way for decades, we still have primary school and under 13s playing full-size competitive games on full-size pitches and under 15s boasting about winning 3 titles in a row, only losing one game in the process. Follow Youth Football Scotland on Twitter (@yfst) to see.

I first started banging on about this when I played youth rugby in the early 90s and could see how much better it was than my pals' experiences in youth football (I played 3 competitive games a month. They played 12.) Nothing has changed. Nothing is going to change because the people in charge are the thousands of volunteers selflessly giving up their time to take boys' and girls' teams. They're heroes and they're out in all weathers while I'm moaning on the internet, but this is the way they want to do things and they're not interested in what the Dutch or the Danes do. Many of them will do the right things in training, but come the weekend it's back to "get rid!" and "keep your shape!"

The players and their families all want medals and trophies and proper football so few of them go to the small number of clubs doing things the right way.

Of our current group of players, McTominay, Adams, Conway, Cooper, Gunn (and others) came through in England, and Dykes in Australia. Gilmour, Ferguson and Christie were taught by their footballing dads and McGinn learned how to play on a tight sandy pitch with his talented and committed older brothers. Celtic let Andy Robertson go and then Rangers didn't notice him despite playing against him 4 times. Despite being massive Rangers fans, Billy Gilmour's family couldn't wait to get him out of Scotland. Things are even worse than they appear.

Our national team will only be better than it is now if we get lucky and a Gareth Bale appears. And it's the same in the women's game, where we're on a slow, inexorable slide to mediocrity as everyone comes past us.

I used to go on about this all the time. I gave up about 10 years ago because it's never going to change. There isn't an organisation in charge of this, it's a cultural thing, and there is no movement within it to change. Now I think why bother, I might as well enjoy the spectacle and accept it.

[Lex]

21 minutes ago, GordonS said:

 

Of our current group of players, McTominay, Adams, Conway, Cooper, Gunn (and others) came through in England, and Dykes in Australia. Gilmour, Ferguson and Christie were taught by their footballing dads and McGinn learned how to play on a tight sandy pitch with his talented and committed older brothers. Celtic let Andy Robertson go and then Rangers didn't notice him despite playing against him 4 times. Despite being massive Rangers fans, Billy Gilmour's family couldn't wait to get him out of Scotland. Things are even worse than they appear.

 

Is this a bad thing? Not sure it is.  I think the best advice for any young talented Scottish footballer is to get out of Scottish football as quickly as you can. Gilmour and Doak had no real exposure to our domestic game and that'll benefit them both. St Mirren have recently had our best young prospects Dylan Reid and Murray Campbell turn down first team football with us to go play for EPL academy teams down south, and who can blame them. 

The best thing for our national team would be our young players getting into the English system and exposed to a higher level of competition at a young age. Our domestic game would hold these guys back. 

[Piehutt]

41 minutes ago, ScotiaNostra said:

Mentality comes into it, for example the Nordic countries with populations of a similar size have a culture of constant learning and improving at all ages. The eastern european countries are susually hungrier and want to keep learning and improving. I will be honest I dont see that in many Scottish players once they hit 20.

I've heard other people say this but have never lived in other countries to really compare it. 

 

[BB_Bino]

41 minutes ago, GordonS said:

The players and their families all want medals and trophies and proper football so few of them go to the small number of clubs doing things the right way.

You're 100% spot on GordonS. I posted in one of the Steve Clarke threads that I have been involved in Youth Development for about 17 years now and you really do see it all. Whoever people blame for not developing youth, it doesn't really come down to the SFA in my view, but our society as a whole, and it definitely comes down to the volunteers that you refer too, and the parents. Here's what I posted:

On 24/06/2024 at 09:48, BB_Bino said:

A few years back, there was a big shift in Youth Development in this country, it may have been under Malky Mackay's time or it may have been slightly before, but they called it Project Brave. It be honest, in my opinion the SFA tried to implement good things, they tried to move away from all the stereotypes but they can only do so much. If a grassroot coach doesn't give a young player all the tools to put in his toolbag to use on a match day, then that's down to the coach (and you've got to question why they are involved in the first place)......however if the parent can also see this happening from the sidelines then they can also intervene and move that young footballer to another team who do (they must take some responsibility in the decision makings) although believe it or not, I have probably come across more parents that encourage the stereotypical behaviours than discourage it. The amount of young players that move around clubs because they are winning, is frightening. Their own development is overlooked for the short term success, also, the amount of clubs that just want to recruit players rather than develop them, just to send them to big academies, is also frightening. Anyone involved in grassroots football will know how much of a thankless task it is, and anyone involved will have seen exactly this, again, the SFA can't control this imho.

I think until clubs sign up to a charter on how best to develop players, it will never really happen........and getting all the clubs to agree will definitely never happen. In all the years I have been watching Scottish Football, I do genuinely believe we are on the best road that we have been in during that time, but I will never sit here and say we couldn't do so much better.

You referenced the amount of players who came through the English system, if I was Billy Gilmour's Dad, I don't know if I do think that's for the best for a child of that age......I really don't know. What I do know is that people put a lot of time and effort into doing it, but sadly I believe that they put the time and effort into the wrong areas, by and large.

[Piehutt]

14 minutes ago, Lex said:

Is this a bad thing? Not sure it is.  I think the best advice for any young talented Scottish footballer is to get out of Scottish football as quickly as you can. Gilmour and Doak had no real exposure to our domestic game and that'll benefit them both. St Mirren have recently had our best young prospects Dylan Reid and Murray Campbell turn down first team football with us to go play for EPL academy teams down south, and who can blame them. 

The best thing for our national team would be our young players getting into the English system and exposed to a higher level of competition at a young age. Our domestic game would hold these guys back. 

Surely the best thing for our national team is for our clubs and association to get better at training and developing the players who do live here?

I don't think it's a problem that some players will move from a young age, and I also don't give a monkeys if we pick up players with Scottish parents / grand parents to improve the squad. We are always going to be a small country in international football terms, so we have to use all the kit in our bag. 

But in terms of the nuts and bolts, there is clearly something wrong with how we develop talent and it might be getting worse, not better. 

Look at the 1st team squads of our two biggest clubs. Rangers and Celtic barely have 5 players between them who were products of their own youth systems and the two most successful, McGregor and Forrest, came through about 15 years ago. 

Ok, it's not these clubs job to develop players for the national team - but it's surely a by product of being a good football club is a good thing for that club. 

[AuldReekie]

This has actually come around again just as the Pars double down on an academy and promoting youth players. At quite significant expense (some of it grants), we're building a really good training complex in Rosyth. First phase that includes a 4G pitch and modular changing facilities. Coming next are a couple of grass pitches and a new all-purpose facility that includes changing rooms, physio and gym space, conference room, etc. Going to take a number of years to complete but the intent is that Pars academy and foundation teams will all be based from here. As well as the expense associated of this facility, CEO David Cook underlined last week that the club intends to promote academy players through to the first team in an effort to demonstrate that we are serious about developing young talent at the club.

It's quite clear one of the reasons we'll be promoting youth is the club is making a significant loss and there is limited budget for strengthening the first team. One of those costs is the training facility and academy but that's the business strategy we're currently adopting. 

On the one hand - I'm all in on what they are trying to do. It builds community ties, everyone loves to see players come through their development squads, if it works it can be a real earner for the club. On the other hand though, this looks to be a massive exception to how clubs are running in Scotland and for good reason - not only do I think we're at a significant disadvantage in the Championship compared to other clubs but I genuinely believe that relegation is a genuine possibility if they get the balance wrong, and that could kill the club never mind the academy and training ground. 

All the teams in the Championship are signing experienced players and while it's said every year, this looks likely to be the most competitive Championship for some time. Younger players are going to feel the squeeze when there's little breathing space between promotion and relegation playoffs. In the cut-throat nature of these leagues, where's the incentive to develop players and actually play them at this level? Sure there's a couple of good young players kicking about, but Scottish football continues to be a league where it's a huge risk playing young players. I don't blame any club deciding it would be far easier and less risky to sign proven pros and sustain the status quo. 

If Premiership doesn't want to open up, I don't see why the SPFL can't restructure in some way. Two leagues of 16, an under-21s cup, minimal squad threshold for young players, etc. If we want more young players reaching the summit of the game, it's not just about making the number of players better - creating a far greater pool of players should be the aim. 

[Mr Heliums]

I have no insight into the coaching aspect, but I sense that Scottish kids are relatively less active compared to other European kids (at least compared to France/Switzerland where I've spend a lot of time). Whether that's cultural or down to climate, I don't know. But either way it must shrink the pool of available talent to develop.

Absolutely no research to back this up and I don't want to be the one who says in my day we played football in the streets until dark etc etc. (But I just have.)

[No_Problemo]

1 hour ago, GordonS said:

It's not. While all the western and northern European countries we should be beating have been learning football the right way for decades, we still have primary school and under 13s playing full-size competitive games on full-size pitches and under 15s boasting about winning 3 titles in a row, only losing one game in the process. Follow Youth Football Scotland on Twitter (@yfst) to see.

I first started banging on about this when I played youth rugby in the early 90s and could see how much better it was than my pals' experiences in youth football (I played 3 competitive games a month. They played 12.) Nothing has changed. Nothing is going to change because the people in charge are the thousands of volunteers selflessly giving up their time to take boys' and girls' teams. They're heroes and they're out in all weathers while I'm moaning on the internet, but this is the way they want to do things and they're not interested in what the Dutch or the Danes do. Many of them will do the right things in training, but come the weekend it's back to "get rid!" and "keep your shape!"

The players and their families all want medals and trophies and proper football so few of them go to the small number of clubs doing things the right way.

Of our current group of players, McTominay, Adams, Conway, Cooper, Gunn (and others) came through in England, and Dykes in Australia. Gilmour, Ferguson and Christie were taught by their footballing dads and McGinn learned how to play on a tight sandy pitch with his talented and committed older brothers. Celtic let Andy Robertson go and then Rangers didn't notice him despite playing against him 4 times. Despite being massive Rangers fans, Billy Gilmour's family couldn't wait to get him out of Scotland. Things are even worse than they appear.

Our national team will only be better than it is now if we get lucky and a Gareth Bale appears. And it's the same in the women's game, where we're on a slow, inexorable slide to mediocrity as everyone comes past us.

I used to go on about this all the time. I gave up about 10 years ago because it's never going to change. There isn't an organisation in charge of this, it's a cultural thing, and there is no movement within it to change. Now I think why bother, I might as well enjoy the spectacle and accept it.

You are actively trying to say Scottish football had nothing to do with several players that it has developed though - putting Gilmour, Ferguson and Christie as being developed by their dads is just ridiculous. As is McGinn by his brothers. 

1 hour ago, Lex said:

Is this a bad thing? Not sure it is.  I think the best advice for any young talented Scottish footballer is to get out of Scottish football as quickly as you can. Gilmour and Doak had no real exposure to our domestic game and that'll benefit them both. St Mirren have recently had our best young prospects Dylan Reid and Murray Campbell turn down first team football with us to go play for EPL academy teams down south, and who can blame them. 

 

The best thing for our national team would be our young players getting into the English system and exposed to a higher level of competition at a young age. Our domestic game would hold these guys back. 

Is it the best thing for them?

It didn’t do McGinn, Christie, Tierney, Robertson, Armstrong, Ferguson or Hickey any harm - players who have all went on to play at a very good level regularly. 

Different pathways will work for different players, absolutely nothing wrong with getting regular game time from a young age in Scotland. 

[JS_FFC]

Unlike in the past, I don’t think there’s a fundamental problem with player development. Looking at our current squad of players you have:

 

4 key players at top half English teams (Robertson, McGinn, Gilmour and McTominay)

 

 

A bunch of other players in the premier league (Christie, Patterson, Hickey, Armstrong, Adams, Brown, Doak)

 

 

A few playing in other top European leagues (Tierney, Ferguson, Doig)

 

And then a few playing for champions league clubs (McKenna, Johnston, Ralston, McGregor, Souttar, Jack, Forrest, Taylor, Robby McCrorie)

 

Plus Hendry in the up and coming Saudi league.

 

Ideally we see fewer English championship guys in the future and guys playing for Scottish clubs that aren’t the old firm.

 

The failure this time came down to three problems. Injuries, poor tactics, and bad form from the players. I don’t think there’s an underlying issue here. 

[BB_Bino]

51 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

Is it the best thing for them?

It didn’t do McGinn, Christie, Tierney, Robertson, Armstrong, Ferguson or Hickey any harm - players who have all went on to play at a very good level regularly. 

It didn’t, but for all those players, there’s more Scott Allan’s, Botti Biabi’s, Jude Smith’s and Islam Feruz’s than success stories, which makes me wonder if they are better developing up here and going down the road as an established player, like McGinn, like Christie, like Tierney, like Robertson etc etc.

[albagubrath]

I agree with the points about coaching and facilities and all that stuff but for me there is also some pretty simple mathematics involved. We have one of the lowest percentages of home trained players playing in our leagues in all of Europe (sorry, can't find a source on that claim but I am fairly confident I have read numerous media articles and studies saying as much). The simple maths is that if you have more Scottish players playing then more of them will progress to be good or great players. 

What's my solution? Well for a start I would effectively ban 'foreign' players below the Premiership. I do not see why there is any benefit to allowing non-Scotland qualified players in the league structure below the top level. You would achieve this using strict home-grown and association-grown rules. I would expect this to have a trickle down effect in that clubs promoted to the top league would have higher and higher percentages of their squads national team qualified which would lead to a long-term increase in the number of Scottish players in our top league. This is a simple change that they could start implementing tomorrow if they wanted.

Long term I would like to see less stringent quotas on Scotland qualified players in the Premiership too. The likes of the Old Firm could still employ their current strategy of developing top talents from around Europe to sell at a profit, but also with a solid base of Scottish players in their squads. For the rest of the league it would make zero difference as the players they bring in from abroad now are clearly not good enough to help them progress beyond the first round in European competition with any kind of regularity.

[AndyX]

2 hours ago, Lex said:

Is this a bad thing? Not sure it is.  I think the best advice for any young talented Scottish footballer is to get out of Scottish football as quickly as you can. Gilmour and Doak had no real exposure to our domestic game and that'll benefit them both. St Mirren have recently had our best young prospects Dylan Reid and Murray Campbell turn down first team football with us to go play for EPL academy teams down south, and who can blame them. 

The best thing for our national team would be our young players getting into the English system and exposed to a higher level of competition at a young age. Our domestic game would hold these guys back. 

Lots of Scottish teams with similar stories in recent years. EPL homegrown player rules means they want the players before they turn 18 - plus Brexit has made it harder for them to bring in European kids. So Scottish kids are being snapped up much more than before.

It'll be years before we find out if this is going to improve our players development (think how long we were waiting for Billy Gilmour to get game time). Some will return in their early 20s to mid-ranking Scottish teams and some will never be heard of again. But maybe these EPL academies know what they're doing in developing players and, given time, we might improve the quality of players available. Almost by accident.

[Dosser1886]

Feels like exactly the same conversations that are held evey time we bomb out of or don't qualify for a major championship. Nothing seems to really ever fundamentally change or the focus of footballing bodies or governments alter to actually look to fix it once and for all.

[HoBNob]

1 hour ago, albagubrath said:

 

What's my solution? Well for a start I would effectively ban 'foreign' players below the Premiership. I do not see why there is any benefit to allowing non-Scotland qualified players in the league structure below the top level. 

Why not ban them from the top level? Why is it that every club below the Premiership exists to you to develop players while the premiership clubs can go and sign whoever they want? 

[albagubrath]

8 minutes ago, HoBNob said:

Why not ban them from the top level? Why is it that every club below the Premiership exists to you to develop players while the premiership clubs can go and sign whoever they want? 

Because I am a realist and the big two in particular won't accept it. Clubs competing in European competition have a clearer mandate for being allowed to recruit from outside Scotland - they can point at the quality available to them domestically and say its not good enough (rightly or wrongly doesn't matter, they can make the argument). Outside the top flight that argument is moot - you are only competing against teams subject to the same rules.

[No_Problemo]

Just now, albagubrath said:

Because I am a realist and the big two in particular won't accept it. Clubs competing in European competition have a clearer mandate for being allowed to recruit from outside Scotland - they can point at the quality available to them domestically and say its not good enough (rightly or wrongly doesn't matter, they can make the argument). Outside the top flight that argument is moot - you are only competing against teams subject to the same rules.

In that case, you would need to put something in place to stop the likes of Rangers and Celtic stockpiling all the Scottish talent. 

[albagubrath]

12 minutes ago, HoBNob said:

Why not ban them from the top level? Why is it that every club below the Premiership exists to you to develop players while the premiership clubs can go and sign whoever they want? 

Ah sorry, just realised in my original comment the last paragraph reads 'less stringent' when it should have of course read 'more stringent'. I agree with your sentiment I just think it would be harder to do in the top flight.

[Piehutt]

23 hours ago, JS_FFC said:

Unlike in the past, I don’t think there’s a fundamental problem with player development. Looking at our current squad of players you have:

 

4 key players at top half English teams (Robertson, McGinn, Gilmour and McTominay)

 

 

A bunch of other players in the premier league (Christie, Patterson, Hickey, Armstrong, Adams, Brown, Doak)

 

 

A few playing in other top European leagues (Tierney, Ferguson, Doig)

 

And then a few playing for champions league clubs (McKenna, Johnston, Ralston, McGregor, Souttar, Jack, Forrest, Taylor, Robby McCrorie)

 

Plus Hendry in the up and coming Saudi league.

 

Ideally we see fewer English championship guys in the future and guys playing for Scottish clubs that aren’t the old firm.

 

The failure this time came down to three problems. Injuries, poor tactics, and bad form from the players. I don’t think there’s an underlying issue here. 

That's a very rose tinted view of things. 

Scotland squad fails the eye test in terms of having no exciting attacking players OR any depth whatsoever. We're ok for central midfield, but beyond that we're onto scraps if any of our main guys get injured. 

Also a bit of a stretch calling the OF players Champions League clubs. It's been years since either team has looked competitive in that arena. They are Europa League, at best.