Player Development and National Team Progress

[Butters Scotch]

I have a significant amount of experience playing and coaching in football so can offer a viewpoint on this. 

Playing for dundee youths, you were managed by a primary school head teacher who knew little about football and more about being strict and shouting at players to run around a pitch. Pretty much most sessions was about running and limited ball work. There was no diet regime, no gym work, no proper training pitches (essentially finding a public park that was available), no video analysis of how you played, where you were positioned, how much ground you covered, etc. Essentially, you didnt have a hope in hell of actually developing as a player, working on your weaknesses, positioning, fitness etc. 

It was night and day working under someone like Ian Cathro in his Cathro Clinic school, the lad was so far ahead of his time it was unbelievable getting coached by him. He made the game fun, everything was based around the ball, being creative, actively encouraging you to take the opposition on in 1 v 1's, he never told you to play it safe or condemned you for making mistakes. 

The problem I found at the time that you would see kids smoking or wanting to go to McDonald's after every away game, eating a lot of chocolate, drinking fizzy drinks. By the time said players reached later teens, they just regressed and couldn't make the step up to professional level. 

 

 

[Bing.McCrosby]

15 minutes ago, Butters Scotch said:

I have a significant amount of experience playing and coaching in football so can offer a viewpoint on this. 

Playing for dundee youths, you were managed by a primary school head teacher who knew little about football and more about being strict and shouting at players to run around a pitch. Pretty much most sessions was about running and limited ball work. There was no diet regime, no gym work, no proper training pitches (essentially finding a public park that was available), no video analysis of how you played, where you were positioned, how much ground you covered, etc. Essentially, you didnt have a hope in hell of actually developing as a player, working on your weaknesses, positioning, fitness etc. 

It was night and day working under someone like Ian Cathro in his Cathro Clinic school, the lad was so far ahead of his time it was unbelievable getting coached by him. He made the game fun, everything was based around the ball, being creative, actively encouraging you to take the opposition on in 1 v 1's, he never told you to play it safe or condemned you for making mistakes. 

The problem I found at the time that you would see kids smoking or wanting to go to McDonald's after every away game, eating a lot of chocolate, drinking fizzy drinks. By the time said players reached later teens, they just regressed and couldn't make the step up to professional level.

With regards to your last paragraph.

My input here is very anecdotal, but I played In a few teams 11s and 5s with a guy who went on to be a professional. Decent career, played in the spl for a long time and then the championship later in his career. 

We worked together, he turned professional quite late and was a junior player at this point. So we used to often take a walk thru the town after work. A couple of times (different folk) an absolute jakey would come up and talk to him. And he said to me "see when I was playing as a kid, that guy was one of the best players I've ever seen. Much better than me" 

It was hard to believe, frankly they looked like a strong gust of wind would send them flying. It highlighted to me the negative affects of alcohol. And probably drugs.

Which is something we as a nation we struggle with. And I wonder how many of our potential players get lost due to this.

I mean we're not the only nation that's inflicted, I was surprised to read recently the world wide units of alcohol consumption by country and we were nowhere near the top. Romania was no 1.

But I think our relationship with alcohol as a nation isn't helpful or healthy, not just for football.

[Butters Scotch]

1 hour ago, Bing.McCrosby said:

With regards to your last paragraph.

My input here is very anecdotal, but I played In a few teams 11s and 5s with a guy who went on to be a professional. Decent career, played in the spl for a long time and then the championship later in his career. 

We worked together, he turned professional quite late and was a junior player at this point. So we used to often take a walk thru the town after work. A couple of times (different folk) an absolute jakey would come up and talk to him. And he said to me "see when I was playing as a kid, that guy was one of the best players I've ever seen. Much better than me" 

It was hard to believe, frankly they looked like a strong gust of wind would send them flying. It highlighted to me the negative affects of alcohol. And probably drugs.

Which is something we as a nation we struggle with. And I wonder how many of our potential players get lost due to this.

I mean we're not the only nation that's inflicted, I was surprised to read recently the world wide units of alcohol consumption by country and we were nowhere near the top. Romania was no 1.

 

 

But I think our relationship with alcohol as a nation isn't helpful or healthy, not just for football.

Aye i think it's not a case of not having enough talent coming through, from my experience there was a lot of great young players but they get lost in the system from 16 onwards due to other influences, like wanting to get steaming every weekend, take ecto's, cocaine, etc. A lot of these great players were typically from the schemes where they weren't really being brought up the right away in my opinion. One of them being my best mate up until secondary then I drifted apart from him cause he was going out bottling others boys on a Friday night etc and totally wasted his talent. 

I do think things have changed a bit though, there is a lot more professionalism, analysis, physiotherapy etc happening from a young age and I'm hoping we catch up with other nations as we did flag behind for a number of decades. 

[BB_Bino]

17 hours ago, Butters Scotch said:

Aye i think it's not a case of not having enough talent coming through, from my experience there was a lot of great young players but they get lost in the system from 16 onwards due to other influences, like wanting to get steaming every weekend, take ecto's, cocaine, etc. A lot of these great players were typically from the schemes where they weren't really being brought up the right away in my opinion. One of them being my best mate up until secondary then I drifted apart from him cause he was going out bottling others boys on a Friday night etc and totally wasted his talent. 

I do think things have changed a bit though, there is a lot more professionalism, analysis, physiotherapy etc happening from a young age and I'm hoping we catch up with other nations as we did flag behind for a number of decades. 

Although I've got experience of this during my youth (i'm in my 40's now....sadly), I have to say that in my experiences over the last 10 years or so, this has become less. Although it happens, of course it does, I do feel that in academies now, 16+ tend to be more focused and professional than in years gone by.  This probably ties in with the surge in gym culture that the country has seen during this period. A lot more players are coming through now that don't drink, and they look after themselves physically and track what they do and what they eat, more than ever before. A lot of clubs are providing players with supplements and vitamins, again, this has not always been the case and "back in the day" these would have probably have been put in the cupboard and never touched, or even left on the tables but players are taking them.

Don't get me wrong, teenagers will always been teenagers, many will rebel and many will have negative influences in their life but in that, many more are focused on making it and looking after themselves and getting into good habits.

[albagubrath]

On 25/06/2024 at 13:33, albagubrath said:

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.

Plenty of you didn’t agree with me on this but here is a good article that reinforces my view that action of this type is required:

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/euro-2024-post-mortem-why-scottish-football-is-struggling-to-develop-enough-good-young-players/view/news/439667

 

Only 3.2% of the available minutes in our league were played by u21 players in 23/24 and there is no guarantee those players were even Scottish.

 

Our clubs will not do anything about this on their own, they have to be forced to.

[Binos]

18 minutes ago, albagubrath said:

Plenty of you didn’t agree with me on this but here is a good article that reinforces my view that action of this type is required:

 

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/euro-2024-post-mortem-why-scottish-football-is-struggling-to-develop-enough-good-young-players/view/news/439667

 

Only 3.2% of the available minutes in our league were played by u21 players in 23/24 and there is no guarantee those players were even Scottish.

 

Our clubs will not do anything about this on their own, they have to be forced to.

They won't change a thing and no one will force them to 

[albagubrath]

1 hour ago, Binos said:

They won't change a thing and no one will force them to 

I agree it will be very difficult, particularly in the Prem which is why I think the champ and down is where it should start. 

 

Is it fair? No. Will it increase the number of Scottish players in our league system? Yes.

We need change and it has to start somewhere, starting with the low hanging fruit is always a good tactic.

 

[immcinto]

People complain abut lack of forwards but I reckon our problem is lack of central defenders. Every other comparable teams has 5 or 6 CDs in their top 25 most valuable players . We only have one - McKenna. 
Whatever happened to our Central Defenders? We appear to be incredibly unbalanced.
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/spieler-statistik/wertvollstespieler/marktwertetop/plus/0/galerie/0?ausrichtung=alle&spielerposition_id=alle&altersklasse=alle&jahrgang=0&land_id=190&kontinent_id=0&yt0=Show

[Binos]

11 minutes ago, immcinto said:

People complain abut lack of forwards but I reckon our problem is lack of central defenders. Every other comparable teams has 5 or 6 CDs in their top 25 most valuable players . We only have one - McKenna. 
Whatever happened to our Central Defenders? We appear to be incredibly unbalanced.
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/spieler-statistik/wertvollstespieler/marktwertetop/plus/0/galerie/0?ausrichtung=alle&spielerposition_id=alle&altersklasse=alle&jahrgang=0&land_id=190&kontinent_id=0&yt0=Show

All we produce are robot players,  full backs, centre mids

Hard working passers of the ball

 

[Glen Scotia]

We need one club (any club with cash) to buy all the top Scottish players and our national team plays together week in week out in a league 

Shimples 

 

Edited Thursday at 20:50 by Glen Scotia
Edit

[Butters Scotch]

17 minutes ago, Glen Scotia said:

We need one club (any club with cash) to buy all the top Scottish players and our national team plays together week in week out in a league 

 

Shimples 

 

Aye and make Clarke the head coach so he can work with the team daily and then get all the youth teams to sign up all the best Scottish talent for each age group. The plan is fool proof. 

[Dan Electro]

On 25/06/2024 at 12:18, Mr Heliums said:

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.

 

Having lived in Switzerland, and a ten minute walk from Germany, I'd say it's a bit of both. Most years, there is balcony weather for 8.5 months. The climate therefore drives the culture for people to be outdoors mote. Even with snow and double digit minus figures, a northern Swiss winter is far more comfortable than a Scottish one; at least for myself.

When I get drinking with randoms whilst travelling, I sometimes get asked why central Scotland in general, and Bellshill, in particular, produces so many great bands and music. I reply in that the climate plays a big part in driving folks into garages or rehearsal studies to make music.

[Scary Bear]

1 hour ago, Dan Electro said:

Having lived in Switzerland, and a ten minute walk from Germany, I'd say it's a bit of both. Most years, there is balcony weather for 8.5 months. The climate therefore drives the culture for people to be outdoors mote. Even with snow and double digit minus figures, a northern Swiss winter is far more comfortable than a Scottish one; at least for myself.

When I get drinking with randoms whilst travelling, I sometimes get asked why central Scotland in general, and Bellshill, in particular, produces so many great bands and music. I reply in that the climate plays a big part in driving folks into garages or rehearsal studies to make music.

Bellshill is where the maternity hospital was. It’s the same with the amount of footballers who were born there. I was born there, but I lived in East Kilbride.

[Scary Bear]

I noticed someone on another thread discussing youth football and the wastage that arises from it. 

There are a lot of community clubs and they have age groups and a progression path to the main team. However, every year a team comes to the end of the youth pathway and maybe two of those players from a squad of, say 20, are signed. What happens to the other 18? 

I am a coach at a 2014s team and at this age group everything seems fine. Players play out from the back, they are comfortable on the ball, they look for passes and move into space. It’s 7-a-side on small pitches with size 4 footballs. No league table, but it is competitive; no such thing as friendlies to 10 year olds.

On the fitness thing, most kids who have joined are fit to play straight away. The ones who are overweight and unfit are the exception to the rule, and if they train twice and week and play football at the weekend for a year or so, by then they are fit enough.

Training is more about what we do with the ball than the old ways of just running players, so it does help if they have a general level of fitness.

Edited Friday at 08:32 by Scary Bear

[Dan Electro]

7 minutes ago, Scary Bear said:

Bellshill is where the maternity hospital was. It’s the same with the amount of footballers who were born there. I was born there, but I lived in East Kilbride.

 

Yes, I was born there myself. However, bands actually rehearsing in the town included The Vaselines, The Soup Dragons, Teenage Fanclub, The BMX Bandits and Captain America/Eugenious sued by Marvel Comics. A disproportionate amount from, in a global perspective, a small town.

[Scary Bear]

15 hours ago, Binos said:

All we produce are robot players,  full backs, centre mids

Hard working passers of the ball

 

That is a problem. I can see from the coaching and the way it’s done that in 10 years time we’ll still have good full backs and midfielders, maybe even goalkeepers and wingers too, but there’ll still be an absolute dearth of decent strikers. 

[Binos]

Just now, Scary Bear said:

That is a problem. I can see from the coaching and the way it’s done that in 10 years time we’ll still have good full backs and midfielders, maybe even goalkeepers and wingers too, but there’ll still be an absolute dearth of decent strikers. 

I was about to ask you,  from reading your post 

It's hard not to worry, I have friends coaching similar,  that our 'system' can't produce anyone who,  for instance,  can beat a man?

[Bing.McCrosby]

On 27/06/2024 at 08:18, BB_Bino said:

Although I've got experience of this during my youth (i'm in my 40's now....sadly), I have to say that in my experiences over the last 10 years or so, this has become less. Although it happens, of course it does, I do feel that in academies now, 16+ tend to be more focused and professional than in years gone by.  This probably ties in with the surge in gym culture that the country has seen during this period. A lot more players are coming through now that don't drink, and they look after themselves physically and track what they do and what they eat, more than ever before. A lot of clubs are providing players with supplements and vitamins, again, this has not always been the case and "back in the day" these would have probably have been put in the cupboard and never touched, or even left on the tables but players are taking them.

Don't get me wrong, teenagers will always been teenagers, many will rebel and many will have negative influences in their life but in that, many more are focused on making it and looking after themselves and getting into good habits.

Weirdly I think mobile phones have alot to do with young kids drinking less, In our day you could get drunk and make a total arse of yourself and it was quickly forgotten. These days everything's filmed so kids don't want to get out of control and have it recorded for everyone.

[Scary Bear]

15 hours ago, immcinto said:

People complain abut lack of forwards but I reckon our problem is lack of central defenders. Every other comparable teams has 5 or 6 CDs in their top 25 most valuable players . We only have one - McKenna. 
Whatever happened to our Central Defenders? We appear to be incredibly unbalanced.
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/spieler-statistik/wertvollstespieler/marktwertetop/plus/0/galerie/0?ausrichtung=alle&spielerposition_id=alle&altersklasse=alle&jahrgang=0&land_id=190&kontinent_id=0&yt0=Show

I’m not sure how long Scotland has been playing small sided games in the early years, but that likely has something to do with it. In 7-a-side there are various formations you can have but the most popular one is 2-3-1. So two defenders who split left and right, but who are often more like full backs who use the wings for distribution. I can see that leading to more decent full backs and less decent central defenders.

[Scary Bear]

22 minutes ago, Binos said:

I was about to ask you,  from reading your post 

It's hard not to worry, I have friends coaching similar,  that our 'system' can't produce anyone who,  for instance,  can beat a man?

I had a big long post there and I pressed the notifications button. Very annoying.

No, we still have players who can beat a man. We have two teams. One advanced, one intermediate. The advanced team have several players who can beat a man, sometimes 1 v 1. Sometimes by playing a 1-2 with a teammate to get round them. The main difference at our age group is pace and control. Teams really struggle with pacey players running at them.

The control thing is coaching. The pace thing is just natural pace they have. 

Our intermediate team doesnt have much pace, but for me, they play good passing football because of this. 

 

Edited Friday at 09:03 by Scary Bear