🔵🟡Scotland v Poland 🔴⚪

[Cheese]

9 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Shame the World Cup/European Championships hadn't started in the 19th century. It would be interesting to look back on how we'd failed to get past the group stage when there were only two international sides.

This is like one of the early Olympic football tournaments, 1904 maybe, where the USA won a bronze medal.

Pretty good you think until you discover they entered 2 teams and there was only 4 teams in total.

[EvilScotsman]

1 hour ago, BFTD said:

TBF, he put some cracking crosses in for an invisible far-post poacher last night.

Imagine if we'd had one.

Has anyone checked the eligibility of Johnny X of Fulchester United?

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

16 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Shame the World Cup/European Championships hadn't started in the 19th century. It would be interesting to look back on how we'd failed to get past the group stage when there were only two international sides.

"In 1874, Scotland lost the opening game of the World Cup by a walkover against a placeholder Wales team, after the newly-formed SFA refused to pay for the players to travel by train. The time needed to travel by horse and cart was miscalculated, and the team arrived three days too late".

Still, more reliable than Scotrail. Ever tried to get a direct train to our capital city out of the Motherwell/Wishaw/Carluke area? Its only 45 mins away FFS and it takes for ever and now costs a fortune again.

[Richey Edwards]

7 minutes ago, Cheese said:

This is like one of the early Olympic football tournaments, 1904 maybe, where the USA won a bronze medal.

Pretty good you think until you discover they entered 2 teams and there was only 4 teams in total.

I remember when Scotland reached the last 8 in Euro 1992*. Halcyon days.

 

Spoiler

*I don't really. I'd have been 2 years old.

 

[BFTD]

Just now, Richey Edwards said:

I remember when Scotland reached the last 8 in Euro 1992*. Halcyon days.

  Hide contents

*I don't really. I'd have been 2 years old.

 

Excuse me - I think you'll find we finished 5th in Europe that year. Credit where credit's due. In retrospect, we really should've minted a trophy for the occasion.

It's funny to think that people in the UK didn't seem to care too much about the Euros until 1996. The UK nations didn't qualify often and England were usually pretty shite when they did, which was all that a lot of people cared about.

[Billy Jean King]

4 hours ago, Crùbag said:

Am not sure what's eating Shankland at the moment. He's patently off the boil in a stuttering/ failing Hearts team too at the moment. I would disagree re not harassing opposing defenders. In his spell at Hearts, until recently, he's contanstly working hard to pull defenders this way or that, involve other teammates, make space and direct, as well as being a superb finisher. I'd rather have him in there than Dykes or Adams.

Shanklands whole career has been littered with spells like the one we are seeing just now, shouldn't be playing in his current form.

[No_Problemo]

1 hour ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Meh, I'm a big fan of a defender's, particular a central defender's, primary task being to defend. I'd play our best defenders at centre back whether they can pass a ball or not. For me at this point Hanley is still a better defender than Porteous. As I said though, he's more exposed for his lack of sharpness when we play a four. I think Porteous would be too for that matter. He's not missed the whole of last season right enough but he's not starting for his club currently either. I think they'll both play on Sunday because I'm pretty sure away to Portugal we'll be back in a five.

McKenna and Porteous played as a pair in a four at Ukraine largely because he had no other choice. He didn't have anyone else of note available. They got away with it, with Porteous having an outstanding game, but I wouldn't want to see it regularly. I mean McKenna self evidently IS slow. He can't help that and he has other qualities, but I'm not sure why we're arguing over it. Right now he's our best available centre half probably. He's just not quick.

The point was that he choose to play that pairing and play a really high line. 

IMO, at international level most of your defenders absolutely have to be able to play basic forward passes into midfield. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that his ability on the ball is worse than numerous Scottish Championship defenders. 

[Connor7]

Thought the performance overall was pretty good last night. But there is a couple of key areas in the team that is severely lacking and stopping us from being a good side.  That being the spine of the team unfortunately. 
 

Goalkeeper - Championship level

Centre Halves - Majority championship level at best 

Right back - a problem just now until we see Hickey return 

Striker - Dykes & Shankland not good enough at this level. Adams is the best we have got just now. But this team lacks a top goal scorer.

[Stevie Kirk]

40 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

Shanklands whole career has been littered with spells like the one we are seeing just now, shouldn't be playing in his current form.

Agreed. It is looking more and more likely that last season was a purple patch and he is now reverting to the norm.

[Cheese]

An off the boil Shankland playing for a struggling bottom of the league Scottish Premiership side, should be picked ahead of a guy playing and scoring in Serie A is certainly a take right enough.

[craigkillie]

25 minutes ago, Stevie Kirk said:

Agreed. It is looking more and more likely that last season was a purple patch and he is now reverting to the norm.

He scored 24 league goals the season before that as well. I'm not sure how it can be described as a purple patch when it is the 5th time in 7 seasons that he has scored 20+ league goals - albeit at a variety of different levels.

[MarkoP]

3 hours ago, troopio said:

We have 100000 people like Ralston who care but does not mean they should be playing either. He is not good enough end of story. His job is to defend and he cost the team with his horrific Sunday League standard of defending. Him and Fat Hanley should be put out the squad today and never selected again. 

Are you STILL steaming from last night?
Fair play to you sir

[Forza Alba]

9 hours ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

By that interesting logic a nation like Croatia could lay claim to being the best-performing in international football.  Population size is a facile argument.

In terms of context, whilst last night WAS a close game and a narrow defeat, it continued a depressing sequence of results, with yet more costly errors which simply can't be ignored. 

They might be, it's not really facile, the best footballing nations are the biggest footballing nations. The worst are the smallest.

Brazil might underperform, Andorra might over perform, but never the twain shall meet.

And it makes sense, more people, more players to choose from (assuming a broadly similar interest in football).

It is, by far, the best predictor of success over the long term.

8 hours ago, eez-eh said:

Yes let’s look purely at their population and ignore that they aren’t actually very good.

When we lose to Croatia will that be a bitter disappointment because they have fewer people than us?

Yes, a loss to Croatia is probably worse than a loss to Poland. Over the next 30-40 years I have little doubt Poland will outperform Scotland and Croatia, it would be an absolute travesty if they don't.

I'm equally confident Germany and Brazil will shit over Poland.

8 hours ago, TheScarf said:

Croatia and Uruguay are better than Scotland because they, like nearly every nation in the top 75 of the world rankings, will have better youth coaches, who teach youngsters how to actually be footballers.  

The population of a country is completely irrelevant.

If you really believe in the last statement, you will make an absolute fortune on the betting market.

Good luck to you on that.

8 hours ago, Groundhopping Adventures said:

I'd be raging if we lost to India, China, Pakistan or Indonesia but I know what you mean

These countries don't really have much interest, and don't play Scotland in any competitions.

Provided footballing interest is broadly similar, population is clearly the best metric.

And even if the nations don't care about football, I'd take football apathists China or India ahead of football mad Gibraltar.

Within Europe, most nations are pretty into football, and success is near linear on population basis 

It is completely linear? No, that would also be statically extraordinary, some over perform and some under perform.

But broadly, the biggest nations do well, the smallest nations do nothing and those in between (like Scotland) win some lose some.

And the world keeps spinning. If you want to support a successful national team, I recommend Brazil or Germany. Italy and Spain are good shouts too.

Not England or Turkey, they horribly underperform. Still better than San Marino though.

Scotland historically outperformed, and even now are just about above average.

It can change for large non footballing nations quite quickly, the USA was a joke for decades. Even though the sport is far from fully established there, it would be surprise if Scotland are ever consistently better than them. They are so big the relative lack of interest doesn't matter so much.

Edited September 6 by Forza Alba

[Arthurlie1981]

8 hours ago, shivute said:

With regards the Gilmour substitution. He looked to have been struggling for about 10 mins before he actually came off. Feeling his leg, limping off the ball.

I wasn't surprised he went off and I would suspect he may be a doubt for Portugal.

Didn't seem to be limping walking off or when he was playing a one two with Gauld and getting beyond him. If it was an injury then fine but he was all smiles coming off.

[TheScarf]

25 minutes ago, Forza Alba said:

They might be, it's not really facile, the best footballing nations are the biggest footballing nations. The worst are the smallest.

Brazil might underperform, Andorra might over perform, but never the twain shall meet.

And it makes sense, more people, more players to choose from (assuming a broadly similar interest in football).

It is, by far, the best predictor of success over the long term.

Yes, a loss to Croatia is probably worse than a loss to Poland. Over the next 30-40 years I have little doubt Poland will outperform Scotland and Croatia, it would be an absolute travesty if they don't.

I'm equally confident Germany and Brazil will shit over Poland.

If you really believe in the last statement, you will make an absolute fortune on the betting market.

Good luck to you on that.

These countries don't really have much interest, and don't play Scotland in any competitions.

Provided footballing interest is broadly similar, population is clearly the best metric.

And even if the nations don't care about football, I'd take football apathists China or India ahead of football mad Gibraltar.

Within Europe, most nations are pretty into football, and success is near linear on population basis 

It is completely linear? No, that would also be statically extraordinary, some over perform and some under perform.

But broadly, the biggest nations do well, the smallest nations do nothing and those in between (like Scotland) win some lose some.

And the world keeps spinning. If you want to support a successful national team, I recommend Brazil or Germany. Italy and Spain are good shouts too.

Not England or Turkey, they horribly underperform. Still better than San Marino though.

Scotland historically outperformed, and even now are just about above average.

It can change for large non footballing nations quite quickly, the USA was a joke for decades. Even though the sport is far from fully established there, it would be surprise if Scotland are ever consistently better than them. They are so big the relative lack of interest doesn't matter so much.

Why aren’t China and India the two best football teams in the world? They’ve got the two biggest populations. Surely they have the most players to choose from so should be the best?

[Nightmare]

8 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

Why aren’t China and India the two best football teams in the world? They’ve got the two biggest populations. Surely they have the most players to choose from so should be the best?

Aye, and even if you use the argument that football isn’t their national sport, look no further than the likes of Mexico or Nigeria. Two football-mad countries with huge populations who never do anything on the international stage.

[BFTD]

Much like WWII, it's clearly been far too long since Supras' footballing population wars. So many lessons have been forgotten.

Apropos of nothing, Pakistan often only play a single two-legged tie every four years that acts as a qualifier for both the World Cup and Asian Cup. They usually lose. Aside from that, they only play in local competitions against their neighbours, much like us in the Good Old Days. Imagine how shit that must be for Pakistani football fans.

It looks like they've only played one nation from outside Asia in the past fifty years, although a Pakistan XI did come over for some unofficial glamour friendlies against Bury and Coventry City. Ooh.

[Arthurlie1981]

6 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:

At 32 Hanley isn't needing pushed out for one error. I'd still pick him ahead of any of the other centre halves in the team personally, but I'd prefer him at sweeper. Again though the cost of that more secure formation is a loss of body in the midfield or wing and we're maybe less adventurous. I suspect it's what we'll do in Lisbon. I don't see us starting with three high players over there.

For me, It's not about pushing him out for 1 error, its about the fact he is not a 1st choice at Norwich currently, he will be 34 for the next World Cup and given his injury history I would be worried about his body the older he get, plus he is not as mobile as he was once (he was never the most mobile as it was). Everyone makes mistakes and his was a whopper last night. We can't forget what he has done in the past but we also have to question is he part of the future.

Given all that, we need to look at what is next and the same applies to McLean and Ralston. Unless we give players a chance to prove themselves we won't know how they will do. Clarke was stubborn when it came to replacing McLean as his every game starter for Gilmour and replacing O'Donnell with Patterson both worked out well and then Hickey came along and added further. We know what Hanley can do and he is declining, we know what McLean can do and he is declining and we know Ralston's limitations but until we see what the replacements can dont know if we have better. 

Clarke's loyalty to players has always blinded him and he need to realise that if we dont qualify for the next WC he is probably out of a job but also that part of the job is leaving it better than when he found it. He will certainly do that but will leave some glaring holes in the squad unless he changes direction. 

 

[eez-eh]

26 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Much like WWII, it's clearly been far too long since Supras' footballing population wars. So many lessons have been forgotten.

Apropos of nothing, Pakistan often only play a single two-legged tie every four years that acts as a qualifier for both the World Cup and Asian Cup. They usually lose. Aside from that, they only play in local competitions against their neighbours, much like us in the Good Old Days. Imagine how shit that must be for Pakistani football fans.

It looks like they've only played one nation from outside Asia in the past fifty years, although a Pakistan XI did come over for some unofficial glamour friendlies against Bury and Coventry City. Ooh.

I was just thinking that what the TA forum really needed in these trying times was Supras firing up his 50th account to bore the tits off everyone about demographics.

It’s as if by magic!

Edited September 6 by eez-eh

[Scary Bear]

25 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Much like WWII, it's clearly been far too long since Supras' footballing population wars. So many lessons have been forgotten.

Apropos of nothing, Pakistan often only play a single two-legged tie every four years that acts as a qualifier for both the World Cup and Asian Cup. They usually lose. Aside from that, they only play in local competitions against their neighbours, much like us in the Good Old Days. Imagine how shit that must be for Pakistani football fans.

It looks like they've only played one nation from outside Asia in the past fifty years, although a Pakistan XI did come over for some unofficial glamour friendlies against Bury and Coventry City. Ooh.

Supras population spiel is a worthwhile addition to this forum now that Scotland are back in the doldrums.

I was almost tempted to sally forth and defend Croatia’s honour after that slur above about Poland outdoing them, but thankfully I stopped myself. If I want an endless argument with a bot-like creature, there are already a couple of regulars who have filled the void that Supras left.