Scotland

I'd like to see Doig replace Robertson for the future. Robbo has been immense for years, but is on the decline.
 
I'd like to see Doig replace Robertson for the future. Robbo has been immense for years, but is on the decline.

He's 2 caps short of Kenny's total, and whilst i agree and it shouldn't make a difference, i doubt the powers that be will drop him until later this year.

Personally i'm surprised he didn't retire from international after the summer
 
He's 2 caps short of Kenny's total, and whilst i agree and it shouldn't make a difference, i doubt the powers that be will drop him until later this year.

Personally i'm surprised he didn't retire from international after the summer
Agreed, I love Robbo but he's ready for the knackers yard.

Sadly for Doig I can see Hickey, Penrice, maybe even Tierney for a bit as well in front of him for the LB role
 
He's 2 caps short of Kenny's total, and whilst i agree and it shouldn't make a difference, i doubt the powers that be will drop him until later this year.

Personally i'm surprised he didn't retire from international after the summer
Would have been the right time to retire. There are loads more games now than in kennys time so numbers are irrelevant tbh. Just a pity him and tierney came along at the same time. We never got the best out of both of them imho. They were both top class players in their time. Robertson immense for liverpool.
 
It is extremely worrying the lack of genuine quality coming through. We were so lucky with the golden genetation all coming through at the same time. I dont think we appreciated them at the time but boy we do now. Once sjm etc pack in the cupboard is bare. I can see a barren few years coming up and we are not exactly blessed with a great side just now. I always want the national team to do well as it puts smiles on folks faces. The denmark game was just amazing but im just being realistic.
 
Young scottish players need to be playing regularly and at a high level if they are going to succeed at international level.

The Switzerland game can be discounted as it was game over when Hendry was sent off.
I did see some encouraging signs in both our games so far in the Nations league, but I agree there is just a dearth of real quality coming through in Scotland,
and that has been the case since around the early 90's and is a sad indictment of our boys and youth coaching programmes.
The early 90's, and in particular 1992, was a massive turning point in football.

1/ The Bosman ruling
2/ The advent of the English Premiership
3/ Sky Sports massive funding of the above.
4/ In Scotland, the Huns and Celtic trying to outdo each other by fair means and foul with both almost going bankrupt as a result.

Scotland has simply failed to keep up and compete, but we have to look at similar sized successful nations like Croatia and Norway for inspiration and guidance as to how to make our game work better here, and start to produce better quality players. We won't succeed at international level until we do, it doesn't matter who the manager is.
 
Thete are 3 reasons for a poor standard of player coming through.
First of all its the coaching. Having gone through the process you can be 2 steps away from being an spl manager and have learned very little that you didnt know already. Just the basics of coaching which leads to coaches just wanting to win rather than develop players. Josh doig a prime example. Hearts clearly didnt want to spend time developing him and they lost a cracking player. Its all about medals and late developers are discarded.
Secondly it the kids themselves. Too many think they are top players when they cant properly control the ball, know where to move to so the passer can feed them or hit the right weight of pass. Spain have shown if you have mastery of the ball you are bloody hard to get the ball off. Its not helped the coaches just want to win but i saw very little evidence of youngsters actively trying to improve their game.
Thirdly the spl. The standard is horrific and asking the likes of hanley to play st mirren then a few weeks later play top 10 international sides is a massive ask. The spl is truly dreadful and i know money has a big part to play but unless we get youngsters coming through like a john collins or kevin thomson its never going to get better. Its incredible watching players earning 000s a week having the basic skills most guys of my senior age have. Quite bizarre actually
Rant over.
 
Thete are 3 reasons for a poor standard of player coming through.
First of all its the coaching. Having gone through the process you can be 2 steps away from being an spl manager and have learned very little that you didnt know already. Just the basics of coaching which leads to coaches just wanting to win rather than develop players. Josh doig a prime example. Hearts clearly didnt want to spend time developing him and they lost a cracking player. Its all about medals and late developers are discarded.
Secondly it the kids themselves. Too many think they are top players when they cant properly control the ball, know where to move to so the passer can feed them or hit the right weight of pass. Spain have shown if you have mastery of the ball you are bloody hard to get the ball off. Its not helped the coaches just want to win but i saw very little evidence of youngsters actively trying to improve their game.
Thirdly the spl. The standard is horrific and asking the likes of hanley to play st mirren then a few weeks later play top 10 international sides is a massive ask. The spl is truly dreadful and i know money has a big part to play but unless we get youngsters coming through like a john collins or kevin thomson its never going to get better. Its incredible watching players earning 000s a week having the basic skills most guys of my senior age have. Quite bizarre actually
Rant over.


Said it before and i'll say it again. Reserve league.
 
Young scottish players need to be playing regularly and at a high level if they are going to succeed at international level.

The Switzerland game can be discounted as it was game over when Hendry was sent off.
I did see some encouraging signs in both our games so far in the Nations league, but I agree there is just a dearth of real quality coming through in Scotland,
and that has been the case since around the early 90's and is a sad indictment of our boys and youth coaching programmes.
The early 90's, and in particular 1992, was a massive turning point in football.

1/ The Bosman ruling
2/ The advent of the English Premiership
3/ Sky Sports massive funding of the above.
4/ In Scotland, the Huns and Celtic trying to outdo each other by fair means and foul with both almost going bankrupt as a result.

Scotland has simply failed to keep up and compete, but we have to look at similar sized successful nations like Croatia and Norway for inspiration and guidance as to how to make our game work better here, and start to produce better quality players. We won't succeed at international level until we do, it doesn't matter who the manager is.

I think because all the real talent runs off to England as early as possible, to then sit in development, or the loan cycle it stops their progress pretty rapid.

Then they come back up the road too late to have made an impact.
We have to keep the players up here, to build their game time before they disappear elsewhere, ready to play first team football for a bigger club.

Dunno how we do that though. Getting offered wages off of Man City, Leeds etc is gonna dwarf anything we can offer. Rather get paid a fortune to waste away down south, or peanuts to waste away up here. (Because we don't use them anyway)

If I was a youth player, and genuinely wanted to get to the best of my ability, I'd want to go play for a Dunfermline or Falkirk as soon as possible. Get into their first team and move up from there.
Waiting for Hibs to promote you, then use you, almost never happens.
 
How does moderen scouting work? In days gone by, scouts from bigger clubs would take in most levels of games but from what i can gather, its just kids games they’re interested in now.

I’m asking because i honestly don’t know. Does this mean that by and large, kids who are late developers and maybe don’t find there stride until late teens early 20s are lost to the system?
 
Just watched the highlights of Scotland's under 21s 5-2 win against Azerbaijan last night.
Some really good play from the scots, lovely build-up football and goals,
The huns laddie Findlay Curtis especially looked very good, I was also impressed with him when I saw him play against Hibs last season.
 
Thete are 3 reasons for a poor standard of player coming through.
First of all its the coaching. Having gone through the process you can be 2 steps away from being an spl manager and have learned very little that you didnt know already. Just the basics of coaching which leads to coaches just wanting to win rather than develop players. Josh doig a prime example. Hearts clearly didnt want to spend time developing him and they lost a cracking player. Its all about medals and late developers are discarded.
Secondly it the kids themselves. Too many think they are top players when they cant properly control the ball, know where to move to so the passer can feed them or hit the right weight of pass. Spain have shown if you have mastery of the ball you are bloody hard to get the ball off. Its not helped the coaches just want to win but i saw very little evidence of youngsters actively trying to improve their game.
Thirdly the spl. The standard is horrific and asking the likes of hanley to play st mirren then a few weeks later play top 10 international sides is a massive ask. The spl is truly dreadful and i know money has a big part to play but unless we get youngsters coming through like a john collins or kevin thomson its never going to get better. Its incredible watching players earning 000s a week having the basic skills most guys of my senior age have. Quite bizarre actually
Rant over.
Good rant though.

I never developed much as a player and from memory (I’m 57 now so it’s 45 years since my last real coaching experience) the coaching was poor - a few runs around the perimeter of the pitch followed by a game really was all it amounted to at both school and boys club levels.

I coached my own kids here in California in what is called recreational soccer up to age 11 when Covid happened and everything stopped. The focus from most coaches still seemed to be just on winning games. More drills than I remembered but still a hell of a lot of bounce games and drills where the kids lined up and each got a shot at goal.

For my teams I focused on ball control and passing. Every kid had their own ball, or at most 2 kids doing a drill together sharing a ball for passing. That way everyone developed for the entire training session and became fairly confident on the ball. The kids also had a lot of fun because practice sessions were constant and no just standing around waiting for their turn.

My teams almost every season began as the underdogs because my kids were at the young age of their year group and the kids that I got on my teams came from the families I knew that would let me focus on them having fun rather than winning. Every year for 6 years, my teams ended up winning most games by the end of the season and the kids all kept coming to every practice. Other teams trailed off, the less ‘talented’ kids disappeared because their coaches never paid them any attention and practice was probably no fun.

I know I wouldn’t be capable of coaching adults but I think the principle is probably the same. Lots of ball control drills and lots of fun. You look at some of the wonder players and they generally look like they love playing football. You look at a lot of Scottish players and I get the feeling they are more interested in cars, gambling, and haircuts. It kinda looks like football is a job, and its a job they are pretty shite at so they tend to hide as much as possible so they don’t get noticed and lose the well paid job.
 
Its onw of these games...were comfortable.

If Macedonia get a goal.....could easily end a defeat.

Even a draw is terrible on paper

But we look decent going forward!

We need another goal!
 
Every home Nation has been doing well recently....We need a result..

So far...We have deserved it.

Imagine we lost a goal.....
 
Dont think theres alot in that Macedonia had a similar one first half....
 
Macedonia are always shit. Either grab a draw or get pumped.
Good to see us win.
Bowie to score and a 100th cap for Andy.
Decent night all in.
 
Good to see Scotland win a match at long last.
But for some truly dreadful finishing we would have won by about five or six as North Macedonia were as poor an international
team as I have seen for a long time.

Some good performances, especially at the back where despite playing against a fairly toothless attack, I though Scotland looked very solid.
Ben Gannon-Doak would be a real top player if he had any end product.
A very good ball player with genuine pace who is willing to take players on, such a rare thing in todays game.
Great goal from Kieron Bowie, but like his time at Hibs he can score great individual goals, but pass up the much easier chances.
We saw that again tonight.

Weird that the clear penalty we should have had was not given, but we benefitted later on by yet another joke handball decision.
Night was marred a bit by yet another sending off, which was caused by Robertson's terrible square pass in the last third.
A player of his experience and ability should never have done that.
Hopefully another three points against Slovenia on Tuesday night , and let's hope we can keep eleven players on the park this time.
 
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