U17s

[ProudScot]

On ‎03‎/‎05‎/‎2017 at 4:12 PM, Squirrelhumper said:

Without wanting to get ProudScot's knickers in a twist, I'd like to see Cameron get a run before the end of the season as he's looked decent in the 20s. Made his debut a few weeks back as a sub but hopefully one for the future. Good touch for a big lad.

Glad to see him get a goal.

I'll give a 17 year old the benefit of the doubt for now squirrel

[andyD]

On 23/03/2017 at 10:11 AM, wanderer said:

At U17 level we are ranked number 5 in UEFA and seem to be able to go toe to toe with the best of Europe..... seems to be a dip in form somewhere between there and U21 level (the U21's not being able to compete seems to worry them more than the actual main team)

That's fair enough tho, isn't it?  For 10 years or more, managers, media and fans have all been moaning that "this is the worst pool of players ever" and alike.. The SFA can't magic up new senior players, but figuring out why those talented youngsters don't come thru to the seniors would seem to be THE major issue for Scotland's success in the long term. Sure, we could get in some fancy expensive manager and we might do a little better right now, but if we can't get those players coming thru in better numbers then we're tying the hands of whichever manager we have in.

 

Ask yourself who you'd have if you could have any manager in the world in charge of Scotland.

Then ask yourself who they'd pick at right back and center back.

[Squirrelhumper]

9 minutes ago, andyD said:

 but figuring out why those talented youngsters don't come thru to the seniors would seem to be THE major issue for Scotland's success in the long term.

I'd say this stat might help you understand.....average age of club sides this season. One British side in the full 100. We simply don't give youth a chance at club level.

[Bino's]

39 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

I'd say this stat might help you understand.....average age of club sides this season. One British side in the full 100. We simply don't give youth a chance at club level.

great stats

 

also even though you are in, a number must have been foreign (English) loan singings which barely counts

 

our model is failed and bankrupt

 

and yet, the clubs wont change

[andyD]

37 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

I'd say this stat might help you understand.....average age of club sides this season. One British side in the full 100. We simply don't give youth a chance at club level.

Looks ok as an explanation iif you're just looking for the absence of Scottish clubs. but let's break it down:

So we can break this down in a couple of ways..
How many teams does each country have in that 100? How are those countries performing?
I just chucked this together (cant seem to attach any images bigger than a postage stamp):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jz8m7ofp2bd5mp3/youthInLeague.jpg?dl=0

But you can see pretty clearly that while your 100 teams thing holds true for Scotland, it doesn't hold true across the piece.

I highlighted nations with 0 teams int eh 100 and those with over 5 teams in the 100.

Those with over 5 are pretty evenly spread, and many are outperformed by nations with none.

If you look at the current position in 2018 qualifying groups, it correlates fairly well with fifa ranking, but not at all with the number of teams in the 100.

It's hard to draw obvious conclusions from the 100 teams. The stronger, bigger, richer leagues (spain, england) tend to be low on youth players as they have the luxury of replying on other developing players and then buying them. But numerous small leagues, which you might expect to have more youth players (as the better senior players will leave for places with more money), instead have no youth players. Wales, Iceland, Turkey, N.Ireland, Ireland, Bosnia.  and why does Bosnia have 0 teams in the 100, but Croatia has 7. Demographically and financially they're not that far apart.

Anyway, my point is that your table's rubbish.

 

[Squirrelhumper]

26 minutes ago, Bino's said:

great stats

 

also even though you are in, a number must have been foreign (English) loan singings which barely counts

 

our model is failed and bankrupt

 

and yet, the clubs wont change

To be fair the Greg Taylor has played something like 40 games this season, Kiltie would have if he wasn't injured but is back now. Ian Wilson, McKenzie, Hawkshaw & Frizell are all U23,  homegrown and been involved in say 15+ games this season at least, with guys like Innes Cameron, Will Graham, Scott McLean now starting to break through.

We definitely signed lots of young English players on loan/permanently but there's still plenty from the youth system making a starting spot their own. I'd rather go with young English players like Jordon Jones and Luke Hendrie than sh1te Scottish guys that are over the hill like we've done in he past.

I'd imagine on Saturday Kiltie, Wilson & Taylor are certainties to start and are all 20 or under. Hopefully more to follow.

Edited May 5, 2017 by Squirrelhumper

[Scots_Wha_Hae]

2 hours ago, andyD said:

Looks ok as an explanation iif you're just looking for the absence of Scottish clubs. but let's break it down:

So we can break this down in a couple of ways..
How many teams does each country have in that 100? How are those countries performing?
I just chucked this together (cant seem to attach any images bigger than a postage stamp):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jz8m7ofp2bd5mp3/youthInLeague.jpg?dl=0

But you can see pretty clearly that while your 100 teams thing holds true for Scotland, it doesn't hold true across the piece.

I highlighted nations with 0 teams int eh 100 and those with over 5 teams in the 100.

Those with over 5 are pretty evenly spread, and many are outperformed by nations with none.

If you look at the current position in 2018 qualifying groups, it correlates fairly well with fifa ranking, but not at all with the number of teams in the 100.

It's hard to draw obvious conclusions from the 100 teams. The stronger, bigger, richer leagues (spain, england) tend to be low on youth players as they have the luxury of replying on other developing players and then buying them. But numerous small leagues, which you might expect to have more youth players (as the better senior players will leave for places with more money), instead have no youth players. Wales, Iceland, Turkey, N.Ireland, Ireland, Bosnia.  and why does Bosnia have 0 teams in the 100, but Croatia has 7. Demographically and financially they're not that far apart.

Anyway, my point is that your table's rubbish.

 

Good post!

[andyD]

Here's my take on our youth development problem.. see if you agree or not.
I think there are 3 main factors in the development of young players.

1) The quality of the coaching.
2) The opportunity to develop.
3) The attitude of the individual.

In terms of the quality of the coaching, we seem to be a long way behind in Scotland. We've seen the difference That Rodgers has made at Celtic, getting much more quality and consistency from players than they had shown previously. There was a recent article quoting Ziggy Gordon who left Partick for Poland 5 months back and he was saying what a different world the coaching out there was. The main takeaway I took from what he said was that over there he was learning about how to operate as a unit with the team, understanding the roles of the players around him and what they should collectively do in situations. For him to mention those (seemingly obvious) parts of coaching means that he wasn't getting that in Scotland.. at a team in the top half of the SPFL. That's an alarming state of affairs to me. Our coaching appears to be a long way off being what professional football coaching should be, and that means that while we can compete at the younger age groups, as players reach an age that this kind of more in depth tactical training comes into play then we start to drop behind.

When it comes to opportunity to develop, I don't think we do that bad. We're not a league with a lot of money, so local players can come thru and find opportunities. Celtic have a core of Scottish players in the starting line up, with 7 having made over 30 appearances this season. Youngsters like Henderson and Christie have had decent involvement and even Aitchison has had a couple of games. Compare that to Celtics English equivalent, Chelsea, and they have Cahill.. and that's it. In terms of younger players with opportunity there's Lotus-Cheek.. and again, that's it. If we look thru the rest of the top 6, half the team is Scottish in each case. Compare it to Arsenal, Man City, Chelsea and we look pretty good in terms of opportunity for our own players.

As for the attitude of the players.. it seems there's a bit of an Anglo-Scottish problem where young players sort of fall off the wagon once they've secured a pro contract. There's a feeling that they've made it, when all they've really got it an opportunity to make it. I've spent a decent amount of time in Croatia (which has a lower population than us), which has produces some absolutely world class footballers from Davor Suker and Zvonni Boban to the current Luka Modric and Ivan Perisic. Their population is lower than ours, their league doesn't have any real money in it (current league leaders Rijeka barely spent anything this season and sold a big chunk of talent). But the people to appreciate the value of opportunity, be it in football terms or otherwise. The problem with this is that it seems to be a cultural thing, and we need to create an atmosphere of aspiration at clubs instead of the all to common 'do as little as possible to get by' that seems to affect both us and the English.

To be honest I feel like we only tick 1 of the 3 boxes right now, which is why we're so desperately lacking in players. I feel like the issue of attitude can partly be addressed thru better coaching.. by coaching kids to be thoughtful about the team and the players around them then they're less likely to be so egotistically focused as they're involved in working with their teammates. After all a team is just 11 players running out onto a pitch in the same shirts, a team is based on cooperation. That atmosphere of cooperation needs to be built by the coaches, and it seems right now that they aren't doing it. Hopefully the SFA can find ways to get this to happen, tho it's going to be hard to dictate to clubs how they should manage their own affairs. If we can tick 2 of the boxes we'll be ok. If we can tick all three then.. 2nd round here we come!

[stitch]

1-1 against Hungry now need at least a draw with France.

 

[PASTA Mick]

1 hour ago, stitch said:

1-1 against Hungry now need at least a draw with France.

 

We should aim to win the match.

The draw with Hungray was our worst result in 8 in this competition. Hungary beat France. 

[er yir macaroon]

1 hour ago, PASTA Mick said:

We should aim to win the match.

The draw with Hungray was our worst result in 8 in this competition. Hungary beat France. 

France beat the Faroes 6-0 and we managed 2. Today's draw is a bit dodgy.

[Boynze]

suspect we will lose of scrape a draw, our youth teams have that habit of starting ok in these 4 team groups and end up falling away.

[henry george]

To put today's game against France in perspective we were pretty much outplayed by a decent Hungary team and perhaps fortunate to get a draw.  France, on the other hand, had a staggering 26 attempts on goal in their game against Hungary but were beaten by classic counter attacking tactics.  I think we'll be hard pushed to get any postive result today - hope our keeper has a blinder!

[adamntg]

7 hours ago, henry george said:

To put today's game against France in perspective we were pretty much outplayed by a decent Hungary team and perhaps fortunate to get a draw.  France, on the other hand, had a staggering 26 attempts on goal in their game against Hungary but were beaten by classic counter attacking tactics.  I think we'll be hard pushed to get any postive result today - hope our keeper has a blinder!

Keeper has just dropped one in.  1-0 France at half-time.

[mariokempes56]

1-0 down half-time. Live on Eurosport

 

[adamntg]

Oh hello 1-1, Rudden with header from a corner.

[mariokempes56]

1-1 .. missed it

 

[adamntg]

1 minute ago, mariokempes56 said:

1-1 .. missed it

 

It was good, you'd have liked it.

But you missed it, just like our goalie with that French goal.

[andyD]

Nice. Great to get an equalizer and just before half time. Fingers crossed for the last 30 mins.

[PASTA Mick]

Time for Middleton to turn up and get the winner....

I expect France will score late on. 

[jcs]

France score in the 79th minute  France 2-1 we needed a draw sound familiar 

Edited May 9, 2017 by jcs

[adamntg]

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose, as our opponents might say.

[mariokempes56]

### same old....why did i watch that ?

 

[andyD]

Couldn't watch it, but seems a very respectable scoreline.

Certainly a step forward from the 5-0 loss a couple of years ago.

[borojock]

did the team play well, from anyone that watched it