Yeah it's pretty shocking to see the state Scottish football is in. What's been the biggest cause of its demise?
Oh boy - that requires a PhD thesis!
I can maybe suggest a few things. Innate lack of foresight, failure to adapt to modern methods (only in the last couple of years have we seen some Scottish teams try to play progressive football). Rot started with the era of Craig Brown in the mid 90s - somehow held as a dean of Scottish football talk still yet his remedial, talentless football started a rot. Yeah ok, Scotland may have stopped producing the sort of impressively skilled footballers like your Dalglish's and Hansen's but an inability to act on this when they still could have in the mid 90s started a rot that has continued for nearly two football generations now.
As ever the failure lies at the feet of the SFA whose refusal to move to modern coaching methods when others around them were moving forward has resulted in failure after failure after failure. I genuinely believe that the SFA still believe that our kids are plucked out of the run down streets of a post industrial Glasgow. Such streets and such street football culture does not exist anymore and hasn't for near two decades now. SFA's coaching infrastructure is impoverished and is seen in results like....Craig Levein being appointed Scotland manager (and proceeding to infamously play a 4-6-0 formation in one infamous match).
The theme of poverty continues with the clubs - there is barely a penny between most football clubs in Scotland. To prove this, Marley Watkins moved from Inverness Caley Thistle (Scottish Cup winners and top flight professionals) to Barnsley of League 1 in the summer and saw his wage rise by 400%.
400 per cent!But of course Celtic and Rangers are destructive influences as well. 10-20 years ago you couldn't deny that some of the names both clubs had on their books were impressive, and made for excellent spectacles. Who couldn't be impressed by the likes of your Larssons, Gascoignes and De Boers going at it week in week out? But all that spend on featured players was at the expense of any youth development. For clubs like Celtic and Rangers to herald themselves as responsible social bastions of the city of Glasgow, they have a funny way of showing their responsibilities. Add the vile sectarian and other unseemly undertones to that particular rivalry, the two clubs are a serious drain on Scottish football.
It could be so different, or rather it could have been so different. I fear that it is a lost cause because I see no serious reform occurring that will bring about the much needed change. The SFA will continue the 'woe is me' and the pithy excuses like Scotland can't cope with what is happening across the border in England...because like many other things in Scotland, it's not our fault or our problem. It's out of our hands and instead of seeking solutions and working towards solution, we'll quite happily point the finger of blame at other factors that are 'out of our control'. Pathetic.
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