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54 minutes ago, Norgethistle said:

Exactly this.

Invested in youth, created pitches (mostly 4g and 5g), kept them open, and allowed kids (boys and girls) to play football from a young age without over coaching, and a with bigger leagues an opportunity to bring youngsters into first team. 
 

Yes the TV deal is worth more, but that covers both top 2 leagues and National team. Admission price is lower than Scotland (I’m 995kr / £75 for a Season ticket at championship level Bryne, versus £340 at Firhill also championship level), this is offset by getting sponsorship for absolutely everything, but there’s a big investment in grassroots football from NFF (Norways SFA), that’s paying off now.

Within a 1km radius of my house I have 5 outdoor full size 5g parks (with floodlights) that are never locked, and always used. Either by the local clubs or by kids on their own with mates. Compare this now to Maryhill with a greater population 52,000 than Madla 22,000where I stay. 
Bryne population of 12,000 has 6 full-size 5g parks, with one of these indoor (and always open, 24/7).
 

There’s 10 of that squad 25 or under, and only 4 that are aged 30 or over including the keeper (3 are actually only 30). So this is a team that’s not yet in its prime. The Euros was likely a year too early for this squad. 
 

Their U21 is topping their group for Euro qualifiers, Scotland failed to qualify. So the next generation are coming through too.

Proper investing in youth, making decent facilities available for ALL kids for free, bigger leagues and fairer distribution of money, and having a long term plan is where Norway differs from Scotland 

 

Not trying to nick pick here, but previously I think you said the TV money was only distributed to the top league teams.

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I've coached by boys football team and first hand experience is the coaching the SFA asks you to deliver to kids is awful, its completely killing player development.

As far I can see its based on the Netherlands system of coaching and play but if we're going to copy the Netherlands then chances are we will always be worse than them because they are 3 times our population. The Netherlands didn't do that much better than us at the world cup and over the last couple of decades have also struggled to produce goalscorers. Van persie was maybe the last striker of note and he probably came through youth football in the 90's.

All coaches at youth level now have to do the SFA coaching courses. The SFA tell all the coaches to do the same things. Emphasis is on passing and patterns of play against mainly cones. Nothing substantial on dribbling or individual skill. There's very limited striker drills or coaching or goalkeeping coaching. So no surprise we're struggling to have anyone come through in recent years in those positions. The SFA do have a goalkeeping coaching course but struggle to get coaches to do it as its just more time for unpaid volunteers to give up. As far as I'm aware nothing for strikers which is amazing considering we haven't produced a striker of any note for 30-40 years.

The whole training mantra is rigid that it actively produces central midfielders that want to pass the ball rather than players who might want to take on an opponent. Kids are taught to retain possession at all costs and to try and pass the ball into the net.

Its worse when they start to play for the youth teams as their coaches are massively competitive and boys are told not to take risks, be more aggressive, clear your lines, don't give the ball away just so their team can win a plastic medal or cheap cup.

So a summary of youth coaching just now is we've taken the system the Netherlands have had, reproduced the same gaps but added some extra problems because we're smaller and can never really play the way the Netherlands do.

We really need to come up with a coaching system that is either unique for us rather than copy other nations. We are always going to be behind whatever nation we copy. With the size of country Scotland is and given how much of our population is located in relatively condensed parts of the country we should be able to more actively monitor young players and build individual development plans.

We should be looking at a style of play more suiting to our attributes. Historically we have had aggressive, durable players, we struggle for quick players so why not build patterns of play that use better target man strikers, that worry less about keeping possession and more about winning the ball back, that reward attempts on goal rather than discourage it and that encourage people to take on an opponent safe in the knowledge that we can win the ball back? That style will struggle in some scenario's (particularly warm weather) but why not be the best version of ourselves rather than a poorer version of someone else?

 

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1 hour ago, Norgethistle said:

 

 

Their U21 is topping their group for Euro qualifiers, Scotland failed to qualify. So the next generation are coming through too.

 

 

A successful younger group is no guarantee that it continues into the senior squad. Didn’t Scotland have a younger group that got to a World Cup final ?

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2 hours ago, Albert's Ghost said:

Norway has more money than Scotland

In the oil fund it has, but that doesn’t get touched, and Norwegian Storting (Parliament) doesn’t bank roll the football, it’s cut significantly it’s money to grass roots sport (as it has to Police, Schools, & Healthcare) over last decade. 
 

 

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We had the under16s get to the final in 1989 when Scotland hosted. Very few of them played for the senior team. Some like Paul Dickov, Gary Bollan, Andy McLaren had decent pro careers.

In 1982 we won the Under 18s version of the European championship 1Where are they now: The Scotland youths who won the 1982 European Championships in Finland - Daily Record

Paul McStay and Pat Nevin were probably the only ones from that 1982 team who became regular senior internationalists

 

In that period we were usually decent up until under 21 level as our players were more physically developed. When we went to the full mens game other nations closed the physical gap allowing their technical ability to come through. However as much as the players we produced in the 80's were not as good as the continental opponents we were closer than we are now or have been since and certainly producing players of similar quality to England.

To my mind when Souness moved in at Ibrox in 86 and the premier league clubs started to import rather export players our player development started to fall, that fell even further with the effects of the teachers strike stopping school football for a good few years, the Bosman ruling, rise of computer gaming, reducing the size of the leagues and we really haven't done much to fix it since. 

We've become increasingly reliant on players who came through the English system (McTominay, Gunn) because the Scottish one doesn't work. Guys like Andy Robertson, Jack Hendry and Laurence Shankland were almost cast aside by the Scottish system, they got were they are despite of the system rather than because of it, that plus some clubs taking a chance of them when premier league clubs had given up on them.

Where we might learn something from Norway is in how they developed Haaland. He was at a young age a standout talent. I think the Scottish system means that we could have Haalands and let them through our fingers. In 1989 Gary Bollan looked like a rampaging midfielder and Kevin McGoldrick looked like a top striker in waiting, a few years later and McGoldrick is not able to get a game for Morton and Bollan ends up being an being a fairly average fullback for Dundee United and Rangers.

 

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5 hours ago, laukat said:

I've coached by boys football team and first hand experience is the coaching the SFA asks you to deliver to kids is awful, its completely killing player development.

...

All coaches at youth level now have to do the SFA coaching courses. The SFA tell all the coaches to do the same things. Emphasis is on passing and patterns of play against mainly cones. Nothing substantial on dribbling or individual skill. ...

The whole training mantra is rigid that it actively produces central midfielders that want to pass the ball rather than players who might want to take on an opponent. Kids are taught to retain possession at all costs and to try and pass the ball into the net.

...

We really need to come up with a coaching system that is either unique for us rather than copy other nations. We are always going to be behind whatever nation we copy. With the size of country Scotland is and given how much of our population is located in relatively condensed parts of the country we should be able to more actively monitor young players and build individual development plans.

We should be looking at a style of play more suiting to our attributes. Historically we have had aggressive, durable players, we struggle for quick players so why not build patterns of play that use better target man strikers, that worry less about keeping possession and more about winning the ball back, that reward attempts on goal rather than discourage it and that encourage people to take on an opponent safe in the knowledge that we can win the ball back? That style will struggle in some scenario's (particularly warm weather) but why not be the best version of ourselves rather than a poorer version of someone else?

 

This is constructive criticism IMHO. My own observation suggests that this emphasis on retaining possession results in the tactic of passing across and back that is so often deplored here. In addition, it encourages players to favour their natural kicking foot and not develop their weaker side (because they are told to depend on passes back or across), leading to a one-sidedness that makes them vulnerable both when in possession (only turning one way) and tackling (using the wrong leg when an opponent passes with the ball on their stronger side, leading to foul tackles). In addition, it fosters an attitude that the ball is "safer" when passed around the one area that most often leads to an opposing goal. It invites opponents to press and provides no opportunity to move the ball speedily to an area that threatens the opponents' goal. For a perfect example, look again at Germany v Paraguay, where the German team had three-quarters of the possession.

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Imo England have 2 world class players, Bellingham and Kane. Kane was quiet last night but Bellingham was head and shoulders above every other player. Unless Haaland had an injury he should be ashamed of that performance he hardly moved and any other player would've been subbed a lot earlier than he was.

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The post match inquest was a joy to watch. Rooney, Hart and Richards having to pick apart England's performance after they scored. No bad luck, no dodgy referee's decisions,  no VAR interventions just some terrible tactics and substitutions leading to the almost  inevitable failure to hang onto a 1 goal lead against the world champions. 

In fairness a shout out to Micah Richards whose father died a few hours before the game. No one would have blamed him for stepping back from covering the game 

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