Scotland had been placed in a group with France and Italy, the two recent World Cup finalists, and were tasked with finishing in the top two – gulp. So it is a mark of their own commitment to the brand that, even in those unlikely conditions, Scotland achieved inglorious failure. Beating France home and away should have ensured magnificent, unexpected qualification. Instead, a month after James McFadden’s miracle in Paris, Scotland lost 2-0 in Georgia.
These are Scotland’s headiest days since 2007, the nights of McFadden, Kris Boyd, David Weir, Craig Gordon and all that. There is an aching similarity to the end of this qualification campaign, albeit the odds are far more firmly weighted in Scotland’s favour. In November they travel to Georgia again. Even a draw may be enough to secure their place, if it is not done by then already.
More than the similarities to that glorious period, it is the stark differences that stand out. Then, Scotland’s performances reflected an inarguable boon of the domestic game in general. The starting XI for the win in Paris contained seven players based in Scotland. That season, Rangers reached the Uefa Cup final and had six Scottish starters and five more on the bench. Celtic reached the Champions League knockouts and twice led against the first of Pep Guardiola’s great Barcelona teams. More improbably still, Aberdeen did the same against Bayern Munich in the Uefa Cup knockout stages.
Those are days of yore. Rangers’ progression to the Europa League final in 2022 – astonishing Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig along the way – now appears like a hazy mirage rather than a portent. Last season, the Scottish Premiership ranked 29th of Europe’s leagues according to performance, behind Liechtenstein, Moldova, and Azerbaijan, amongst others.
The arrival of the Europa Conference League has offered opportunity to second-tier European leagues; for Scotland it has merely re-emphasised the status quo: duopoly. In the Conference League last season, Motherwell lost 3-0 on aggregate to Sligo Rovers in the second qualifying round and Dundee United lost 7-1 to AZ in the third. Hearts, bestowed with automatic group stage qualification, beat Latvian side FK RFS home and away but lost their other four games by an aggregate of 15-2. If that trend continues, the coefficient will struggle without Old Firm overperformance.
Still, this goes beyond pure performance. The nature of the Scottish Premiership has changed and thus the Scotland squad has changed too. Of the 16 players used during the 3-0 win in Cyprus last weekend, only Callum McGregor, Celtic’s captain, plays his football in Scotland. This can easily be interpreted as a compliment: Scotland started a Liverpool left-back and central midfielders from Aston Villa, Brighton and Manchester United.
But it also reflects a migration of talent away from the Scottish Premiership, escalated by the rise in scouting networks and the greater propensity of Scottish players to move abroad. In the current squad, Lewis Ferguson is at Bologna, Aaron Hickey came to Brentford via the same club and Josh Doig is at Verona (Kieran Tierney is also on loan from Arsenal at Real Sociedad). Scotland’s most recent U21 squad contained one player based in Italy, one in Belgium and three in Austria. That just didn’t happen before.
It is, as ever, tempting to view this dearth of Scotland-based Scottish players through the prism of the Old Firm. After all, for that win in Paris, all seven Scotland-based players came from Celtic or Rangers. The strive for greater relevance and success in European football has led to a wider net cast for potential talent. At Celtic over the past couple of years that was driven by Ange Postecoglou, the Australian who left Glasgow for Spurs this summer. Rangers, the English connection has made a clear difference: seven English players have already started a league game for them this season.
In fact, the trend goes far deeper than the Old Firm. In 2007-08, our touchstone season for comparison, half of the 12 SPL clubs gave more than two-thirds of their minutes to non-domestic players. This season so far, only one Premiership club has given a majority of minutes to domestic players (Kilmarnock). Half of the clubs have given more than two-thirds of the minutes to foreign players. That represents a complete reversal.
Of course this is largely about money. Scottish players have customarily made home in England but, in March, Livingston manager David Martindale discussed the wage restrictions (Livingston are currently mid-table in the top flight):
“You always think you could have done more [when a player leaves] but I can’t offer them any more money. My top earner is on £1,500 [a week] but I’ve boys playing every week on £700 and our average wage is £900.”
Livingston have one of the smallest budgets in the division, but you see the point. Players are not just leaving for the biggest and best clubs in England. In the last year alone, Ross McCrorie went to Bristol City from Aberdeen while Ryan Porteous and Kevin Nisbet left Hibs for Watford and Millwall respectively. All had a shot at European football with their Premiership club.
When those players need to be replaced, Scottish clubs tend to look abroad for low-cost, young options. This summer alone, Hearts signed players from clubs in Costa Rica, Australia and Japan. Aberdeen recruited from Slovenia, Poland, Serbia and Belgium. Hibs bought from clubs in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Poland. Only one of these players was older than 24.
The salient question is whether any of this actually matters. Perhaps we simply need to reassess Scottish domestic football. If the standard below Celtic and Rangers is open to scrutiny, the Scottish Premiership contains a group of clubs (Motherwell are perhaps the finest example) who remain social institutions and do magnificent work within their communities. If Premier League clubs consider young Scottish talent to be too risky, new pathways are opening up and some younger players are thriving abroad. More will follow their example.
And if Scottish clubs no longer provide a backbone of the national team, few are upset given Steve Clarke’s magnificent work over the last 18 months. An import revolution has taken place and an export revolution is quickly following it. If that makes the Scottish Premiership (at least below the Old Firm) a feeder league rather like its Scandinavian cousins to its north, that can be a cause of great pride rather than rueful regret.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/Z7HmTnV
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