FOR some time now there has been an acceptance that "British" football is different from the game as played in Europe and South America. On these islands there is not the same demand for technical skills; we play a more-physical, biff-bang, long-ball game, at a higher tempo.
Once upon a time we could compete, our players were maybe not so skilled as the Europeans or South Americans, but we were fitter and could blow them away almost with our power.
This hasn't been the case for a number of years and as the Europeans matched our power, their greater technical skills have increasingly embarrassed us on the big stages of World Cups and European Championships finals.
And if the top English Premiership clubs have continued to fly the flag at the sharp end of the Champions League, well they are "English" clubs only in as far as they play their domestic league games in England - you don't find too-many players who are qualified to wear the three lions, or the lion rampant, in their first-team squads.
But despite reams of evidence to the contrary, the English still believe themselves to be big players on football's stage - too big to participate in the new Carling Nations Cup, which was unveiled this week in Dublin.
The reality is: this is the Alba Challenge Cup of the international arena - a diddy cup, competed for by four diddy nations. It has as much to do with front-line international football as the SFL's second tournament has to do with the Champions League.
Sure, the games will be competitive; they will be fought-out like junior cup ties; there will be passion on the terraces, particularly when the two Irish sides clash. But will it help Scotland, who remember, for all our current problems will still go into it as the top-ranked side, end our years of banishment from the top table?
Maybes aye, maybes naw - to quote our finest (only) impressionist of one of our finest players.
I'm sorry to keep on flogging this particular horse, but, if Craig Levein uses the Nations Cup properly, it can help us qualify for Euro '2012 and maybe even Brazil 2014 - but I fear, once Gorgeous George Peat and the Pathetics in the top corridor at Hampden have put-in their twopenceworth, it will be the same old, same old.
We don't have a system for progressing our best talent through the ranks - our Under-21 players all too often cannot get a game for their clubs, so it takes longer for them to take that step-up from Under-21 to full internationals, if they ever do.
Just this week I had a look through my international football data base for the progression rates from the Scotland Under-21 team to the full side, since the SPL was formed - and remember, one of the main planks in its formation was that there would be a proper development system for young players.
In 1999, the first season of the SPL, we blooded 11 new boys into the Under-21 team: four were from SPL clubs: Paul Gallacher of Dundee United, Gavin Rae of Dundee and the Rangers duo of Barry Nicholson and Scott Wilson. The first three of these subsequently made the jump to the full international team, even if Nicholson had to leave Rangers for Dunfermline to do so.
In 2000, we blooded 19 Under-21 caps, 14 from SPL clubs; 6 of these 14 got full caps, as did three of the five Anglos capped. In 2001, six home-Scots and two Anglos were blooded, only Motherwell's Stevie Hammell and Hibs' of the six home boys made the step-up.
In 2002, eight new Under-21 caps emerged, six of them from SPL clubs; of these, only Stephen Hughes, a one-cap wonder from the ill-fated Burley Tours trip to Japan and Shaun Maloney "trained on" to become full caps.
Certainly the stars shone on the 2003 intake. That was the year of Kris Boyd, Darren Fletcher, Craig Gordon, James McFadden, Allan McGregor, Andy Webster and Garry O'Connor. Eleven of the 21 new caps that season have gone on to win full caps, but some, such as Rangers' Andy Dowie and Celtic's Anthony McParland found their level somewhere below the SPL.
From 2004's 25 Under-21 caps, we got eight full internationalists, the best-known being Alan Hutton. In 2005, Kirk Broadfoot, Christophe Berra, Kevin Thomson and Steven Whittaker, all of whom played in Stockholm in midweek, made their Under-21 international bows, along with substitute goalkeeper Iain Turner and the injured Scott Brown - but what became of Tom Brighton of Rangers, Daryll Duffy of Falkirk and Peter Leven of Kilmarnock? Certainly Duffy got a big-money move to Hull City, but his career has stalled.
In the first ten seasons of the SPL 102 young players from clubs in that league were capped at Under-21 level; 42 of these have gone on to become full caps. That is actually quite a good percentage, but, given that for most of these years the SPL clubs appeared to have something against young Scots players, preferring to buy third or fourth rate overseas players, it is a percentage which surprised me.
So, the talent is there, just as it has always been there; but we're not making the most of it. I would like to see the Nations Cup used as a half-way house between the Under-21 and full teams, as a means of Craig Levein ascertaining which younger players are ready to take the step up to the full squad.
A competitive format such as this new competition, albeit one which is some way away from the challenges we will face against Spain and the like, just might be the making of a new, more-successful Scotland team. It strikes me it would be better to blood young players against Wales and the two Irelands, in a tournament, than in a meaningless away friendly.
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