A Hamlet Moment

I SUPPOSE Craig Levein, were he so inclined, could have enjoyed a "Hamlet" moment as he closed his hotel room door in Aberdeen last night. He avoided the Faroes fish skin and in the performances of the likes of Phil Bardsley, Danny Wilson, Barry Bannon, Charlie Adam and Kris Commons, he got definite bonuses.

Of course, putting three past the Faroes in Aberdeen is an entirely different thing from facing Spain in the Bernabeu, but, given our recent record in friendlies, we've got to be happy, as Craig surely is.

He's now in a great position with the games against the two Irelands and Wales coming up, to keep things ticking over before the European qualifiers resume in September, next year. By then, the guys above, whose stars are in the ascendancy, will hopefully be more-comfortable in the Scotland set-up, while, hopefully, some of the shoo-ins who opted out of the Faroes game, will have given themselves a shake in the face of the challenge from the new boys and Levein has genuine options to consider.

I've long said, Scotland doesn't have a development plan for international football - a definite progression through the age groups: U-16/17/18/20/21 there is, thereafter, it's sink or swim.

There used to be an annual Under-17 tournament, Scotland, Belgium and Holland participating. Then there was the annual Under-21 visit to the Toulon tournament. OK, with European Championships, the season is getting a bit crowded nowadays, but, if you look at the SFA's official website, the women's teams seem to play an awful lot more internationals, at every level, than do the men's teams - why?

They've got a development plan, of course, the ladies are not so tied-in to Scotland's "Aye Been" culture - "it's aye been done this way son", than the men - so why haven't the men's team?

We need to have more games for the players who are out of the age group system after Under-21 football, but are maybe - like some of the guys blooded at Pittodrie, not yet ready to be regulars in the big team.

Berti Vogts introduced the Futures squad, which died a death with the arrival of that well-known mistruster of young players, Walter Smith.

I say restore the Futures squad, perhaps as an Under-23 team; and while we're at it, more B team games please.

The way things are in club football these days, with money talking more loudly each season, we have to find a way of getting our players used to facing overseas players more regularly than can be done through our clubs - then maybe we'll see more Scots players featuring in the squads of the very best clubs in England and abroad.

During the 1950s, Scotland for a time ran Under-23, B and full teams. During that period, of 25 U-23 players capped at this level, only seven went on to become full internationalists. But of the 38 players capped at B level, 17 went on to become full internationalists. Admittedly, some of these only won a single or single-handful of caps, but the 1950s B teams did help us find John Hewie, the South African-Scot who played for Charlton and won 19 caps (a good haul for those days) and it also kept one or two reserves to automatic choices in the Scotland set-up. It might also have taken far too long for his class to be recognised, but Ronnie Simpson's first Scotland honour was a B cap (in 1953).

Also, back then, the Inter-League internationals were another staging post between club and international football. Several players were blooded for the League XI before quickly going on to win their full caps.

This doesn't happen today and I believe Scotland is the worse for this. Club to international is too-big a single step, we need to get our development plan into place.