WELL, that was good; but, I'm afraid the Zagreb feel-good factor will rapidly wear-off as we confront the dreich reality of Scottish football in June.
The players will go off for their well-earned holiday, while the blazers will get back to what they do best, keeping Scottish football messed-up. I read Regan's attempted speil on the Lowland League. The blazers will probably cobble it together, but, it will, as explained in the Sunday papers, make no difference.
As always self-interest will rule. NO mtter what they do up on Hampden's sixth floor, we will still be stuck with too-many "senior" teams in Scottish football. The nation cannot support more than 16 to 20 "senior" clubs, and until the blazers accept this and cull accordingly - we will have to make-do with occasional good results, such as Friday's.
If they decide on 16, fair enough - one Scottish National League will suffice; if they decide on 20, let's have no more of this SPL1 and SPL2 pish - one league, two conferences; the teams play each other home and away to decide a seeding order, then we go into a Champons League play down to decide the Champions.
Fill-in around the core league season with a revised League Cup, going back to a mix of group games and knock-out, plus the Scottish Cup.
And, bring-in sanctions to make the playing field flatter; salary caps, squad caps, demand a high number of the players should beScotland-qualified, make it a Scottish League which truly benefits Scottish football.
As for the culled teams, from the current SFL2 and SFL3 - they have to be given a meaningful role, as development leagues. They should be associate clubs to the "senior' ones - do away with reserve teams, the big teams ought to have a first-team squad and an Under-19 squad; above Under-19 the players are farmed-out to the other teams - the culled "senior" ones, plus the best of the rest, whose squads have to be mainly Under-23 or Under-25. As I have said before, we might even think of aboloshing a domestic transfer system and work via loans and a pre-season draft.
But, first of all and most-important of all; we have to positively discriminate in favour of home-grown talent, which would surely see (in time) better coaching.
Unless we redefine the role of the tail of the senior dog, we couldn't have a proper pyramid. A proper pyramid would perhaps look like this:
the Scotland team
Senior Conference A Senior Conference B
South-West Regional League South-East Regional League North Regional League
Expanding pyramid structure under each regional league according to team density
That way every team would find their level, remember, not every East of Scotland, Suth of Scotland or Highland League side will necessarily want to try for the seniors and, most-certainly very few junior teams will. They prefer local rivalries and, if successful, bragging rights - we Scots do like to be better than our neighbours; we prefer to be big fish in small ponds rather than The Master Race.
TAXI for Shiels, is the cry in Kilmarnock this week; and about time too. Yes, the other high-profile Northern Irish manager in Scotland has done well in making a lot of limited resources at Rugby Park - he has given a few youngsters their chance.
But, along the way he has, if we discount the Hun hordes from the sum, probably made more enemies than Mr Lennon. He (Shiels), is a liability to Killie and, as someone with a very soft spot for the old club, and a healthy cynicism where Wee Michael the Chairman is concerned, in this instance, I'm with the Chairman.
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