THE PROBLEM with Scottish Football is perhaps never better illustrated than by the news that Celtic are seeking to recruit Kasper Schmeichel to replace Joe Hart as first-choice goalkeeper.
The Scottish Champions are replacing a now-retired, 75-caps, 37-year-old with a 105-caps, 37-year-old, who is actually six months older than the man he is replacing. When I see this spot of recruitment, notwithstanding received wisdom – that goalkeepers mature later and have longer careers than outfield players – I wonder what is going on at Celtic Park.
Celtic bringing-in Schmeichel for Hart reminds me of one of Somerset Park stalwart Enclosure George Reid's better verbal thrusts at his club's High Heid Yins. Watching Arthur Albiston, George Burley and Gordon Mair organising a free-kick one Saturday, the bold George turned to the Directors' Box and observed: Aye Mr Chairman, your youth policy is really working.” It brought the house down.
I doubt the Green Brigade could be as subtle and to the point as George, but, then again, I suppose, so long as the other lot can be kept in second place, they will go easy on a board which, as far as I can see, is nothing other than the Four Families with fewer hingers-oan and maybe less commitment to the cause.
Across the city they are also busy recruiting in the football equivalent of Aldi, Lidl and now, the souks of Mideterranena ports. But if that's where the Big Two are now buying, The Diddy Teams are now increasingly recruiting from the continental equivalent of Poundstretcher.
I have been saying for years, Scottish Football will never get back to the eminence we once enjoyed, for as long as the High Heid Yins in our game refuse to pro-actively promote home-grown talent. We really MUST bring in to our domestic game something like the old Three Foreigners Rule, to give our young talent a chance to shine.
Even then, I fear, until the influence of Agents is tackled, we will see the best young Scottish talent syphoned-off by the better-funded English League clubs. When you see third tier clubs in England able to offer a better deal than our top flight clubs, to promising young Scots, you see how badly the football food chain is off kilter.
WELL, WE KEN NOO, fitba isn't coming home. I will give the great minds of Fleet Street a couple of days to get back from Berlin, unpack their suitcases and get into the office, where normal service post English failure will resume.
It will all be Gareth Southgate's fault. He:
Picked the wrong players
Played the wrong formation
Didn't get his substitutions right
Was too trusting of the experienced players
Not trusting enough of the youngsters
Left players who should have been there at home
Got the preparations wrong
Gave the players too-much time off between games
Didn't give them enough time off between games
Any other excuse you might care to dream up
The truth is, no manager, from Sir Alex Ferguson, via Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola to Carlo Ancelotti could possibly meet the expectations of the English when it comes to major football tournaments. The same problem, by the way, bedevils English Cricket and Rugby Union Head Coaches – England Expects and those expectations can never be met, for as long as the cult of English Exceptionalism exists.
As I have said before, England's solitary victory in either of the two major football tournaments was achieved in 1966, with the help of at least three main advantages:
The squad they picked included a central core of players who were almost certainly the best in the world in their positions at the time – goalkeeper Gordon Banks, left-back Ray Wilson, central defender Bobby Moore, false 9 Bobby Charlton and striker Jimmy Greaves. That's half a team's worth of exceptional talent.
They played every game on their home pitch at Wembley, a ground which, back then, had an almost mythical effect on non-British players, few believed they could beat England theree.
They had a Manager who didn't give a toss what the English press thought of him and who treated their opinions with disdain and was single-minded in his pursuit of the Jules Rimet Trophy.
It is a peculiar facet of the English, that they are a highly-clubable nation. (Yes, we Scots would love to club them repeatedly, but, here I am referencing their love of being members of clubs or associations).
In sport, their national team comes after their particular clubs, these are more-important to the English than the national team. Yes, come the big tournaments, their press goes overboard in whipping-up national fervour, but your average England fan's first loyalty is always to his club rather than the national team.
They come to the tournaments as a conquering army, unlike we Scots, who are there to support our nation in a celebration of the game.
Up here at the moment, there is a movement towards the fans reclaiming the game from the small and large business-men who have ruled the game for so long. Winning this battle will take the common fans a long time, but, unlike down south, there are very few multi-national conglomerates buying into our clubs.
The English fans all claim to love their club, but, they are quite happy to see ownership and control of that club go overseas. These non-English club managers (in the sense of the guys in the boardroom making the big decisions) are happy to recruit from Europe, South America and Africa, to the exclusion of English talent, to the extent, while the 1966 team had those five World-Class talents named above, and several other players who were arguably the best in their position in the English League of the time – in the squad Gareth Southgate took to Germany, not one could be correctly said to be the best in his position in his particular league.
English football has the same problem as the game in Scotland. Until clubs are forced by the national association, to pro-actively favour home-grown talent, and have at least seven or eight home-grown players, qualified to play for England or Scotland in each team, each game, we will never build the depth of quality player needed to win the big events.
Making this happen will call for, more and better home-grown coaches, better facilities, and finding a national pattern of play. Back at the dawn of the game, the players of Queen's Park, Renton, Vale of Leven, Dumbarton, Rangers etc revolutionised football when they invented the passing game. This made Scotland the Number One Nation in football.
Do we still have the talent, and the managerial nous, to make that happen again, 150 years on? I'd like to think we could.
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