End of year assessment of trap's ireland

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Originally Posted by peadar1987

I live in Maryhill in the north of the city, and my normal running route takes me past two sets of football pitches. I'd say they're being used maybe 5% of the time tops. I think a lot of it is due to the fact that neds nowadays "cannae be bothered", whereas maybe a few years ago they'd not be bothered about a lot of things, but still kick around a football with their mates. Perhaps Scottish football has been hit harder than other places by the fact that cool kids now play FIFA instead of fitba

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Over Christmas ended up seeing a bit of that programme Football's Next Star and a group of Irish lads went over there with a view to winning an apprenticeship with Celtic. Obviously, the lads that went over have to be handy enough and might have been the kind of lads that would be close enough to underage squads or getting trials, but the thing that really struck me was that within a short space of time, they were able to compete with Scottish players of their age who would have been getting far better coaching for a number of years. It struck me as a poor indictement of the Scottish game.

I dont understand sometimes the idea that Scottish kids get far better coaching. When was the last time Scotland qualified for anything if they get better coaching?

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Originally Posted by Crosby87

I dont understand sometimes the idea that Scottish kids get far better coaching. When was the last time Scotland qualified for anything if they get better coaching?

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That's sort of the point of the discussion. Scottish clubs should in theory have far better coaching structures in place because they have more money to spend on better facilities and coaches. The facilities are objectively far better than what we have in Ireland. The ability of the coaches is more subjective, but they can pay more, so in theory should attract better staff. Scottish rugby is also in a poor state at the moment, decent seasons recently from Edinburgh and Glasgow notwithstanding. Trying to work out the reasons behind it is an interesting discussion. It could just be a cyclical thing, it could be a cultural issue with Scotland (you don't have the highest incidences of obesity and heart disease in Europe for nothing), or it could be something else.

I was in Dundee before Christmas. The thought crossed my mind, htf did a club (and only representing around half of the ctachment area) from that place get to a European cup semi-final in living memory?

didn't both clubs from Dundee reach a European semi final?
I think Milan, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Manchester, Liverpool and Madrid are the only cities that can claim that

There are some excellent coaches up and down the country. Clubs like Crumlin and St Kevin's are excellent schoolboy clubs. However, the young guys at Celtic and Rangers should in theory be getting training from top class coaches that is better than that of our best clubs. They have the money and the facilities that befits their standing as two globally massive clubs. Even Hearts, Hibs and Dundee United would have terrific facilities.

Maybe part of the problem is that there is an element of young guys at those clubs thinking that they are marvellous, while our lads have that hunger to be noticed by either LOI clubs or get their dream move to a Liverpool, Celtic or United.

As Stutts stated there, clubs like Dundee had a great ability to produce players. Bar our own James McCarthy, I can't think of any player from Scotland that has been or shown the potential to come even remotely close to being world class in the last 15 years.

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Originally Posted by Bungle

As Stutts stated there, clubs like Dundee had a great ability to produce players. Bar our own James McCarthy, I can't think of any player from Scotland that has been or shown the potential to come even remotely close to being world class in the last 15 years.

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World Class may be a bar too high to judge the standard by:)
Apart from Zlatan, Sweden haven't got that much quality either. At least their players (who are on the national squad) have spent some seasons with their local clubs in the local league and have commanded high transfer fees when they did move away from Sweden. Their clubs made anything from anything from €500k upwards to €3m on the transfers.

Surely Scottish sides have made up to £10 million a pop from transfers, on players who could in no way be considered verging on world class.

This is a really interesting discussion. I wonder if for example Northern Ireland, Wales, or Scotland will go to the WC or Euros in say the next 20 years time? Will any of the 3 go one time? Or is it as unlikely as say, Luxembourg? I guess the world has changed in that Israel probably have a much better chance than Scotland do. Assuming Israel is around in 20 years, natch.

I think at the monent, you don't get a world class player for less than €20M, anyone else is just good.

Does that mean Andy Carroll is almost double world class?

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Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

didn't both clubs from Dundee reach a European semi final?
I think Milan, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Manchester, Liverpool and Madrid are the only cities that can claim that

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London too?

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Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

didn't both clubs from Dundee reach a European semi final?
I think Milan, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Manchester, Liverpool and Madrid are the only cities that can claim that

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Belgrade?

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Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

Surely Scottish sides have made up to £10 million a pop from transfers, on players who could in no way be considered verging on world class.

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Craig Gordon was verging on world class, for a month or so.

Money and facilities means nothing if the structure isn't right, England is going the same way with less quality players coming through the academies and clubs bringing in young children from well outside the catchment area because they show promise (eg outside the catchment meaning Spanish kids coming to Chelsea). A good coach, good development plan and opportunities to progress to senior football are important, though the latter is available in Scotland. What is hitting Scotland and Ireland (to a similar extent) and Wales and the North is that opportunities to play at the top level in Europe are getting slimmer as English clubs are not developing young players through (from outside England or in exceptional cases) and those same players are too blinkered too often to go look for football elsewhere. The English academy system is poor, seeing it first hand over the last decade really isn't something to get pumped about.

As for transfers, how much of the money goes to the club in debatable. What's written in the papers quite often isn't the amount which changes hands and certainly isn't the amount that ends up in the club kitty.

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Originally Posted by tetsujin1979

didn't both clubs from Dundee reach a European semi final?
I think Milan, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Manchester, Liverpool and Madrid are the only cities that can claim that

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Originally Posted by SkStu

London too?

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Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954

Belgrade?

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Bucharest and Budapest as well. :tongue:

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Originally Posted by peadar1987

I think at the monent, you don't get a world class player for less than €20M, anyone else is just good.

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The price a player sells for is very subjective. Lots of factors affect how much money you can command — age, experience, reputation, injury record, goal scoring record, contract status (number of years remaining), club league status (recently relegated?), club financial status (danger of going into administration?), international eligibility (international African players miss a month of every second season) and probably a bunch of other factors that I can't think of.

The Andy Carroll example is a good one for example. He commanded a fee of £35 million, but that was a combination of the fact he was so young (21), had scored a reasonable amount of goals in the Premier League already that season (11) and he was recently capped by England. On paper, it looked like Liverpool were buying a 20+ goals a season international quality target man that could potentially be at the club for the next 10 years. He definitely wasn't world class by any stretch when they bought him, but they gambled on him becoming so.

As counter examples, players like Lukas Podolski and Dimitar Berbatov who cost £11 million and £5 million respectively could be regarded as world class (both proven goal scorers at the top level, well decorated and extensively capped, with 40+ goals, by their countries) but have commanded lower fees due to age (Berbatov) and the fact that the club needed to offload a big wage due to relegation (Podolski).

I don't think you can say world class players cost a minimum of £x, because there are just far too many variables to consider.

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Originally Posted by geysir

World Class may be a bar too high to judge the standard by:)
Apart from Zlatan, Sweden haven't got that much quality either. At least their players (who are on the national squad) have spent some seasons with their local clubs in the local league and have commanded high transfer fees when they did move away from Sweden. Their clubs made anything from anything from €500k upwards to €3m on the transfers.

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I agree that world class is a very high barometer to judge. However, the Scots used to churn out world class players in the past. Every great English team of the past used to have 3-4 Scots on their team. Their team in 78 was on paper not far of the great Dutch team:)

Spot on about the English academy system. In my opinion and from being in Poland it was shared by that of fans from around the continent, England were the 2nd worst football playing team there. England didn't get walloped like we did, because they have a huge population and are always liable to produce enough top players to compete and do well.

There are some excellent academies like Liverpool and United. However, their academys are stacked with Spaniards, Italians, eastern europeans etc, let alone Irish, Scpttish and Welsh. The Englsh are going to be producing less top players and they will feel it badly in the coming years. The next Paul Scholes to break through at United could be from Bosnia and the next Jamie Carragher to break through at Liverpool from Germany. Meanwhile, the Dortmund, Inter or Barca academies to name a few are predominantly made up of players from their own country.

Wan't sure where to put this, but this is a summary of all Irish results from U15 upwards and may help in the debate happening here.Thanks to Alaska and co, excellent work.


http://greenscene.me/2013/01/republi...-2012-results/