[When Will The Sfa Be Held Accountable ?]

My two boys have been doing SFA mini kickers for the past two years (now aged 5 and 3.5). Seems like a world away from what I attended when I was a kid some 30 years ago and have been impressed

[When Will The Sfa Be Held Accountable ?]

Raving Nat alert. I believe the draw of the English premier league and it's media coverage and associated money and power is part of the issue.

Folk would rather watch arsenal v Chelsea than watch/play for a local team including boys and juniors.

Middle of the road players moving south to warm benches instead of learning their trade and being a local boy done good. Only the best from Slovenia, Croatia and Portugal etc go abroad.

Everything that is done in Scotland is compared to England, TV deals, stadia standard, set up. No other "country" lives in the shadow of its neighbour. I can't recall reading Norwegian or Danish papers giving much more than the scores of the Swedish league in their daily papers /news.

Wales, Northern Ireland and have the same pressures, ( minus this campaign) how much success have they had over the years?

Our national champions (in whatever sport) are always ridiculed. Can't be good for morale knowing you've just fought hard to read some hack write pieces about lack of competition and wouldn't beat a league one side here. Followed by similar phone ins on talk sport on five live.

The premier league is an international league, but our attempts to keep up with it and our over-embrace of someone else's national league is unrivalled as I see it in Europe.

This is not just a football thing. The rugby team is weak, and has not preformed since professionalism. I can't think of the last truly great sportsman who was brought up, learnt their art and lives in Scotland. Murray, Hoy etc found better structures away from home to perfect their trade. On top of that other similar size countries to Scotland you could be ready rather average at 14 in a sport but still be in your countries top 20 and have localish meets which encourages you to continue cycling /running etc until you peak 5y later producing a few top class athletes. Those that don't, maybe try their hand at another sport bringing that up, e.g sprinter become a fast nippy hockey player. This happens at the UK level here. That's fine if you don't want regional/pseudonational representation. Perhaps it's time to forgo our national status and enjoy the success of a UK team after all Germany and France are just one country and they get their cycles of success.

I think you're right about our position within the UK being detrimental to any independent sporting success. Far better chance if we were fully integrated into the one system, not that it's something I would prefer though. In reality we can't do much about the social context.

I feel that the team has improved and finishing 3rd from pot 4 would be a success. Comparisons with N. Ireland aren't really fair, as our top two (Ger/Pol) are far stronger than anything in their group. The same goes for Wales, however they are at a higher level than us now anyway. The SFA must keep the focus on producing quality young players and raising the standard. That will feed through to the national team as we will hopefully see soon with the performance schools. Or not.....

[When Will The Sfa Be Held Accountable ?]

I really enjoyed the game last night. The Germans were so far ahead - parallels to the great Spain team that we "almost" beat with Levein. The fact is though, we don't produce good footballers. Not one player in the Champions League anywhere. At best, we have some mediocre average players but really have fallen given our place in history, especially considering the talent we did produce in the 60s to late 80s. I'm not sure what the answer is? Other comparable countries can produce elite athletes in droves - just look at the All Blacks rugby or other footballing examples around Europe. Does it start with the clubs? Surely as a business strategy there is more to gain economically from producing 2-3 top level youth players you can sell on than filling your SPL team with journeymen pros to get 4th in the league? Whatever the reasons, we can't escape the facts. We have a proud football history, contributing a lot to the game, but that's where it has stopped for nearly a generation. Will we ever see your likes again?

[Why Do We Always Throw It Away?]

I read a comment on here yesterday that said Scotland are not good enough, and when they are good enough they let us down. I doubt many, if anyone could disagree with that. But it begs the question; who are 'they'? It's not the same players every time, or the same manager. With each new generation the squad refreshes. Even the fans change. So who are we really frustrated at? The only explanation I can find for Scotland throwing it away time and time again, campaign after campaign, year after year being the glorious failures, is that this is a problem which transcends football. It's in us all. It's who we are as a nation. It's our collective mentality. But why? Maybe it comes from our unusual status as a country. We're governed by another. Some of you might look at my profile picture and say 'just another nationalist crying over spilt milk' or 'what's politics got to do with football?'. But I've pondered over this for years. We're the snotty nosed wee brother of England and I think we have a collective subconscious low self esteem with this at the root. I truely believed if Scotland had won independence last year we would have went on to qualify because we would have shaken that monkey off our back. Well we'll never know now. But this is not a political rant, just my observations and perspective as a Scotland fan over the years. It's not the big teams that knock us out. It's always a pish poor performance against a lower ranked team that are there for the taking which makes us look laughable in the end. It's frustrating. Really, really frustrating.

Agree with much of this

[2 Months Since The Vote]

Re: "why won't the nationalist 45s accept the result, Scotland voted No"

Part of the reason why the issue will continue is "the vow". Not all, but a significant proportion voted on the basis of this and therefore the issue will not go away, at least until it's delivered. This is entirely attributable to the tactics of the No campaign and in my opinion is something they will regret. The Smith Comission will fail to deliver Devo Max and it's possible another vote will happen relatively soon with the way circumstances are conspiring - eg UKIP, EU exit, landslide for SNP in May 2015

I am personally very disappointed with the result of the referendum however now consider how damaging it would have been to start a new country with a tiny majority. This is all part of a process and the tide is only moving in one direction

[Trying To Be Upbeat....]

Not really, I want the team to win every game....but the whole Referendum situation has me on a complete downer which I'm finding difficult to recover from.

I'm very bitter to the "no" voters as I know they are soooo wrong but cannot or do not want to see it.

I was feeling the same as this, having campaigned for Yes, however came to the conclusion that it's OUR team.

For a variety of reasons the vote went the way it did, however I am convinced we will win...eventually

Fully appreciate for some folk football and politics don't mix. For me I can't separate the two but I won't ram it down the throat of people I know who voted No

[Can Even The No Voters Agree That Scotland's Place Is Now Diminished ?]

Good, let them.........just as soon as they put as much per head in

Yes but that's my point. Despite that fact we put more in we are now just part of that state. Any protection we had is now gone. We will be seen simple as part of the UK and these new powers we are to be granted will be used to raise our tax to pay for the things we have right now.

[Can Even The No Voters Agree That Scotland's Place Is Now Diminished ?]

Now we are part of the UK, everyone to be treated equally, I fully expect other parts of the nation (England, Wales etc) to demand equal spending per head everywhere. If I lived there that's what I would demand. Knock on effect on Scotland will be reduced budget and ultimately lower living standards.

If it was a Yes, which I voted and campaigned for, I would fully expect the responsibility of making it work and if things went wrong, it would be on my head