McLeish Report

[0Neils40yarder]

Strachan was (and still is) a fucking arsehole... He got longer in the job than he should have

[ParisInAKilt]

3 pages mostly about managers when our main problem is not producing good enough players.

[Texas Pete]

2 hours ago, ParisInAKilt said:

3 pages mostly about managers when our main problem is not producing good enough players.

Good point. We’ve had several good managers since Craig Brown and not one of them has managed to take us to a major tournament. 

We do have better players and more strength in depth than some of the countries that have qualified for recent European championships so it’s time we started qualifying for that regularly. The World Cup is a different matter. We may never get there again in our lifetime. 

[ParisInAKilt]

55 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

Good point. We’ve had several good managers since Craig Brown and not one of them has managed to take us to a major tournament. 

We do have better players and more strength in depth than some of the countries that have qualified for recent European championships so it’s time we started qualifying for that regularly. The World Cup is a different matter. We may never get there again in our lifetime. 

How is that measured? 

[ProudScot]

1 hour ago, ParisInAKilt said:

How is that measured? 

Probably by the standard of leagues the players being compared with each other play in. 

[ceudmilefailte]

1 hour ago, ProudScot said:

Probably by the standard of leagues the players being compared with each other play in. 

Now if only we could compare the standard of leagues...............

[Texas Pete]

3 hours ago, ParisInAKilt said:

How is that measured? 

It’s not really I suppose, it’s an opinion based on the number of footballers a country has and who they play for.

Northern Ireland and Iceland, for example, have a lot fewer professional footballers than we do and very few in the top two leagues in England and top league in Scotland or top leagues throughout the world and they’ve been doing pretty well recently. 

Edited February 23, 2020 by Texas Pete

[Tartan Chris]

I haven't read report but would be interested to see what the general recommendations are. I imagine it will be the usual of building more indoor centres and getting things right at youth level.

That's important but realistically for a small nation with population there are always many factors in play.

You take Belgium for example. Population of 11m so limited compared to the other teams they were in later stages of world cup with. Not a huge football culture and generally been insignificant in international football for most of their existance. Had a good team in the 80s and then similar to Scotland had a no frills defensive team that made two World cups in the 90s.

They didn't qualify for a major tournament from 2002 up to world cup 2014. Now they're one of the world's best teams?

Perhaps they've invested a huge amount in youth facilites but sometimes it's a simple case of just 5-6 World class footballers all being born in the same era. Wales is a little similar.

Scotland currently have more players playing at top level (would also include Burke given he is in La Liga and regularly getting minutes) than at any point since the last near miss in 2007 even if they don't all play in key positions. It's frustrating not to have any world class forward like Norway and Serbia and the lack of any decent CBs is a massive issue but in other positions the players are more than competant if not pretty good and they show it for their club sides on a regular basis.

Was there anything in the report looking at why there's so many call offs from every international round? That remains a big issue although I suspect due to the importance in March hardly anyone will pull out and then play for their club on April 4th, it will be just long term injured who miss out like Tierney and McGinn.

Said it before but you see likes of Bale and Ramsey racing to join up with Wales squad and they play for some of the biggest teams in world football and this is for mundane qualifiers.

Many of the Welsh squad grew up together in the youth teams so it's very much a club side mentality, same for Northern Ireland. It's a thing lacking in the Scotland set up so imo it's too easy to pull out from squads. You also then don't have that backs to the wall mentality to pull through when 0-0 in a tough away qualifier. This is a quality that will be needed in Oslo or Belgrade if the team get to the final.

Another problem is some of the awful managers that have been appointed since 2007. Strachan was best of the lot but he couldn't capitalise on good periods of form.

[Bino's]

3 minutes ago, Tartan Chris said:

I haven't read report but would be interested to see what the general recommendations are. I imagine it will be the usual of building more indoor centres and getting things right at youth level.

That's important but realistically for a small nation with population there are always many factors in play.

You take Belgium for example. Population of 11m so limited compared to the other teams they were in later stages of world cup with. Not a huge football culture and generally been insignificant in international football for most of their existance. Had a good team in the 80s and then similar to Scotland had a no frills defensive team that made two World cups in the 90s.

They didn't qualify for a major tournament from 2002 up to world cup 2014. 

If you count getting to the final of euro 80 and semi final of Mexico 86 insignificant

It was the fall away from those levels which led to them putting the focus highly on skills academies, resulting in today's players

[dohadeer]

1 hour ago, Tartan Chris said:

I haven't read report but would be interested to see what the general recommendations are. I imagine it will be the usual of building more indoor centres and getting things right at youth level.

That's important but realistically for a small nation with population there are always many factors in play.

You take Belgium for example. Population of 11m so limited compared to the other teams they were in later stages of world cup with. Not a huge football culture and generally been insignificant in international football for most of their existance. Had a good team in the 80s and then similar to Scotland had a no frills defensive team that made two World cups in the 90s.

They didn't qualify for a major tournament from 2002 up to world cup 2014. Now they're one of the world's best teams?

Perhaps they've invested a huge amount in youth facilites but sometimes it's a simple case of just 5-6 World class footballers all being born in the same era. Wales is a little similar.

Scotland currently have more players playing at top level (would also include Burke given he is in La Liga and regularly getting minutes) than at any point since the last near miss in 2007 even if they don't all play in key positions. It's frustrating not to have any world class forward like Norway and Serbia and the lack of any decent CBs is a massive issue but in other positions the players are more than competant if not pretty good and they show it for their club sides on a regular basis.

Was there anything in the report looking at why there's so many call offs from every international round? That remains a big issue although I suspect due to the importance in March hardly anyone will pull out and then play for their club on April 4th, it will be just long term injured who miss out like Tierney and McGinn.

Said it before but you see likes of Bale and Ramsey racing to join up with Wales squad and they play for some of the biggest teams in world football and this is for mundane qualifiers.

Many of the Welsh squad grew up together in the youth teams so it's very much a club side mentality, same for Northern Ireland. It's a thing lacking in the Scotland set up so imo it's too easy to pull out from squads. You also then don't have that backs to the wall mentality to pull through when 0-0 in a tough away qualifier. This is a quality that will be needed in Oslo or Belgrade if the team get to the final.

Another problem is some of the awful managers that have been appointed since 2007. Strachan was best of the lot but he couldn't capitalise on good periods of form.

I don’t think it’s fair to throw out the label ‘awful managers’ so readily. 

Apart from Alex McLeish’s second spell, when he didn’t really have the recent credentials to merit getting the job - although you could still argue that his success first time around had earned him a second chance - every time we have appointed the best Scottish manager available. The problem is, that we are racing through managers at such a rate, that we’ve run out of worthy candidates.

 

Apart from George Burley, when his Scotland side finished third when seeded second, every other manager has played to our seeding in the qualifying group. The fact that that is so easily labelled as ‘awful’ rather than ‘average’ is surely more an indication that our expectations are too high than anything else.

 

Edited February 23, 2020 by dohadeer

[daviebee]

1 hour ago, Tartan Chris said:

I haven't read report but would be interested to see what the general recommendations are. I imagine it will be the usual of building more indoor centres and getting things right at youth level.

That's important but realistically for a small nation with population there are always many factors in play.

You take Belgium for example. Population of 11m so limited compared to the other teams they were in later stages of world cup with. Not a huge football culture and generally been insignificant in international football for most of their existance. Had a good team in the 80s and then similar to Scotland had a no frills defensive team that made two World cups in the 90s.

They didn't qualify for a major tournament from 2002 up to world cup 2014. Now they're one of the world's best teams?

Perhaps they've invested a huge amount in youth facilites but sometimes it's a simple case of just 5-6 World class footballers all being born in the same era. Wales is a little similar.

They invested their profits from the time they co-hosted the Euros into a state-of-the-art fitba academy.  The rest, as they say, is history.  I'm sure there was a bit in the programme about it when we played them.

Meanwhile we've got the state-of-the-ark thing at Largs.

[daviebee]

45 minutes ago, dohadeer said:

I don’t think it’s fair to throw out the label ‘awful managers’ so readily. 

Apart from Alex McLeish’s second spell, when he didn’t really have the recent credentials to merit getting the job - although you could still argue that his success first time around had earned him a second chance - every time we have appointed the best Scottish manager available. The problem is, that we are racing through managers at such a rate, that we’ve run out of worthy candidates.

You could, but you'd be absolutely off your fkin nut if you did.

[ErsatzThistle]

6 minutes ago, daviebee said:

They invested their profits from the time they co-hosted the Euros into a state-of-the-art fitba academy.  The rest, as they say, is history.  I'm sure there was a bit in the programme about it when we played them.

Meanwhile we've got the state-of-the-ark thing at Largs.

My pals Dad attended the courses there to get his badges about ten or twelve years ago now.

He said it was old duffers in SFA tracksuits teaching industrial football.

According to him, the Largs agenda that we're all supposed to be in awe of consisted of ....

Long punts up the park. Prioritise bigger kids and discard the wee ones. Nothing wrong with putting the frighteners on someone with a dangerous tackle. Short passing ? No way, forty or fifty yard passes ? Now we're talking. Timewasting is encouraged. Healthy diet is overrated. Sprints and press ups will keep your team fit, no need for anything else. Add in a sprinkling of xenophobia about "what the German's are doing" or "what the Spanish are doing" 

It was a disgrace. 

He recalled that one guy who kept questioning the methods taught was told to either shut up and accept it or go home and don't come back. 

And the football media we have claims that the Largs setup was "admired around the world" aye fucking right.

[daviebee]

2 minutes ago, ErsatzThistle said:

My pals Dad attended the courses there to get his badges about ten or twelve years ago now.

He said it was old duffers in SFA tracksuits teaching industrial football.

According to him, the Largs agenda that we're all supposed to be in awe of consisted of ....

Long punts up the park. Prioritise bigger kids and discard the wee ones. Nothing wrong with putting the frighteners on someone with a dangerous tackle. Short passing ? No way, forty or fifty yard passes ? Now we're talking. Timewasting is encouraged. Healthy diet is overrated. Sprints and press ups will keep your team fit, no need for anything else. Add in a sprinkling of xenophobia about "what the German's are doing" or "what the Spanish are doing" 

It was a disgrace. 

He recalled that one guy who kept questioning the methods taught was told to either shut up and accept it or go home and don't come back. 

And the football media we have claims that the Largs setup was "admired around the world" aye fucking right.

Aye, but remember that once upon a time we qualified for 5 World Cups in a row.  Did fck all when we got there of course.

The rest of the world didn't overtake us - they went hooring past in the fast lane while we're still changing a puncture on the hard shoulder.

[Tiny Tim]

15 minutes ago, ErsatzThistle said:

My pals Dad attended the courses there to get his badges about ten or twelve years ago now.

He said it was old duffers in SFA tracksuits teaching industrial football.

According to him, the Largs agenda that we're all supposed to be in awe of consisted of ....

Long punts up the park. Prioritise bigger kids and discard the wee ones. Nothing wrong with putting the frighteners on someone with a dangerous tackle. Short passing ? No way, forty or fifty yard passes ? Now we're talking. Timewasting is encouraged. Healthy diet is overrated. Sprints and press ups will keep your team fit, no need for anything else. Add in a sprinkling of xenophobia about "what the German's are doing" or "what the Spanish are doing" 

It was a disgrace. 

He recalled that one guy who kept questioning the methods taught was told to either shut up and accept it or go home and don't come back. 

And the football media we have claims that the Largs setup was "admired around the world" aye fucking right.

Might have been shite when your Dad was there which is sad to hear but there seems to have been plenty before him done okay. Anyway, it's been shut for a while now so we need to look for reasons we're not doing well elsewhere.

 

For many years, the location of an unlikely rite of passage for Europe's future top bosses.

Take the start of the 2011-12 season. 

As the Premier League got under way, nine of the division's managers - Sir Alex Ferguson, Sir Kenny Dalglish, David Moyes, Andre Villas-Boas, Brendan Rodgers, Roy Hodgson, Owen Coyle, Alex McLeish and Steve Kean - had trained or taught at the town's coaching courses.

Over in Spain, Jose Mourinho - no longer needing a lager-stained touchscreen to prove his identity - was about to embark on a record-breaking, title-winning, Barcelona-baiting season with Real Madrid.

England's manager was Fabio Capello, who had been to the town in the 1980s to refine his coaching knowledge. Fellow Italian Giovanni Trapattoni, then manager of the Republic of Ireland, had made his own trip there the year before.

Marcelo Lippi and Carlos Queiroz - both Largs attendees - were in the job market after guiding Italy and Portugal respectively in the previous year's World Cup.

[dohadeer]

29 minutes ago, ErsatzThistle said:

My pals Dad attended the courses there to get his badges about ten or twelve years ago now.

He said it was old duffers in SFA tracksuits teaching industrial football.

According to him, the Largs agenda that we're all supposed to be in awe of consisted of ....

Long punts up the park. Prioritise bigger kids and discard the wee ones. Nothing wrong with putting the frighteners on someone with a dangerous tackle. Short passing ? No way, forty or fifty yard passes ? Now we're talking. Timewasting is encouraged. Healthy diet is overrated. Sprints and press ups will keep your team fit, no need for anything else. Add in a sprinkling of xenophobia about "what the German's are doing" or "what the Spanish are doing" 

It was a disgrace. 

He recalled that one guy who kept questioning the methods taught was told to either shut up and accept it or go home and don't come back. 

And the football media we have claims that the Largs setup was "admired around the world" aye fucking right.

Didn’t happen......

[ErsatzThistle]

1 minute ago, Tiny Tim said:

Might have been shite when your Dad was there which is sad to hear but there seems to have been plenty before him done okay. Anyway, it's been shut for a while now so we need to look for reasons we're not doing well elsewhere.

 

For many years, the location of an unlikely rite of passage for Europe's future top bosses.

Take the start of the 2011-12 season. 

As the Premier League got under way, nine of the division's managers - Sir Alex Ferguson, Sir Kenny Dalglish, David Moyes, Andre Villas-Boas, Brendan Rodgers, Roy Hodgson, Owen Coyle, Alex McLeish and Steve Kean - had trained or taught at the town's coaching courses.

Over in Spain, Jose Mourinho - no longer needing a lager-stained touchscreen to prove his identity - was about to embark on a record-breaking, title-winning, Barcelona-baiting season with Real Madrid.

England's manager was Fabio Capello, who had been to the town in the 1980s to refine his coaching knowledge. Fellow Italian Giovanni Trapattoni, then manager of the Republic of Ireland, had made his own trip there the year before.

Marcelo Lippi and Carlos Queiroz - both Largs attendees - were in the job market after guiding Italy and Portugal respectively in the previous year's World Cup.

My friend's Dad was there. Please read posts more carefully.

Some of those managers like Ferguson and Rodgers were clearly independent minded and went on to create their own styles of football

Mourinho, Capello and Trapattoni had their teams playing soul crushing football that caused eyeballs to bleed.

Steve Kean, Owen Coyle, Alex McLeish and Carlos Queiroz are joke managers.

Are you a fan of this "British brand of football" ? Big punts up the park and breaking the opposing wingers legs and all that crap ?

That stupid Largs setup, with it's mid 20th century tactics and complete rejection of any foreign influences is nothing for us to be proud about.

It caused huge damage to Scottish football by training hundreds of coaches who accepted it all as gospel and went and ruined countless young players.

[ErsatzThistle]

Just now, dohadeer said:

Didn’t happen......

Well it did.

It was a lot of shite and it was coached by old farts who were living fifty years in the past. 

They are probably deid now anyway.

[dohadeer]

2 minutes ago, ErsatzThistle said:

Well it did.

It was a lot of shite and it was coached by old farts who were living fifty years in the past. 

They are probably deid now anyway.

It’s a second-hand story, that probably isn’t worth relaying on here without any evidence.

[ErsatzThistle]

3 minutes ago, dohadeer said:

It’s a second-hand story, that probably isn’t worth relaying on here without any evidence.

Well it's true.

If you want to waste time writing an 80,000 word response then you knock yourself out but my pals Dad is an honest man and I believe him fully.

Just because somethings got a big shiny saltire on it doesn't mean it's good or I have to back it right or wrong. 

The Largs setup was a disgrace and so were those employed there.

[dohadeer]

11 minutes ago, ErsatzThistle said:

Well it's true.

If you want to waste time writing an 80,000 word response then you knock yourself out but my pals Dad is an honest man and I believe him fully.

Just because somethings got a big shiny saltire on it doesn't mean it's good or I have to back it right or wrong. 

The Largs setup was a disgrace and so were those employed there.

It would be lovely to see some evidence.

I’m not sure ‘My pal’s dad said......’ holds up under scrutiny.

[ErsatzThistle]

13 minutes ago, dohadeer said:

It would be lovely to see some evidence.

I’m not sure ‘My pal’s dad said......’ holds up under scrutiny.

Oh well the TAMB's resident football expert and fact adjudicator has spoken then ....... 

[ceudmilefailte]

54 minutes ago, Tiny Tim said:

Might have been shite when your Dad was there which is sad to hear but there seems to have been plenty before him done okay. Anyway, it's been shut for a while now so we need to look for reasons we're not doing well elsewhere.

 

For many years, the location of an unlikely rite of passage for Europe's future top bosses.

Take the start of the 2011-12 season. 

As the Premier League got under way, nine of the division's managers - Sir Alex Ferguson, Sir Kenny Dalglish, David Moyes, Andre Villas-Boas, Brendan Rodgers, Roy Hodgson, Owen Coyle, Alex McLeish and Steve Kean - had trained or taught at the town's coaching courses.

Over in Spain, Jose Mourinho - no longer needing a lager-stained touchscreen to prove his identity - was about to embark on a record-breaking, title-winning, Barcelona-baiting season with Real Madrid.

England's manager was Fabio Capello, who had been to the town in the 1980s to refine his coaching knowledge. Fellow Italian Giovanni Trapattoni, then manager of the Republic of Ireland, had made his own trip there the year before.

Marcelo Lippi and Carlos Queiroz - both Largs attendees - were in the job market after guiding Italy and Portugal respectively in the previous year's World Cup.

Your not allowed to post facts , people on here don't like them .

 

[ErsatzThistle]

1 minute ago, ceudmilefailte said:

Your not allowed to post facts , people on here don't like them .

 

Do you actually think that teaching aspiring coaches to have their teams lump it up the park, encourage dangerous tackling, not give a toss about what their players are eating and ignoring good ideas from other countries is a good thing ?

Naw, let's just bring back boring auld shite like the Home Championships to solve all our problems that'll fix things 

[dohadeer]

28 minutes ago, ErsatzThistle said:

Do you actually think that teaching aspiring coaches to have their teams lump it up the park, encourage dangerous tackling, not give a toss about what their players are eating and ignoring good ideas from other countries is a good thing ?

Naw, let's just bring back boring auld shite like the Home Championships to solve all our problems that'll fix things 

I think that judging from their reply, they’d rather believe the facts and stats than second or third-hand anecdotal evidence.

I’m trying to remember if I was six or seven-years-old the last time that I heard a story that started with the words ‘My pal’s Dad.......’. 🤔🤔