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Daz1982

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12 hours ago, Toepoke said:

The great climate must be a factor. There was a feature on Croatia done by Radio Scotland after they beat us last year. They interviewed a Scottish teacher working in Zagreb who said you do see more kids playing outside in the sunshine, but tellingly that people from that part of the world seem to have a natural competence at ball sports.

That's a good point about the strength of Yugoslavia as well. I always hark back to the team that hammered us in the 1990 under 21 Euro qualifiers.

What a team from a single age group: Prosinecki, Suker, Boksic, Mihajlovic, Mijatovic, Boban, Jarni (and errr Lekovic and Petric 😄) If Yugoslavia hadn't broken up that squad could've been all conquering in the 90s.

https://www.11v11.com/matches/yugoslavia-v-scotland-05-september-1989-258186/#google_vignette

 

 

 

Yugoslavia is not a great analogy, that is the equivalent of there being a team GB then splintering. That is not the situation. You would generally expect better results from a larger population compared to it breaking into numerous small countries. 
However, even after Yugoslavia breaking up, both Croatia and Serbia are above us in the rankings and Macedonia have regularly terrorised us.

I dont think anyone thinks for a moment that becoming independent will suddenly transform us to a top footballing nation. But we have a timid , negative ‘cant do’ mindset in this country which was made very clear in the referendum when most people voting against us running our own affairs chose ‘No ‘ because we didnt think we could do it, not because they wanted to remain in the union. That is despite the No side admitting we could be successful on our own. 
This mindset must filter down to other things. We just dont seem  to have the determination other countries do . We are lazy. 

 

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5 hours ago, stocky said:

Did we not bear Yugoslavia 5-1,or6-1 at Hampden on a wet Wednesday in the early 80's.

 

Something is stirring the memory in my head .

6-1 in 1984 just before the WC qualifiers started.  We were actually a goal down early on!  6 different scorers as well - Cooper, Souness, Dalglish, Sturrock, Johnston, Nicholas.  Some names there!

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59 minutes ago, TDYER63 said:

I dont think anyone thinks for a moment that becoming independent will suddenly transform us to a top footballing nation. But we have a timid , negative ‘cant do’ mindset in this country which was made very clear in the referendum when most people voting against us running our own affairs chose ‘No ‘ because we didnt think we could do it, not because they wanted to remain in the union. That is despite the No side admitting we could be successful on our own. 
This mindset must filter down to other things. We just dont seem  to have the determination other countries do . We are lazy. 

 

It's more than a bit irritating that the balance was tipped by people from elsewhere voting No.  Native Scots apparently voted 53-47 Yes.  Not sure how you get round that without folk howling "racist" at you, but it's doubtful whether other countries would allow you to vote on their constitutional matters as an incomer.

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4 minutes ago, daviebee said:

It's more than a bit irritating that the balance was tipped by people from elsewhere voting No.  Native Scots apparently voted 53-47 Yes.  Not sure how you get round that without folk howling "racist" at you, but it's doubtful whether other countries would allow you to vote on their constitutional matters as an incomer.

Non native Scots having inferior intellect and and therefor being incapable of making an informed decision could indeed be seen as racist. 

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10 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

Non native Scots having inferior intellect and and therefor being incapable of making an informed decision could indeed be seen as racist. 

It could indeed, IF that's what you were actually saying., but of course you wouldn't be.

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1 hour ago, daviebee said:

It's more than a bit irritating that the balance was tipped by people from elsewhere voting No.  Native Scots apparently voted 53-47 Yes.  Not sure how you get round that without folk howling "racist" at you, but it's doubtful whether other countries would allow you to vote on their constitutional matters as an incomer.

The opposite happened in the Brexit vote.

 

Other members of the political union, ie EU citizens were not allowed to vote.

Im sure the result would have been reversed if they had voted.

 

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2 hours ago, daviebee said:

6-1 in 1984 just before the WC qualifiers started.  We were actually a goal down early on!  6 different scorers as well - Cooper, Souness, Dalglish, Sturrock, Johnston, Nicholas.  Some names there!

What a fuckn squad that was, Charlie Nicholas (as I have stated so many times in the past) really should have finished his career as our most capped & highest scoring player of all time, what a genuine talent he was, what a waste. - take that back he wasn't a waste, he had a decent career BUT, it should have been so, so much better

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2 hours ago, daviebee said:

It's more than a bit irritating that the balance was tipped by people from elsewhere voting No.  Native Scots apparently voted 53-47 Yes.  Not sure how you get round that without folk howling "racist" at you, but it's doubtful whether other countries would allow you to vote on their constitutional matters as an incomer.

Your comment got me wondering: if England had a referendum for English independence, would Scots living in England get to vote? Maybe I'm being naive, but I would like to think they would? (Actually, maybe that would be the quicket way for Scotland to become an independent country: England-based Scots campaigning for an Independent England 😀)

But anyway, it does seem Croatia is miles ahead of us in terms of mental strength on a football field. Maybe being a small independent country might play a part in that?

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7 minutes ago, mcguffin said:

Your comment got me wondering: if England had a referendum for English independence, would Scots living in England get to vote? Maybe I'm being naive, but I would like to think they would? (Actually, maybe that would be the quicket way for Scotland to become an independent country: England-based Scots campaigning for an Independent England 😀)

But anyway, it does seem Croatia is miles ahead of us in terms of mental strength on a football field. Maybe being a small independent country might play a part in that?

One thing's for sure - they wouldn't be grovelling to us for permission.

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22 hours ago, TDYER63 said:

As Dave says, they have an outstanding individual in a striker role. When you are not blessed with that your team needs  a strong psychological mindset to overcome the shortcomings. I do not believe we will ever flourish when we are in the UK . Even small things like build up to matches on TV , highlights etc. It is always England first, then whatever of the other 3 home nations is more successful at that particular time. Of course England brings a bigger tv audience but this whole pecking order being ingrained year after year,   has a psychological affect,  I don’t care what anyone says. 
We need to be ourselves , not one of the ‘three others’ in the UK ..

That same pecking order mentality is what keeps club football in Scotland in the shit state it’s been in for years, 75% old firm coverage then the rest used as filler grudgingly 🤯

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4 hours ago, daviebee said:

6-1 in 1984 just before the WC qualifiers started.  We were actually a goal down early on!  6 different scorers as well - Cooper, Souness, Dalglish, Sturrock, Johnston, Nicholas.  Some names there!


any one of them would walk straight in to our team now.

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On 6/13/2022 at 9:57 PM, Daz1982 said:

Just watched 2nd half of France v Croatia there.

Croatia are everything that we could or should be. Tight and compact without the ball. Comfortable when on the ball, and look dangerous also.

It’s actually sickening how far behind we are.

We’d be lucky to string 3 passes together away to France before shiting the bed and giving the ball away. Croatia were composed throughout.

Since becoming independent in the early 90s, Croatia have reached a WC semi final and final. They have also reached the knock out stages on various occasions, taking some massive scalps along the way.

All with a population of 4 million people.

Yet the dinosaurs in charge of our game, ex players, managers etc seem to think it’s unachievable for us to reach these heights.

Why do we have no ambition to achieve more at our national sport, why is there such a deep rooted acceptance of failure?

 

There’s so many factors at play. Some historical football books about tactics will explain the different evolution of the game in UK compared to other countries like Hungary, Austria, Italy, Brazil and others as early adopters of the game and differing approaches. Some of that legacy still rings true today. 
 

More currently, I think we are coaching any flair out of our game without significantly improving our technical ability. Other European countries (like Croatia as highlighted) are miles ahead. 
 

I even commented at Hampden against Armenia that if we had some of their technical comfort on the ball at times we would be a better team. It’s not just the top nations. We’ve seen relative minnows time and again over the years with better technical ability. 

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Hard to pinpoint exactly what it is about Croatia that makes them so good but Dinamo Zagreb aside, the rest of the squad are all playing outside Croatia, I’m sure I read somewhere a few years back that young Croatians are encouraged to move abroad to develop and the FA in Croatia are happy for it to have a detrimental effect on the league if it means the national team benefitting.

It’s seriously impressive how many players they have who are world class or bordering on that level, is there any other country in the world with such a small population who produce as many top players per capita? Uruguay only one I can think of.

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1 hour ago, Eassy said:

Hard to pinpoint exactly what it is about Croatia that makes them so good but Dinamo Zagreb aside, the rest of the squad are all playing outside Croatia, I’m sure I read somewhere a few years back that young Croatians are encouraged to move abroad to develop and the FA in Croatia are happy for it to have a detrimental effect on the league if it means the national team benefitting.

It’s seriously impressive how many players they have who are world class or bordering on that level, is there any other country in the world with such a small population who produce as many top players per capita? Uruguay only one I can think of.

Croatia are impressive in the number of top quality players they produce, year after year. 
A country similar in size to Scotland, Denmark seem to be producing a lot of quality players, Belgium over the last decade. 
I also think for its size, Portugal produces a serious amount of talented footballers.

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7 hours ago, Eassy said:

It’s seriously impressive how many players they have who are world class or bordering on that level, is there any other country in the world with such a small population who produce as many top players per capita? Uruguay only one I can think of.

As mentioned at the time, only players from Brazil, Spain and Croatia have won the Champions League in each of the last ten years.

 

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9 hours ago, Toepoke said:

As mentioned at the time, only players from Brazil, Spain and Croatia have won the Champions League in each of the last ten years.

 

I'm not sure I'm getting what you are saying here. Does that mean that every team that has won the Champions League has had at least one Spanish, Brazilian and Croatian player in it?

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1 hour ago, henry george said:

Good article here about the Croatian coaching system.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-soccer-croatia-idUKKBN1O61P5

Thanks! That is a good article.
I particular like this quote:

“If we have just drills in training, that leads to automation and players don’t think about why they are doing that. Players are not developed for automation, they must be able to think.”

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