'Biggest underachievers in world football'

[Clyde1998]

I'm sure some people saw the article on The Athletic from a few weeks ago about us being 'the biggest underachievers in world football'. I don't think that article was discussed on here.

The full article is below:

Quote

Scotland’s early elimination from World Cup 2026 and Steve Clarke’s departure as coach isn’t surprising to those who watched their qualification matches, where they struggled to play cohesive football but sealed their place thanks to a thrilling, almost unbelievable, 4-2 victory over Denmark courtesy of some impossible-to-repeat goals.

But it’s even less surprising considering Scotland’s tournament history. Scotland have come to be regarded as serial failures, inevitable disappointments, to the point where this has become the nation’s footballing identity. Qualification is met with a “Maybe… this time?” vibe, eternally referencing past disappointments.

This is a great pity, because Scotland are genuinely among the most significant nations in football history.

Scotland figured out how to play football sooner than anyone, including England; the passing game we take for granted was perfected north of the border in the late 19th century when English sides were still committed to dribbling.

Scotland have also produced — in one sense — as many top-class players as any other nation. The Ballon d’Or, awarded to the best player in the world, has been officially awarded since 1960, and for a long time, it applied only to European players.

But had the award been in operation since the formation of association football in the 1860s and always global, it would be a three-way race between Scotland, Brazil and Argentina for the most wins over the years. The likes of Nick Ross and Alex James mean little to modern supporters, but these were among the best players in world football in the late 19th or early 20th century.

This is a country which has produced a disproportionate number of leading managers. 13 managers have won the English Football League three times or more, and five of them were Scots: George Ramsey, Matt Busby, Bill Shankly, Sir Kenny Dalglish and Sir Alex Ferguson.

And this is also a nation that has produced one of the most famous European Cup-winning sides: in 1967, Celtic’s Lisbon Lions were crowned the best side in Europe, with a starting XI comprising 11 players all born within 30 miles of Glasgow. At the club level, Scotland could conquer Europe.

They got the strategy right. They produced players. They produced managers. But among all this, Scotland has consistently failed to produce an international side capable of challenging the best. This is Scotland’s identity. And it stems from a combination of two factors: their overwhelming obsession with England, and ignorance of the Scottish Football Association. This has consistently put the nation on the back foot and resulted in a default approach that is a mixture of negativity and isolationism.

In the early meetings between Scotland and England, the original rivalry in international football, Scotland generally came out on top. In fact, it took until the 1970s for England to surpass Scotland in terms of victories in head-to-head clashes. Where they suffered, however, was that England organised themselves domestically more quickly. Professionalism was permitted in England from 1885, but Scotland repeatedly failed to follow suit in votes over the next eight years, resisting until 1893. This eight-year period did a great deal of damage to Scottish football, as more and more Scots travelled south to earn a living. These ‘traitors’ were, for a period, banned from representing the national side.

When Hearts and Sunderland — champions of Scotland and England respectively — contested a match billed as the football ‘World Championship’ in 1895, all 22 players were Scottish. Sunderland won 5-3. Scotland completely dominated the sport, but they’d let much of their elite talent drift south.

English football actually made several attempts to embrace the Scottish game. Queen’s Park, the leading Scottish side of the time, competed in the English FA Cup and made two finals in the 1880s, but were eventually banned from competing by the SFA.

Similarly, the originator of the Football League, Aston Villa director William McGregor, was a Scot and keen to expand his idea to incorporate Scottish clubs. Again, they were banned from competing south of the border.

Now, you can argue that those decisions were about protecting the Scottish game and, in theory, Scottish football’s constant attempts to distance itself from English football could have worked in its favour. Tactically, English football was arrogant and self-indulgent throughout the first half of the 20th century, refusing to realise the progression of the game elsewhere and evolve its methods. If Scotland had underlined its anti-England stance by taking a more internationalist approach, it might have been better prepared than England for international competition. Instead, Scotland became even more isolationist than England and fell dramatically behind.

Neither England nor Scotland entered the first three World Cups in the interwar years because they weren’t part of FIFA. But they rejoined after the Second World War, and FIFA were desperate for both to compete at the World Cup. Generously, FIFA allocated two places at the 1950 World Cup to the top two in the Home Nations Championship, meaning England and Scotland only had to finish above Wales and Ireland to earn a trip to Brazil. But Scotland bizarrely announced they would only enter if they finished top, considering finishing behind England such a failure that the World Cup wasn’t worth bothering with.

England made no such promise; there was no reason to. Sure enough, England’s 1-0 win in Glasgow meant they finished ahead of Scotland, and the Scots refused to travel. England did — and while they were famously humbled in a 1-0 defeat to the United States, at least they were learning lessons. The Scots stayed at home and learned nothing.

Four years later, Scotland entered and qualified for the tournament in Switzerland, but decided only to take 13 players — including two goalkeepers — rather than the permitted 22. The SFA seemed keener to take plenty of committee members — and their wives — rather than the full complement of players. Manager Andy Beattie, furious at the SFA’s unprofessionalism, resigned after the first game. Four years later, they competed in Sweden but lost all three games to Yugoslavia, France, and, most surprisingly, Paraguay.

They weren’t the only nation not to enter the first European Championship in 1960. But while England, Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland saw the success of the first edition and entered in 1964, the Scots didn’t bother. It was only one tournament — and was played largely as a qualification process with just a four-team final stage — but it was further evidence of Scotland failing to get involved in proper international competition. Again, they fell further behind and failed to qualify for World Cups in 1962, 1966 and 1970, while England caught up with the rest of the world, won the tournament on home soil, and had a decent stab at retaining their title in Mexico.

Scotland did, however, qualify for the next five World Cups — the first two in tournaments where England missed out — but were consistently weaker than the sum of their parts. There were particularly high hopes heading into World Cup 1978, partly thanks to the presence of Graeme Souness and Kenny Dalglish of Liverpool, who had just won the European Cup. Again, poor organisation was partly to blame for their performance: their hotel was a disaster and they barely had a training ground worthy of the name. Their performances were largely terrible and they exited, as always, at the group stage. World Soccer magazine called them the ‘biggest disappointment’ of the tournament.

All of these experiences led Scotland into a downward spiral. It seems fairly clear that they developed a mentality problem, in that they simply didn’t believe they could compete with the best nations. But more disappointing has been the stylistic decline. As late as the 1950s, club teams playing free-flowing passing football were said to be playing the ‘Scottish style’. But as Scotland became more withdrawn and less confident, they started playing physical, attritional, defensive football. The lack of technical players capable of playing an attractive style of football is, of course, a chicken-and-egg debate.

One of the curious things about the Scotland side is how many excellent England-based Scottish footballers played so few games for the national side, for various reasons. Alan Hansen was arguably Europe’s leading defender for a period, but won just 26 caps. Charlie Nicholas was a legendary figure at Arsenal, but won only 20, as did Andy Gray, who won the PFA Player of the Year award in his Aston Villa days. It’s often said they didn’t play well enough for the national side, but the fact that the pattern exists, in itself, says something.

In the 21st century, when standards have been somewhat lower, the likes of Charlie Adam, James McArthur and Matt Ritchie have been genuinely good Premier League midfielders, capable of dictating or deciding games. They won only 26, 32 and 16 caps respectively. These are surely not worse players than the likes of — with respect — Scott Brown (55), Kenny McLean (61) or Callum McGregor (63). Sometimes you wonder precisely what the Scotland national side is all about; what they are actually trying to achieve.

There is no shame in being defeated by Brazil and Morocco and ending on three points; a better draw and Scotland might well have advanced to the knockout stage. But there is a sadness that Scotland have declined to this extent. Scotland are now just plucky underdogs, eternally hoping things might fall their way. Their population is relatively small (5.5m), but in an alternative history, Scotland would be the equivalent of Uruguay (3.4m) in terms of historic success, or Croatia (3.8m) in terms of style. This should be a leading football nation; Scotland should be to football what New Zealand (5.3m) are to rugby union.

Two years ago at Euro 2024, Scotland fans — as always — took huge numbers of supporters to Germany and made many friends in Munich, Cologne and Stuttgart, just as they did this time around in Boston. At that tournament, their supporters spent much of the trip singing about Diego Maradona, celebrating his handball goal against England in 1986.

Then, when they exited after a 1-0 loss to Hungary, which featured decisions from referee Facundo Tello (an Argentine who was part of an officiating exchange agreement involving CONMEBOL and UEFA) that angered manager Steve Clarke, he brought up Tello’s nationality in a post-match interview.

“He’s from Argentina, why would I ask him?” Clarke said. “He probably doesn’t speak the language. Why is he here? Why isn’t it a European referee?”

It felt somewhat ironic after the supporters had spent two weeks chanting about an Argentine. But this was a perfect microcosm of the Scottish national side over the past 150 years: run into the ground by a damaging obsession with England, and a reluctance to engage in the increasing internationalism of the game.

I had been thinking about getting a subscription to The Athletic prior to this World Cup, but some of the articles have made me reconsider that. This is certainly one of them.

Just some observations from this article:

• It largely blames anti-Englishness for our relatively disappointing performances.
• Takes no account of context of why certain players didn't play much for Scotland (such as competition for places; personal matters; players constantly withdrawing).
• Doesn't look at the role the SFA and clubs play in improving the player pool for the national team, nor the wider societal issues when it comes to getting kids involved in sport regularly.
• The idea we should be the footballing equivalent of New Zealand in rugby is laughable.
• If we're talking about the biggest underachievers in world football, countries like Mexico; Russia; and Turkey have to be in that debate at the very least.

None of this is to say we couldn't or shouldn't be doing any better, but this misses the main issues completely.

[Diamond Scot]

25 minutes ago, Clyde1998 said:

I'm sure some people saw the article on The Athletic from a few weeks ago about us being 'the biggest underachievers in world football'. I don't think that article was discussed on here.

The full article is below:

I had been thinking about getting a subscription to The Athletic prior to this World Cup, but some of the articles have made me reconsider that. This is certainly one of them.

Just some observations from this article:

• It largely blames anti-Englishness for our relatively disappointing performances.
• Takes no account of context of why certain players didn't play much for Scotland (such as competition for places; personal matters; players constantly withdrawing).
• Doesn't look at the role the SFA and clubs play in improving the player pool for the national team, nor the wider societal issues when it comes to getting kids involved in sport regularly.
• The idea we should be the footballing equivalent of New Zealand in rugby is laughable.
• If we're talking about the biggest underachievers in world football, countries like Mexico; Russia; and Turkey have to be in that debate at the very least.

None of this is to say we couldn't or shouldn't be doing any better, but this misses the main issues completely.

Biggest underachievers in world football are England. Richest league in the world, huge population, football is national sport and they reguarly produce top class footballers but havent won anything, including nations league since 1966.

Only their very recent record is acceptable for what they should be doing.

Lets hope that continues lol

[er yir macaroon]

Apart from the weird references to Matt Ritchie and Argentina I don't see much wrong with the article. The SFA have been a disaster for well over a century. 

[Toepoke]

1 hour ago, Clyde1998 said:

I'm sure some people saw the article on The Athletic from a few weeks ago about us being 'the biggest underachievers in world football'. I don't think that article was discussed on here.

The full article is below:

I had been thinking about getting a subscription to The Athletic prior to this World Cup, but some of the articles have made me reconsider that. This is certainly one of them.

Just some observations from this article:

• It largely blames anti-Englishness for our relatively disappointing performances.
• Takes no account of context of why certain players didn't play much for Scotland (such as competition for places; personal matters; players constantly withdrawing).
• Doesn't look at the role the SFA and clubs play in improving the player pool for the national team, nor the wider societal issues when it comes to getting kids involved in sport regularly.
• The idea we should be the footballing equivalent of New Zealand in rugby is laughable.
• If we're talking about the biggest underachievers in world football, countries like Mexico; Russia; and Turkey have to be in that debate at the very least.

None of this is to say we couldn't or shouldn't be doing any better, but this misses the main issues completely.

There are factual errors in it too: we drew with Yugoslavia in 1958, and I'm pretty sure it was well into the 1980s before England overtook us on wins.

Still there were some comments that could be agreed with, especially around the parochial SFA. One criticism that I thought might have got mentioned was that they only gave out  caps to players who features in the British Championship, not even playing at the World Cup in the 1950s got you one!

Also regarding the lack of caps some players had, Steve Clarke identified that as a problem to be addressed, which was one reason why the names mentioned had played more times than their predecessors.

 

[Toepoke]

1 hour ago, Clyde1998 said:

I'm sure some people saw the article on The Athletic from a few weeks ago about us being 'the biggest underachievers in world football'. I don't think that article was discussed on here.

The full article is below:

I had been thinking about getting a subscription to The Athletic prior to this World Cup, but some of the articles have made me reconsider that. This is certainly one of them.

Just some observations from this article:

• It largely blames anti-Englishness for our relatively disappointing performances.
• Takes no account of context of why certain players didn't play much for Scotland (such as competition for places; personal matters; players constantly withdrawing).
• Doesn't look at the role the SFA and clubs play in improving the player pool for the national team, nor the wider societal issues when it comes to getting kids involved in sport regularly.
• The idea we should be the footballing equivalent of New Zealand in rugby is laughable.
• If we're talking about the biggest underachievers in world football, countries like Mexico; Russia; and Turkey have to be in that debate at the very least.

None of this is to say we couldn't or shouldn't be doing any better, but this misses the main issues completely.

There are factual errors in it too: we drew with Yugoslavia in 1958, and I'm pretty sure it was well into the 1980s before England overtook us on wins.

Still there were some comments that could be agreed with, especially around the parochial SFA. One criticism that I thought might have got mentioned was that they only gave out  caps to players who features in the British Championship, not even playing at the World Cup in the 1950s got you one!

Also regarding the lack of caps some players had, Steve Clarke identified that as a problem to be addressed, which was one reason why the names mentioned had played more times than their predecessors.

 

[vanderark14]

Scotland are under achievers IMO, however the crown belongs to England. 

[exile]

1 hour ago, Clyde1998 said:

I'm sure some people saw the article on The Athletic from a few weeks ago about us being 'the biggest underachievers in world football'. I don't think that article was discussed on here.

The full article is below:

I had been thinking about getting a subscription to The Athletic prior to this World Cup, but some of the articles have made me reconsider that. This is certainly one of them.

Just some observations from this article:

• It largely blames anti-Englishness for our relatively disappointing performances.
• Takes no account of context of why certain players didn't play much for Scotland (such as competition for places; personal matters; players constantly withdrawing).
• Doesn't look at the role the SFA and clubs play in improving the player pool for the national team, nor the wider societal issues when it comes to getting kids involved in sport regularly.
• The idea we should be the footballing equivalent of New Zealand in rugby is laughable.
• If we're talking about the biggest underachievers in world football, countries like Mexico; Russia; and Turkey have to be in that debate at the very least.

None of this is to say we couldn't or shouldn't be doing any better, but this misses the main issues completely.

It's a bizarre take. We are a small country with no right to expect to be in, say, the top 16, which World Cups used to be about, and which we did manage to achieve in the past.

Arguably we over-achieved in development and influence in the early years. So they seem to be comparing against that?  You may as well say Uruguay haven't won as many world cups as the good old days.

The parochialism and lost opportunity of the middle years of the twentieth century is hardly a new insight.

Your point about Mexico Russia and Turkey is fair. This World Cup I became aware of quite a few cases of other teams who seem to have a ceiling. I can't remember them all now, but maybe countries like Japan and Switzerland as well as Mexico, never seem to get beyond a certain stage; it's just that it's one or two stages beyond the group stage, so people don't notice.

And what about the USA? If you disallow excuses and special pleading, they are arguably the biggest under-achievers of the lot.

[exile]

.

Edited July 14 by exile

[exile]

32 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

Scotland are under achievers IMO, however the crown belongs to England. 

I think we are under-achievers at tournaments, for sure - poorer than Wales, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, for just three examples. 

And relative to the likes of Denmark and Croatia, but they could be considered over-achievers...

Edited July 14 by exile

[kumnio]

28 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

Scotland are under achievers IMO, however the crown belongs to England. 

Lets hope that the latter continues to be true.

[vanderark14]

19 minutes ago, kumnio said:

Lets hope that the latter continues to be true.

I think they will win it this time

[Caledonian Craig]

Of the teams left in:-

Best Attack

1. France

2. England

3. Argentina

4. Spain

Best Defence

1. Spain

2. France

3. England

4 Argentina

Winning Mentality

1. Spain

2. Argentina

3. France

4. England

[BoundaryFault]

Wouldn't China and, especially, India be the biggest under-achievers?

One other point: the home internationals were scrapped in 1984. This should have been positive, but rather led into years of decline.

And, of course, correlation is not causation.

[DoonTheSlope]

England are the sleeping giants of international football 

Wanky phrase thread for me

[Orraloon]

51 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

I think they will win it this time

Me too. I think FIFA need and want England to win it. Why else would they continually give them easy draws all the way to the semi finals?

[Clyde1998]

9 minutes ago, BoundaryFault said:

Wouldn't China and, especially, India be the biggest under-achievers?

I seem to remember a video from the last World Cup(?) which was based on an edition of Soccernomics. It basically said the best (relative) performers at a World Cup performed well:

1. On economic measures (for various reasons: access to places to play football; standard of facilities; healthy population; etc.)
2. In population (leads to a bigger talent pool, although I'd argue it's probably number of people who play the sport rather than raw population, as well as lack of potential competition from other sports)
3. In connectedness (things like coaches and players being exposed to different countries to develop and discover different ideas; playing against a diverse range of teams; etc.)
4. In experience (nations who have played more matches do better, with diminishing returns)
5. In 'home' advantage (not just being the host, but being used to playing in the host country: only one South American side has won the World Cup in Europe; only one European side has won the World Cup outwith Europe)

China and (especially) India are relatively weak on a number of these measures. I wouldn't call them underachievers for that reason, but they're both countries with very big potentials if they start to improve in certain areas.

This may be something I might look into as a personal project, but I'd imagine there are a number of other factors which determine which teams do well at international level. The number of players getting senior football under the age of twenty-one; and resources of the national FA and club sides both spring to mind.

55 minutes ago, BoundaryFault said:

One other point: the home internationals were scrapped in 1984. This should have been positive, but rather led into years of decline.

And, of course, correlation is not causation.

I imagine we would've gone into decline regardless, as our youth development had already been identified as a problem.

Andy Roxburgh did a report the SFA about our youth development in the early 80s. He noted the standard of player entering the system as school boys was declining and without intervention he thought we'd struggle to regularly qualify for major tournaments around the year 2000 as a result.

This was obviously ignored by the SFA and his prediction turned out to be accurate.

[Caledonian Craig]

9 hours ago, DoonTheSlope said:

England are the sleeping giants of international football 

Wanky phrase thread for me

Hmmm.....I would define a giant in world football by the success in the past. Winning one World Cup and nothing else hardly equates as that. Italy would. Multiple World Cup winners and Euro winners and currently in the international wilderness (sleeping).

[exile]

On 7/14/2026 at 4:49 PM, Diamond Scot said:

Biggest underachievers in world football are England. Richest league in the world, huge population, football is national sport and they reguarly produce top class footballers but havent won anything, including nations league since 1966.

Only their very recent record is acceptable for what they should be doing.

Lets hope that continues lol

I think part of it must be to do with their psychology of being the biggest 'home nation'. I think it must be somehow messing with their heads, like being a poorer relation home nation messes with ours.

The desperate need for validation/support by people from rest of UK is a symptom of it. No other country behaves like that.

[vanderark14]

World Cup 2026 Coach Salaries: How Much Every Manager Is Paid

 

Not sure how accurate that is but Brazil are fucking mental to be paying that amount for a coach. England again paying millions for a coach and delivering fuck all

They must have squandered a ridiculous amount over the years in salaries and pay offs. 

[Diamond Scot]

1 hour ago, exile said:

I think part of it must be to do with their psychology of being the biggest 'home nation'. I think it must be somehow messing with their heads, like being a poorer relation home nation messes with ours.

The desperate need for validation/support by people from rest of UK is a symptom of it. No other country behaves like that.

That probably plays a part but I think the hype of the EPL also plays a part. Average players are made out to be world beaters and below average players are all millionaires.

[daviebee]

Just now, Diamond Scot said:

That probably plays a part but I think the hype of the EPL also plays a part. Average players are made out to be world beaters and below average players are all millionaires.

Definitely this. How much has that guy Gordon just been sold for? Utterly ludicrous. Anderson as well.

Thing is, they genuinely thought they were coming home with the trophy this time. They could've had no complaints if they'd been horsed out 3 rounds ago. Soon as they met one of the real powers they got their arses handed to them. A two-man team with Kane and Bellingham and Kane won't be around that much longer.

[Toepoke]

8 hours ago, vanderark14 said:

World Cup 2026 Coach Salaries: How Much Every Manager Is Paid

 

Not sure how accurate that is but Brazil are fucking mental to be paying that amount for a coach. England again paying millions for a coach and delivering fuck all

They must have squandered a ridiculous amount over the years in salaries and pay offs. 

Nearly €30m in salaries to produce a single semi finalist 🤯

[noctonjock]

On 7/14/2026 at 6:41 PM, vanderark14 said:

I think they will win it this time

How did that pan out ? Did you mean next time ? 

[Orraloon]

10 minutes ago, noctonjock said:

How did that pan out ? Did you mean next time ? 

They will win EURO 28. Home advantage AGAIN! Spain, France, Germany and Portugal will all be in the other half of the draw. FIFA and Uefa are desperate for them to win something. There can't be any other reason why they get all these advantages.

 

[Clyde1998]

8 hours ago, Diamond Scot said:

That probably plays a part but I think the hype of the EPL also plays a part. Average players are made out to be world beaters and below average players are all millionaires.

This is a good point.

I remember seeing something about why England failed to win anything with their 'golden generation' in the 2000s (arguably peaking at the 2006 World Cup).

One of the points raised was a lot of England's top players from that period wanted to do the same thing and be the 'second striker': Rooney; Lampard; Gerrard; Scholes (even players like Joe Cole).

All of these players could do that for their club because they had foreign players filling the void behind them and masking the weaknesses of those players.

There were very few English players who were of the ability to fill the void at the level England were expected to perform at, so they were exposed at international level.

When they had them, they typically weren't used. I'm thinking someone like Owen Hargreaves, who only started seven matches for England prior to the 2006 World Cup (only three times in competitive games).