World cup final - match yhread

[SWMM82]

19 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

We have that mentality because we didnt qualify for anything for over 20 years and we don't have enough quality players to expect to do well.

We need to produce better players and then that mentality might change.

Yes but should u15, u17 and u19 players have the same “small nation” mentality going into tournaments? That is the point. We have qualified for multiple tournaments at that level, yet the “just happy to be there” mentality appears to overshadow any belief that we may be able to win or get to the latter stages of these tournaments.

Coaches should be fostering a far more positive mindset in our young players along with developing the more obvious technical aspects of their game. 

[mccaughey85]

5 minutes ago, SWMM82 said:

Yes but should u15, u17 and u19 players have the same “small nation” mentality going into tournaments? That is the point. We have qualified for multiple tournaments at that level, yet the “just happy to be there” mentality appears to overshadow any belief that we may be able to win or get to the latter stages of these tournaments.

Coaches should be fostering a far more positive mindset in our young players along with developing the more obvious technical aspects of their game. 

Depends on how strong our squads are at any given age group. If it's a strong squad then we should be expecting to do well at whatever tournament we go to wether it's youth or senior.

[thesaint]

6 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

We have that mentality because we didnt qualify for anything for over 20 years and we don't have enough quality players to expect to do well.

We need to produce better players and then that mentality might change.

Surely we have enough quality players to produce better performances than that shit show though.Nobody expects us to win a World Cup but those performances were way below what we should be capable of.

[mccaughey85]

9 minutes ago, thesaint said:

Surely we have enough quality players to produce better performances than that shit show though.Nobody expects us to win a World Cup but those performances were way below what we should be capable of.

I would say we should have been better in terms of performance but we did get unlucky with the group. Getting two top 10 teams in our group was a big factor in us struggling. 

My expectations was to beat Haiti more comfortably but I didn't expect us to get a result v Morocco or brazil. Our squad just isn't strong enough to expect to get results against top 10 sides. Fair enough upsets happen but expecting it to magically happen is delusional thinking.

I think it's right that Clarke stepped down. He's had three good chances of getting us out the groups and failed so it's time he gave someone else a chance but that doesn't change the fact that we need a much better squad if we want to go to a tournament and expect to get out the groups. 

With our squad it's currently more a case of hope rather than expectation. 

The mentality of being happy to be there would change if we produced a really strong squad and they achieved the goal of getting out the groups a couple of times but until that happens then many like me will be happy with just qualifying for a world cup. 

Getting to the world cup was huge for this squad as it probably wasn't/isn't a top 16 squad in Europe.

It's hard to expect us to get out the groups when I don't expect us to even qualify for the next world cup, unless it's expanded to 64 teams.

[Malcolm]

On 7/20/2026 at 9:28 PM, thesaint said:

Surely we have enough quality players to produce better performances than that shit show though.Nobody expects us to win a World Cup but those performances were way below what we should be capable of.

 

we absolutely should have had better performances.   Our players look shit scared and did not play with any purpose.

[Yosemite Sam]

On 7/20/2026 at 9:58 PM, mccaughey85 said:

I would say we should have been better in terms of performance but we did get unlucky with the group. Getting two top 10 teams in our group was a big factor in us struggling. 

My expectations was to beat Haiti more comfortably but I didn't expect us to get a result v Morocco or brazil. Our squad just isn't strong enough to expect to get results against top 10 sides. Fair enough upsets happen but expecting it to magically happen is delusional thinking.

I think it's right that Clarke stepped down. He's had three good chances of getting us out the groups and failed so it's time he gave someone else a chance but that doesn't change the fact that we need a much better squad if we want to go to a tournament and expect to get out the groups. 

With our squad it's currently more a case of hope rather than expectation. 

The mentality of being happy to be there would change if we produced a really strong squad and they achieved the goal of getting out the groups a couple of times but until that happens then many like me will be happy with just qualifying for a world cup. 

Getting to the world cup was huge for this squad as it probably wasn't/isn't a top 16 squad in Europe.

It's hard to expect us to get out the groups when I don't expect us to even qualify for the next world cup, unless it's expanded to 64 teams.

Even if it's expanded to 64 would it really be that much easier to qualify? I'd imagine there'd be, at most, 2 extra spots for European teams, maybe only 1. No right on agenda to be fulfilled by having more European teams involved 

Edited July 24 by Yosemite Sam

[thesaint]

21 hours ago, Malcolm said:

 

we absolutely should have had better performances.   Our players look shit scared and did not play with any purpose.

Scared is the correct word.Never looked at anytime like they believed in themselves.Clarke obviously couldn't hack it but for so many of those players it might be the only world cup they get to and to show such a lack of belief in themselves and their ability to compete will surely be a big regret at the end of their careers.Football wise Scotland ended up as a very small footnote in the 2026 World Cup story.

[Malcolm]

1 hour ago, thesaint said:

Scared is the correct word.Never looked at anytime like they believed in themselves.Clarke obviously couldn't hack it but for so many of those players it might be the only world cup they get to and to show such a lack of belief in themselves and their ability to compete will surely be a big regret at the end of their careers.Football wise Scotland ended up as a very small footnote in the 2026 World Cup story.

 

unlike previous world cups where our players believed that they absolutely were going to show the world what we are all about (to the extent of over confidence in some cases),  this team played like they felt the tournament was too big for them.