A Match for Europe?

For most of us in this small country,

football is such a big thing, so much more than a game.

Rightly or wrongly, it is a way of life,

and in that life, there is nothing that can elicit so much passion.

Fans are desperate to see their club and their country succeed.

There have been times when we have punched well above our weight.

We've won European trophies and we've played in major finals.

But the game has changed dramatically,

and that success that we crave has become even more elusive.

20 years ago we investigated just what was being done

to secure our footballing future,

because we felt then that we had taken our eye off the ball.

And we were right, because we are no longer qualifying for those finals.

So once again we are asking,

just how can we make Scottish football a match for Europe?

20 years in football is more than a long time. It's an eternity.

Back in 1992, I first looked at the state of the Scottish game

in the original A Match for Europe, and although my touch was good,

and in spite of a credible showing at Euro 92,

many in the game were concerned.

That system has been operating now in Scotland for the last 15,

17 years, where your young players don't get time to practise.

Then you suffer because the better players do not come through.

I think the fans and the punters are getting cheated.

They are not getting the quality which their money deserves.

We're regarded with some bemusement abroad.

Nobody laughs at us,

but I'm sure they really despise the way we go about our business.

Yet, on the international front,

the next few years were a big success,

though we may not have realised it then.

Agonisingly close to the last eight of Euro 96...

..and the honour of playing in the opening game of the '98 World Cup.

COMMENTATOR: And Collins equalises for Scotland! It's 1-1!

But that's been it for us in terms of international finals.

A number of managers have tried,

but failure has been the only constant,

and Scotland tumbled way down the FIFA rankings.

I do feel, and it's no disrespect to any era at all,

but I do feel in this minute in time,

that we don't have the strength and depth of quality

that we had when we were qualifying for major tournaments. That's a fact.

We've got to take a long, hard look at ourselves

and understand exactly where we are.

We're coming off the back of 20 or 30 years of inertia

and inactivity in addressing what is a major issue.

Scotland is a small country. It's a population of five million.

The game has gone global in the last 15, 20 years as well,

so you've got the influx of the African and Asian players.

They didn't have that in the days of Souness and Dalglish.

I think we started to believe a lot of our own self-generated publicity

about how good we were and how good schools were

and youth associations and clubs were,

including the SPL clubs, but quite frankly, we weren't.

But even so,

there have been some undoubted successes in the European arena.

COMMENTATOR: Alan Thompson... Larsson! He's done it again!

Indeed, in the first decade of the new millennium,

both Celtic and Rangers made it all the way to a European final,

even if they were ultimately unable to lift the silverware.

But real success has been rare,

and recent seasons have been marked by a significant decline

in our clubs' Euro ranking,

a direct consequence of some humiliating exits.

COMMENTATOR: Rangers are on the verge of going out of Europe!

I don't think that anybody could argue that the standard

of player at clubs now isn't as good as it was even five years ago.

You don't need to go back 20 years.

Five or ten years ago. We're not getting the standards of player.

In Scottish football we need to be vibrant, we need to be energetic.

We need to be forward moving, and I think there's been a spell

that's probably plateaued out and it's not helped anybody,

but I think it can change.

For us it's a massive part of what we are.

At the minute it's dying and struggling.

We need to try and find a way to get it going again.

A key issue in all of this is of course money.

Setanta today confirmed they're unable to stump up

millions of pounds owed to the SPL.

The demise of Setanta in 2009 had a massive effect on the Scottish game,

with millions lost almost overnight.

Since then, many clubs live hand to mouth,

and in recent months, we've seen two of our biggest clubs

face a real threat to their existence.

Hearts players have at last been paid their December wages.

Rangers were formally placed into administration today

after the taxman went to court to speed up the process.

Over a period of 10, 20 years, you've seen that a number of clubs

have not managed their finances as well as they might've done.

I think we're seeing improvements,

but there has been a legacy of that in terms of the levels of debts

that have been built up by many clubs.

The standard of football you get, the stand of play you get,

is about how much money you've got to spend.

The fact is we're unfairly compared to the financial behemoth

south of the border.

The reality is that they are the biggest league in the world.

When I first came to the club we could compete

with the Premiership in terms of bringing players in.

That's gone now.

It's always been important to the club to bring their own through,

but I think we're up against it in terms of trying attract players in.

We're trying to create our own.

And those off-the-field problems have consequences on the park.

If you look at the Scottish game,

too many players need too many touches to control a ball.

I see now national team players who cannot use their left foot

cos they're right-footed or can't dribble.

Those are the basic techniques

that have to be taught when they are younger.

Certainly when I was a young boy playing football,

there wasn't a lot of emphasis on technique.

It was mostly about winning.

I was with the Scottish team in 1982.

Andy Roxburgh was director of football in Scotland

and he did a report saying there were fewer kids coming into the game

and it was going to be a danger.

I said, "No, we've got them."

He said, "But this will happen in the future.

"We're not getting the kids there."

When you go into schools and you see the lack of focus on PE,

the inability to deliver two hours of PE to children...

I think we're failing children in Scotland.

Clubs are only interested in the short term.

They're only interested in what TV money they will get tomorrow

and not the long-term development of our game.

I would say that probably people like myself have been a bit

negligent in terms of being more forceful and trying to push through

what we felt was going to create a problem for the country.

It is a major problem.

I think we all look at it the continental way now

and it is a lot different and it probably is better.

Well, it is better. It's a lot easier on the eye

and technically they are better. So what do they do?

So, who should we look to for inspiration?

Germany, albeit from a larger population base than Scotland,

have had terrific success rearing young talent in the last few years.

But that success came only as a result of making some tough choices.

This is a stadium, the Weserstadion in Bremen,

the scene of one of German football's humiliations.

We came here in 1999. Scotland. We beat them 1-0.

The Germans were thoroughly embarrassed.

But it was of course the start of a German decline in world football.

But they very quickly realised the mistakes

and they took dramatic and drastic action.

Everyone in Germany said, "Our players are not good enough".

So the Bundesliga clubs tried to get on the table and talk with the DFB.

"What can we do?"

They find some points to make our youth football better,

and one of them was to build youth academies for our teams,

for our Bundesliga clubs to work with young players

to make them to professional players.

Now it's 10, 11 years ago.

Was a hard time, a long time,

but now you can see at the championships they come,

very young players with 18, 19 years

to play in the Bundesliga and internationals. It was a good way.

The Germans have been standouts

at the last three major international tournaments,

with inspirational young stars like Mesut Ozil

helping them reach the semi-finals of the last two World Cups

and the final of Euro 2008.

It was failure in Euro 2000 that kick-started the German revolution.

Despite financial hardships caused by faltering broadcast deals,

significant funds were devoted to youth development,

even at the expense of wages in the Bundesliga.

This reduced the number of foreigners playing

in the top division and created opportunities

for young players to graduate to first teams.

I think everybody realised that after that European championship.

Before, some were hesitant, "Oh, we are not so good," and so on,

and everyone said, "See our national team? We are the best."

But after that championship, everyone in Germany, newspaper, radio,

television, the teams and clubs, everyone said,

"We have to do something and we must do many more."

Despite not having the resources or population base of some

of the bigger clubs, Werder Bremen are one of the most successful

in German history.

They've won the title four times, and youth supremo Wolter

helped them to see off Celtic in the 1988 European Cup.

They key to their success is simple.

An astonishing 40 teams are linked one way or another to Werder Bremen.

And right now, 100 players who came through this academy

are scattered through the Bundesliga and Bundesliga Two.

I don't know about you, but might there be a lesson for us?

The reason why it's in Germany much better, every club,

everyone wants to work together,

and that's what you must say to Glasgow Rangers and so on.

They must say, "We want to do it together, FC Aberdeen."

Then you have a big chance to do it.

Everyone in Scotland is a football fan and you have to do everything

to come together, and it's a long way, but we must work together.

Germany's neighbours, the Netherlands, defeated Scotland on the way to the World Cup final,

and despite a population of only 15 million,

the Dutch are consistent overachievers on the world stage.

Rotterdam - it's wet, it's windswept, but not terribly interesting.

Not until you look at Feyenoord's Youth Academy.

This is where they come into their own.

Ajax may have collected more of the accolades over the years,

but it's in the field of youth development that Feyenoord

have been setting the pace. And they've done so against

a backdrop of financial difficulties,

caused in part by a row with the taxman.

Sound familiar?

I think the way we look to football is that,

especially for the young age, winning is not important.

You're looking to how he acts on the pitch.

Is he doing right in passing, control, heading?

The skills are very good.

If this is OK, I think he has the best chance

to develop for a professional.

Feyenoord have a long history of producing top class players,

and three who started in the last World Cup final for Holland

were developed here: Kuyt, Van Persie, and the man who did this.

COMMENTATOR: Van Bronckhorst... Oh what a goal!

CROWD CHEERS

At Feyenoord now, the first team,

80% of our players are from our own systems,

so I think it's very important for the club.

We're not able to buy players.

You have to create your own players, and that's your youth system,

so the younger players will get a chance quicker to be

part of the first team squad.

It's good, because if you have a good youth set-up you have

your future in your hands, and I think that's important.

COMMENTATOR: Iniesta snuffed out by van Bronckhorst...

The mentality of the Dutch to be part of a club,

if it's football or volleyball or handball,

it's our philosophy to be able to be part of a club and that's why

we also have almost everyone in our youth playing football.

Almost exactly 20 years ago, I came here to Ajax

training complex in Amsterdam.

At the time, Scottish football wasn't where we wanted it to be.

We were too far behind the rest of the world and we needed answers.

Two decades on, the games has changed considerably,

but some things remain the same.

Scotland are still struggling, yet the Dutch remain at the very top.

How have they achieved that?

They play on the street a lot. That's very important.

Every young boy wants to be a football player

and they start at four or five years to play.

Everybody's here living football.

We started very young

and we're training every day on specific things like technique.

There are a lot of talents in Amsterdam and Holland.

We've got very good trainers.

Old players know the game and they practise the technique every day very well.

For us, the youth academy, we spend a lot of money on it

because if we want to survive we have to get every time new players.

For us, the most important thing is technique,

and I think what I saw in my time at Scotland, they don't care

much about the technical things, but more the aggressive things.

"OK. Put your sleeves up and go for it."

At the end, at the highest level,

the technical skills will be so important.

From eight years old,

we try to get them a good technique and at the end you get the results.

The Amsterdam Arena, home of Ajax, and very often,

the Dutch national side. That typifies the close relationship

between clubs here and the national association,

something the Dutch say is absolutely vital to their success.

Is there another lesson there for us?

The difference in Scotland in the football structure

is the diversity of the organisation.

It's unbelievably complicated. We have 20 affiliated associations,

a lot of leagues and there's no one body, one league system.

There's no pyramid. Coming from Holland, when there's only one body,

one association dealing with all the leagues,

it makes life not easy to change things.

I see three bodies as probably two too many,

so getting it from three to two would be an improvement.

I think there's historic reasons why the SPL broke away from the SFL,

but there's no reason you can't have a league that covers everybody.

We've got to work together.

This is not something that the Scottish FA can achieve on our own.

We have to do it with every part of the game working together

on one plan. In the past we've had far too many plans,

too many agendas, and what we've ended up with is organised chaos.

What's fundamental

is the relationships between the governing bodies.

Whilst they not have always have been as smooth as they could be,

the relationship that we now have with the SFA gives me confidence.

The most significant thing, I believe, has been this union

of the clubs and the SFA. The first time that I can remember

where the SFA have produced a strategy which has been embraced by the clubs.

This wind of change sweeping the game gathered pace

with Henry McLeish's report on the state of Scottish football in 2010.

Highly critical of the structure of the game,

it called for drastic action.

I think we'd reached a point of saying to ourselves,

"We can't continue like this." That was point one.

The second point was to realise the huge potential which exists,

and the third point is to take steps to make that actually happen.

The SFA itself has undergone major structural reform

and we've also seen the creation of a performance strategy,

a blueprint for the future of the game,

which will include the country's first national performance centre.

We've also seen the appointment of our first performance director,

Dutchman Mark Wotte,

the man tasked with improving our international standards.

At the heart of the new strategy

are seven performance schools across the country,

where our best youngsters have their curriculum based around football.

Craig Levein and Stewart Regan, Alistair Gray, the guys who wrote

the performance strategy, they had an idea about this, and I've experienced

in Holland 20 years ago this formula works in Holland.

And it works well.

20, 30 years ago, kids were playing in the streets,

but that's not happening anymore,

so we have to replace it and try to get at least

7.5, maybe 10 hours a week extra training in, all based on skills

and technical ability, cos that's one of the biggest issues in Scotland.

It isn't about developing a team within each of these schools,

it's about developing individual players, so the programme

will be designed to help produce better technical players.

The clubs, a lot of these players will obviously be associated

with clubs at the same time, and the club's job will be,

on top of that, to produce a team player.

We're also turning to fresh ideas.

Ian Cathro was brought in at Dundee United in his early 20s

by Craig Levein, despite never having played senior football.

He was involved in setting up a link between the club

and St John's High School,

a programme that's now being adopted by the SFA.

The way the league game was played in 2011, 2012,

is different than what it was. Back then we were at major championships.

In 1998, you can look at statistics of how a game functions

and how it's played, and it's very different.

So, the development that goes into players that we hope can prosper,

and the environment of the elite game, must be different.

I think by now most of us accept

that in order to succeed with youth development,

senior clubs must forge greater and stronger links with schools.

And this club here, Falkirk,

were the first to pilot the SFA's scheme.

And you only have to take one glance at this training session

to know and see that it's already bearing fruit.

There's no doubt Scottish football has to invest

in this kind of thing, and the people who set it up for Falkirk

seven or eight years ago have great foresight, cos it's the best thing

Falkirk Football Club have ever done in their whole history.

Now the club is moving into a very strong financial position

because of this academy and the long-term strategy.

And with dwindling crowds, and also the reduction of finance

in general in the world, the only way clubs like Falkirk

are to survive is through the development of your own.

As you begin to progress and see boys getting in the first team

at very young ages, especially this season

when there's so many progressing, it obviously becomes clear.

All the coaching's geared towards playing in the game,

what you're actually doing in a game, as opposed to getting you

on a training field, playing 5-a-sides, having a wee pass-about.

I think everything's geared towards a Saturday.

Falkirk took a decision to strip back

and work away with the youngsters.

Falkirk generated a lot of money in the transfer window,

and Falkirk will probably get two or three other boys

that'll generate anything up to a million pounds for them,

with the youngsters.

It's not just smaller clubs who recognise

the importance of such schemes.

In 2009, Celtic also established a link with a local school

near their Lennoxtown training complex.

I think for young players, in this day and age, because of the lack

of facilities, we have to take football back to the schools.

What we do is link in with St Ninian's, where the players train

in the morning, then have a day at school, then come up to Lennoxtown

in the evening, do their homework, then go training in the evening.

It's a long day for them, but it's very rewarding, and we've already

seen the benefits with some of the younger players coming through.

They get the football training in a structured environment

and their education on top of that.

Again, some of the kids'll not make it,

but at least they'll have an education to fall back on.

In Holland, it's very easy for any young kid to go to a community club

and sign up when he's five or six,

and then there's a great facility, youth coaches,

there's a canteen for the parents,

it's all part of the football culture.

When you consider countries like Iceland,

some of the Eastern European, Balkan countries, Scandinavian countries.

Smaller than us, they have far superior facilities.

My challenge to Scotland on that one is to say,

"We can talk a good game, but if kids are wallowing around

"in three foot of mud in midwinter,

"when it's snowing and raining, let's stop pretending."

This, again, for me, is about not investing money that's wasted.

You're investing money in kids here,

and whether these facilities

are catering to the greater population,

just for activities, or whether these facilities

are used for the elite and the top end,

then the two run side by side.

The success of the Spanish national side and of Barcelona

in the last few years has been built on a new 21st-century style of football

based around possession, control and pressing.

Finally, the long-ball game has become a thing of the past.

That's the goal! Spain have surely won the World Cup!

The benchmark at the moment is Spain,

but you also see Holland, Germany and Brazil.

The passing game with three midfielders,

with a lot of movement, with quick, agile players.

I've not seen any team in the world winning any tournament playing 4-4-2

with the long ball, and just think you can fight your way into success.

The philosophy has changed, you know, with the long balls.

OK, when it's difficult to build from behind, in Scotland,

it's put them in the channel, for example.

Maybe it's too easy to say,

but it's how Dutch people look to Scottish football.

But of course, it can also be a thing of beauty when you know how.

Thanks, Frank.

I would think very soon there has to be a definition of the way

in which Scotland will be at football.

A national identity of the way we choose to function,

be it style of play, not necessarily formation, because that has to change

based on opponent, but a general philosophy of the way we'll be,

and the way we see ourselves attaining the maximum success.

The idea is to develop a pattern of play, a style of play,

that will become the Scottish way of playing.

That's how the Scottish national teams will play,

down the under-15s, 16s.

So they come into the system, they understand the nature

of the system of play, and then they should progress through

the age groups, so when they come to the first team,

they completely understand.

The game has blossomed in Spain at this moment in time, one,

because they've really put a lot of resource into their academies,

but, two, the league's the most tactically-aware league in the world.

We need to remember that a big part of a player's development

is not just technically, but tactically.

I've put people through coaching badges,

and the way I've done my coach education back home in Belfast

when I've looked at that, and then I go and watch their teams

playing, it's totally different to what my teachings were.

And they revert to type. They have to change. They've got to change.

The coaches have to change.

Attendances have declined significantly in recent seasons,

and hours have been spent debating what can be done to give supporters

better value for the prices of their tickets.

I think the league's a big problem, because in a 12-team league,

you have a situation where a manager can be sitting

fourth in the league and under no degree of pressure,

and within five games he can be second bottom of a 12-team league

and under big pressure, and sometimes what suffers during those times

of pressure is his philosophy of how the team play.

It becomes a bit boring playing teams four, five, six times a year.

Having played in the Championship,

where you play each team twice, I think that's a great thing.

Home and away, that's it done.

The argument for a smaller league is purely financial,

but the financial argument doesn't always stack up with improved quality.

There was a feeling at my old club that the current system

was right as it generated more money for the club.

Self-interest is a big thing in the SPL,

and in the whole of Scotland, but there has to be

a compromise in there somewhere for what's best for football.

If you just took a 16-team league, once home, once away,

our calculations are that,

broadly, about 20 million of lost revenue would come out of the game.

That's money the game can't afford to lose.

So we have to, at the same time as looking at what supporters want,

we also have to look at the harsh financial reality we face.

The biggest aspect that is the problem in Scottish football

at the moment is giving people who want to come to games

the type of player they want to see.

I don't think changing leagues

and changing cosmetic aspects of it will change.

Football is about footballers.

Back in 1992, people told us they knew where we were going wrong,

but that things would get better.

It's one thing knowing what to do, it's another thing

having the facilities, funds, personnel to do it.

Andy Roxburgh was right then, and he's right now.

We still need those facilities, funds, and personnel.

But we need more help from our politicians, even though they'll

tell you they're putting more money than ever before into sport.

They'll tell you that about health and education,

but they're broken too, along with our game, as you've just heard.

Euro 2012 moves a bit further away for Scotland.

But we know what to do.

We need to get more kids playing in better facilities

with a higher standard of football education,

with the aim of creating responsible adults as well as footballers.

If Scottish football can achieve that goal,

it will have served itself and the country well.

And we won't be back here in 20 years' time

asking the same questions.

I'll see you at the World Cup.

Gemmill.

Good play by Gemmill. And again!

3-1!

What's important is that we take small steps,

and small steps will eventually get you where you want to go.

The new directives from the SFA are encouraging,

but that in itself won't get the job done, and I feel

the clubs need to be getting back to being community clubs.

There's too much negativity in Scottish football.

We don't have a divine right to be at the top table in football, we have to earn it.

With the right people at the SFA,

the future's looking a lot better than what it was.

As a part of the product,

we should do everything we can to promote the product.

So when journalists and people want to try and bring it down,

we want to say, "Come on, you've got to help us make it better."

Football at the top end needs a level of finance that's greater

than we're able to achieve at the present moment,

so it may take a good few years of pain yet before we bottom out,

but hopefully the development of kids can bring a little more optimism.

This time, we've got clarity, we've got focus,

and we've got a willingness amongst all the parties to work together.

For me, that's very exciting, and I think it needs leadership.

That's what I'm determined to bring to the game along with my colleagues.

We'll drive that change forward

and we'll be in a much stronger and better place in 20 years' time.

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