If you go back in history, Scotland always seemed to make the WC, but now they seem to almost struggle in qualifying. Even though I'm not a expert on club soccer, from what I understand, the Scottish League is a decent league, why do they struggle these days?
I dont know what happened to them but I can tell you this, they won't be going to Germany next summer after the Italians are through with them in Glasgow
From a Scottish Perspective: In a word: Money. In the 1980's the likes of Dundee United and Aberdeen were competing for Europe's top prizes. In fact in 1983, under the leadership of Alex Ferguson, Aberdeen lifted the European Cup Winners Cup. The likes of Gordon Strachan, Willie Miller, Kenny Dalglish, Paul Sturrock etc were all being brought through in a Scottish game void of a heavy financial burden. But since the beautiful game started to become controlled by green paper, the quality of football in Scotland has deteriorated. The 90's bore the tell tale signs. Rangers held complete dominance of the Scottish Premier League, eventually achieving an illustrious 9 league championships in a row. Foreign "talent" was being brought to Scotland at the expense of the time consuming process of nurturing talent. Greater wages and fees were being paid every year, transfer fees as ludicrous as 12 Million were being spent by the Old Firm on single players, while the rest came close to liquidation trying to compete. It has now come to the point that competing is impossible for the smaller clubs. The crowds amassed jointly by the Old Firm can amount to the collective total of all other teams on any given Saturday. Glasgow and Edinburgh (if i'm not mistaken) are the second and third largest cities in the United Kingdom. The problem that Edinburgh and indeed Hibs and Hearts suffer is that Edinburgh is not as football orientated as Glasgow, therefore the crowds are far smaller. Many clubs including Dundee and Livingston have gone into Administration and other clubs such as Clydebank and Airdrieonians cease to exist. Rangers and Celtic also have a tendency to buy out any Scottish talent being nurtured at other Premier League clubs to prevent competition. It is most often the case that these players become sidelined for more developed, easier foreign alternatives. Recent examples include Stephen Pearson, Mark Burchill, Kenny Miller etc. It is now very difficult for Scottish talent to be nurtured because of the Old Firms buying power, they may buy excellent prospects for very little (the clubs have to accept because of their precarious financial situation) and then ruin their careers. There is often a perception that Scotland just can't produce home grown talent anymore. It is far from the case. The facilities are all there, the Old Firm are building youth academies in a desperate attempt to curb their own financial troubles (Rangers are something like £40 Million in debt but are without concern). However all results produced through these academies will be pointless if the Old Firm continue to purchase foreign players (which they will). However without the Old Firm Scotlands economy stands to lose in excess of £40 Million. They have intertwined themselves so much that it would be very difficult for them to leave the Scottish game. Whatever happens it is a bleak future for us with or without the Old Firm. One possible consideration though: If they were to leave (which is very unlikely) then we would suffer in the short term, however in the long term we would have one of the most competitive leagues in the world. Hope this answers your question.
good points made by one and all as an irish guy, why come we dont have the same problems? i remember it was said recently that in scotland the young ones are simply not playing enough football , with the cold wet winters its hard and the youth system is not working pity as i love watching scotland in a WCup they still have an outside chance, fingers crossed
Some very much spot on things said already, i'll just add a couple more things. It was only 5 years ago we were the top 20 in the FIFA rankings, now we are 80 something. B*rti V*gts certainly didn't help our cause! In winter my local playing field are not playable, they will be either waterlogged or frozen from about October/November to February/March, this is a common story all round the country. At no time of the year are local pitches in a good condition, to bumpy to play good football. Good facilities, especially indoor ones just don't exist. Scotland used to have such talented footballers because all a young boy would do when not in school was play football, usually out on the street, for many it was the only source of entertainment. Now this isn't the case, where many other countries have adapted to this with great facilities, youth academies etc we have failed to catch on. Last point, we will beat Italy at Hampden!
And you can add Motherwell to the admin list. What it means is that 1/4 of the SPL have been into administration thus far.
I think you have made some good points there. The 21st century is opening up a new world full of "easy" technology. A lot of kids (I won't say all because that is not the case) no longer have the determination or motivation to suceed at something that is even moderately challenging. Computer games, television and electronics far surpass books and football. It is now probably easier for a child to get access to the latest computer system than a large area of grass to play football in. These and many more are reasons as to why we are failing. Not to mention the generalisations imposed upon children. Now i'm not saying that all or even some adults do this but there is a stereotypical opinion of teenagers forming across the UK, mostly due to negative press coverage implying that all teenagers are up to no good. Teenagers and kids have no where to go and i have seen some being removed from large areas of grass which say "no ball games". This I feel has been the outcome of many Governmental campaigns such as stranger danger and the yob culture (which unfairly imposed this "yob" tag upon an entire generation instead of upon the thugs who were actually committing the crimes). Anyway i'm straying into politics now. I just feel that more needs to be done to make (as crazy as it sounds) football and other sports more accessible. However we could also do without "stars" such as Timberlake etc promoting fast food and all the other stuff that he doesn't actually eat.
I'd explain it in a much more simple way. Rather say that since the Bosman law, the Scotish, but specially the PL were filled with foreign players, relegating many english, scotish and irish players to secundary teams. In germany that also happened, beside other factors.
Don't know much about Scotland, but I have a tape of the 1978 World Cup match between Peru and Scotland. (3-1) I heard they were supposedly one of the favorites that year. http://2002.fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/02/en/pf/h/pwc/mr/2451.html
Bit of useless info, the Peruvian goalkeeper swapped shirts with Alan Rough after the game and wore Roughs shirt in Peru's next game, he just taped over the badge.
Ok, but if this is the explanation, how come England and, more tellingly, Ireland haven't suffered in the same way Scotland has?
From what I gather from the explanations I've been told here, the Scottish don't do enough to develop their talent and that's why their National Team isn't as competitive as it once was, despite having a good domestic league. Perhaps, the English and Irish do develop their talent. That would be the inference I would gather, please correct me if I'm wrong.
We had a great team that year, but when we got there we had a few problems within the team and only showed our potential when we beat Holland in our final game who went on to be beaten in the final.
England also did, in a smaller scale. The country has 60 million ppl, Scotland and Ireland arent even near that.
Many young irish players have come through English youth systems. For example: Stephen Carr (Spurs) Damien Duff (Blackburn) Ian Harte (Leeds) O'Brien (Bradford) Robbie Keane (Wolves) John O'Shea (Man Utd) They also have English players of Irish descent, for example: Kilbane Holland Morrison Most top English clubs have youth academies.