The-Let's Hump The MOPES thread

[calscot 0]

That is why Scottish football is in the mess it is because we were until recently still using antique coaching methods. No one seemed to have the insight to change things, or they were bombed out by the people who had their heads in the sand.

 

While you may be right, there is a hell of a lot of evidence against you.

 

PLG came along and brought in a load of foreign players and was totally embarrassed by those antique coaching techniques. Then we bring in an old school manager who plays mostly Scottish players and have improved dramatically.

 

In fact there are a lot more instances of this with Hearts being a typical example. And let's not forget old Bertie.

 

You've also got to wonder why Scottish managers do so well in England.

 

There have been many excuses for the ills of Scottish football like the one where too many foreigners were stunting our young talent. Now we have far less foreigners in our league, an U21 league, an U19 league, a minimum of 3 U21's in the squad, kids playing maximum 7 aside etc, etc, and we're about as bad as we've ever been.

 

As I've said before I think our biggest problems come from a small population - we've just fallen to our natural level, no less. If you look at our position in world football, we're probably punching our weight - the problem is we're used to and have a history of punching well above it. You just need to compare us to the likes of Norway, Austria or Belgium to see we're in among our natural peers - and all those countries are far healthier than ours.

 

But you can add into that, the most sedate and poorly fed kids in Europe who are also the most obese. The diminishing of sport at schools, especially after school coaching, the building on top of pitches, the lack of playing in the street and the banning of playing in the local parks, the over cautious parenting, the banning of football in school play grounds due to risk of litigation for injury etc, etc.

 

In the professional game we're suffering financially due to lack of TV income, a lack of top competition in our league combined with playing each other too many times, playing most of our games in inappropriate temperatures and weather, impatient fans who can't cope with a sideways or backwards pass and a hammer throwing culture to make up the difference in skill.

 

There's a hell of a lot to sort out before we should worry about the coaching techniques from Largs in my opinion.

[pete 2,511]

While you may be right, there is a hell of a lot of evidence against you.

 

PLG came along and brought in a load of foreign players and was totally embarrassed by those antique coaching techniques. Then we bring in an old school manager who plays mostly Scottish players and have improved dramatically.

 

In fact there are a lot more instances of this with Hearts being a typical example. And let's not forget old Bertie.

 

You've also got to wonder why Scottish managers do so well in England.

 

There have been many excuses for the ills of Scottish football like the one where too many foreigners were stunting our young talent. Now we have far less foreigners in our league, an U21 league, an U19 league, a minimum of 3 U21's in the squad, kids playing maximum 7 aside etc, etc, and we're about as bad as we've ever been.

 

As I've said before I think our biggest problems come from a small population - we've just fallen to our natural level, no less. If you look at our position in world football, we're probably punching our weight - the problem is we're used to and have a history of punching well above it. You just need to compare us to the likes of Norway, Austria or Belgium to see we're in among our natural peers - and all those countries are far healthier than ours.

 

But you can add into that, the most sedate and poorly fed kids in Europe who are also the most obese. The diminishing of sport at schools, especially after school coaching, the building on top of pitches, the lack of playing in the street and the banning of playing in the local parks, the over cautious parenting, the banning of football in school play grounds due to risk of litigation for injury etc, etc.

 

In the professional game we're suffering financially due to lack of TV income, a lack of top competition in our league combined with playing each other too many times, playing most of our games in inappropriate temperatures and weather, impatient fans who can't cope with a sideways or backwards pass and a hammer throwing culture to make up the difference in skill.

 

There's a hell of a lot to sort out before we should worry about the coaching techniques from Largs in my opinion.

 

Holland has only 15 million people. I rest my case.

 

Coaching at the grass roots and the grass roots set-up is the problem and not the numbers of population.

Celtic euro champions in 1967 with all Scots, did we have so much more of a population then?

Sorry Cal weather is a joke surely. Scotland has no different weather to Holland most of Germany,most of France and probably all of England.

Football skill is not taught in front of 50.000 supporters it is taught at schoolboy level.

[Super_Ally 0]

That makes Holland about 3 times the size of Scotland then, no?

 

Add in all the top players they "steal" from Dutch colonies (e.g. Suriname) with a lot of Arican players boosting the natural talents of countries like France, it's clear to see the effect that has.

 

Ps. Whilst I don't agree with all of Calscot's points I agree with him suggesting it is facile to blame it solely on antiquated coaching especially when epic-failure PLG is the champion of that argument.

[wabashcannonball 0]

European competition is our benchmark, I suggest an examination of our overall performance as a nations clubs and that of our national team, makes far from good reading.

As for skill that is something you are born with it can't be taught, whereas technique can be learned, skill is the remit of the Baxters, Peles, Johnstones and Cruyfs, others are merely good players.

[Norris Cole 0]

Add in all the top players they "steal" from Dutch colonies (e.g. Suriname) with a lot of Arican players boosting the natural talents of countries like France, it's clear to see the effect that has.

 

Perhaps we need to grow a set and invade somebody. Did we not try something pseudo-colonial in Panama once? We should just nick some third world country.

[Super_Ally 0]

Perhaps we need to grow a set and invade somebody. Did we not try something pseudo-colonial in Panama once? We should just nick some third world country.

 

Someone often told me Spain was a third world country until recently:

 

 

Good plan!

 

 

:fish:

[calscot 0]

Holland has only 15 million people. I rest my case.

 

Three times our population and far more investment into grass roots yet they are still slipping well down the UEFA rankings. How do you explain similar sized, modernised countries like Belgium, Norway and Austria? You could probably add in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Ireland.

 

Just why are 5 large countries dominating and now the likes of Russia pushing Holland down the list?

 

Holland still have fantastic grass roots football which gives them a massive edge and allows them to often punch above their population size.

 

Coaching at the grass roots and the grass roots set-up is the problem and not the numbers of population.

 

If you knew statistics then you'd know the relationship where maximum fluctuations are proportional to the square root of the population size - and then add to that the normal distribution around those fluctuations.

 

There are other factors and grass roots is a big (and didn't I argue for that?) - but this one is still a baseline. BTW the population size is not the population of the country as a whole, it's the population who actually play football - hence China's ranking.

 

Celtic euro champions in 1967 with all Scots, did we have so much more of a population then?

 

Like I said there are many other factors and for a small country to compete they need to have mitigating factors that level the playing field. In Scotland that was probably a great passion for football and a massive history where we virtually invented the game and much of the tactics. Now we have little passion for playing the game and history wise, we have been caught up and well overtaken.

 

There is even just peaks and troughs in countries. Imagine due to our small population we need to roll a six to be any god while bigger countries need to roll a three or above. Sometimes you can roll a load of sixes in a small amount of throws, but most of the time it will even out as one in six. A larger football mad country has far more chance of rolling a three.

 

You may have heard of such a thing as a purple patch. But that is the reason why we compete now and again while the likes of England (which is still the same country as us) compete far more often).

 

Sorry Cal weather is a joke surely. Scotland has no different weather to Holland most of Germany,most of France and probably all of England.

 

I think I've already explained England as a bigger population - and to say the weather is the same in winter is not quite true - just ask any Brit whether Scotland has better or worse weather than England.

 

But the point is, to compete, we have to eliminate as many downsides as possible - we have to do something others aren't to get an advantage. Playing football in the summer instead of the winter would surely help grass roots development and also the quality of our professional leagues? In fact I'm sure Germany has a winter shut down to take one of your examples.

 

For a recent example, you just have to look at the number of Scottish games off at the weekend while the weather in Milton Keynes was fine and sunny with no snow on the ground.

 

Football skill is not taught in front of 50.000 supporters it is taught at schoolboy level.

 

Good players change when playing for the OF, many can't cope with the pressure and leave with their tail between their legs. I'm not sure of your point but I can't see how our coaching at schoolboy level has anything to do with how poorly non-Scots sometimes play in the SPL.

[pete 2,511]

Three times our population and far more investment into grass roots yet they are still slipping well down the UEFA rankings. How do you explain similar sized, modernised countries like Belgium, Norway and Austria? You could probably add in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Ireland.

 

Just why are 5 large countries dominating and now the likes of Russia pushing Holland down the list?

 

Holland still have fantastic grass roots football which gives them a massive edge and allows them to often punch above their population size.

 

Surely you are contradicting yourself here then and grass roots and coaching are more important than the population

 

Holland are dropping down the rankings mainly because all the better players are being pulled away to foreign soil. As i said in an article i wrote, even at youth level players are being pulled away before they hit a Dutch first team

 

 

 

If you knew statistics then you'd know the relationship where maximum fluctuations are proportional to the square root of the population size - and then add to that the normal distribution around those fluctuations.

 

There are other factors and grass roots is a big (and didn't I argue for that?) - but this one is still a baseline. BTW the population size is not the population of the country as a whole, it's the population who actually play football - hence China's ranking.

 

Although the game has developed steadily in the country, the national men's team standard has been generally poor (compared globally in the FIFA World Rankings). The team has continuously struggled to qualify for the World Cup, with exception to the one time historic appearance in 2002 held in Japan and Korea, where the team lost all their games and failed to score a single goal. Reasons that have been given for the general low performance of the men's national team include, besides others:[1][2]

 

* sub-par technical standards in training, selection and preparation

* lack of leadership and vision from the Chinese Football Association

* incompetent organization and government interference

* corruption, especially in the refereeing of matches

* low participation and neglect of grassroots and junior football (according to the 2006 FIFA Big Count, China had 708,754 amateur and youth players from a population of 1.3 billion(ratio of 1:1834) compared to 738,800 from 41 million(ratio of 1:55) in England)

* over-reliance on foreign coaches (mainly eastern European, Serbian) signals lack of domestic coach development

* unable to cope with the pressure from the Chinese football press and media

 

While i agree that the Player population ratio is a factor, surely getting more involvement in football is down to the grass root football. Even if everyone in china plays football without good coaching at all levels they will never hit the heights of a Brasil or any other top country

 

 

 

Like I said there are many other factors and for a small country to compete they need to have mitigating factors that level the playing field. In Scotland that was probably a great passion for football and a massive history where we virtually invented the game and much of the tactics. Now we have little passion for playing the game and history wise, we have been caught up and well overtaken.

 

There is even just peaks and troughs in countries. Imagine due to our small population we need to roll a six to be any god while bigger countries need to roll a three or above. Sometimes you can roll a load of sixes in a small amount of throws, but most of the time it will even out as one in six. A larger football mad country has far more chance of rolling a three.

 

You may have heard of such a thing as a purple patch. But that is the reason why we compete now and again while the likes of England (which is still the same country as us) compete far more often).

 

Yes i have heard of a purple patch that is why New Zealand(A small population) and Australia have been humping England at Rugby for years. A purple Patch! Nothing to do with better coaching. I guess Ireland's supremacy at the moment is also a purple patch and nothing to do with better coached players. How many of a population do England and Ireland have?

 

 

 

I think I've already explained England as a bigger population - and to say the weather is the same in winter is not quite true - just ask any Brit whether Scotland has better or worse weather than England.

 

But the point is, to compete, we have to eliminate as many downsides as possible - we have to do something others aren't to get an advantage. Playing football in the summer instead of the winter would surely help grass roots development and also the quality of our professional leagues? In fact I'm sure Germany has a winter shut down to take one of your examples.

 

For a recent example, you just have to look at the number of Scottish games off at the weekend while the weather in Milton Keynes was fine and sunny with no snow on the ground.

 

Was South England not brought to a standstill due to snow today? Probably just a purple patch. Or white patch.

Naming one town against the whole of Scotland is just stupidity and not really worthy of a reply.

 

I have never lived in England but to be honest i have never noticed much of a divide when watching the weather on the TV. I have lived in Scotland and in Holland and to be honest Scotland has a warmer climate than Holland does in the winter. Unless you live in the Highlands possibly. Does Scotland not have the Gulf stream, letting palm trees grow on the West coast? Ice-skating is a huge part of Dutch life although the last ten years have had pretty warm winters,(across Europe) until recently. Ice played a big roll in the years before. Again the difference is minimal as they both have a sea climate . And bye the way i am a Brit and Scotland is not the same country as England they are both part of Great Britain.

 

Yes Holland and Germany stop for three weeks, but that is nothing to do with summer football. They have less games as in Scotland and still finish at the same time in May. This is just a winter break and not really weather related as it can be a lot worse weather in February or even March than in January.

 

 

 

Good players change when playing for the OF, many can't cope with the pressure and leave with their tail between their legs. I'm not sure of your point but I can't see how our coaching at schoolboy level has anything to do with how poorly non-Scots sometimes play in the SPL.

 

I don't know where i mentioned non-Scots playing in the SPL In fact i don't understand your response at all.

[Zappa 0]

Perhaps we need to grow a set and invade somebody. Did we not try something pseudo-colonial in Panama once? We should just nick some third world country.

.

What about just invading Holland? Nobody's gonna give a toss, they've got a small Army & some good players! We'll have them eating out of our boots in jig time!

[pete 2,511]

.

What about just invading Holland? Nobody's gonna give a toss, they've got a small Army & some good players! We'll have them eating out of our boots in jig time!

 

Better wait to the summer. Remember the German attack on Stalingrad.