They were a proud football nation Scotland, and going back into their history you find some great stories and triumphs mostly done in the club part of international football, with clubs such as Celtic, Rangers and Aberdeen all winning in Europe.
The national team also did great in the the years before this centennial seeing their last international qualification as far back as 2000, when they played in the finals of the European Championships.
Never been able to play their way out of the first rounds, always some silly situation stopping that and probably not having the experience on how to do so and not really picking the correct players at times.
It’s also been in the past a situation between players playing in England and those playing in clubs at home, not really accepting the fact that the English game might have been better and that more players from those teams should have been selected.
Frank McLintock and John McGovern are two examples of players who were more or less overlooked, McLintock playing a few games while McGovern never got a single cap,. though both players were captains on League winners and European champions.
They also had a habit of appointing managers who had been “studying” at home, in the likes of Willie Ormand, Ally McLoad, Jock Stein, Andy Roxburgh and Craig Brown. Sir Alex Ferguson also had the job part time and combining it with also being in charge of Aberdeen.
Since the days of Craig Brown things have just been on a slide into a long and difficult wait, and despite being too fond of the players doing their trade south of the border, it might have been the key reason for the decline as English clubs looked abroad instead of up north for special talent, being influenced by their foreign managers and no longer having as many Scottish relations left in their game.
Rangers and Celtic must also be questioned as they were part of the rot, almost playing no Scottish players in their line-up a few years back, employing foreign managers over the past decades and today also have two managers in charge who are from N. Ireland (Neil Lennon) and England (Steven Gerrard).
But as we all know Scottish football is not just Rangers and Celtic and there are talents found in most clubs with previous stars coming up and forward at many different places such as St. Mirren, Hibernian, Morton and Aberdeen.
The Scots needs to take back their game and we slowly starts to see something happening and it could be that Scotland can be in with a chance to qualify for the Euro’s, but it’s not among the 1st team players of today that we really are seeing some positive changes.
Of course you have Andy Robertson from Liverpool, but the players we are talking about are a lot younger, with Chelsea’s Billy Gilmour (19) being a raw talent that hopefully will be an important player in the full side in the years to come.
Fraser Hornby (20) is another name to make notice of. He has just signed for Stade de Reims and has a past already at clubs such as Northampton Town, Everton and KV Kortrijk. He has scored 6 goals in 13 U.21 internatinals, and the 1.94cm player is a tower in the air and one to who could soon find himself ready for full international duty.
The midfielder Dean Campbell (19) is also one to watch as the young star already has played a number of games in the Aberdeen first team. We also have to mention the wonderkid at Hearts, Aaron Hickey, who is a special talent and at the age of 18 have made his debut and played regularly in the left side of defense.
The foss of players that became professionals in the game down south might be just lost history but it would not stop the top teams up north to recruit from their own well of talents.
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