Belgium are ranked number 1 in the world. Why are Scotland so far behind??

GEODGC

Well-Known Member
Official Ticketer
Belgium have a population of around 11 million, we have a population of about half of that. They have a team littered with world class players, we have one player that could possibly be classed in that bracket in Robertson. Why the difference? What are they doing right that we aren’t? Is it down to drink and drugs culture? Poverty? Lack of facilities?
 
Belgium have a population of around 11 million, we have a population of about half of that. They have a team littered with world class players, we have one player that could possibly be classed in that bracket in Robertson. Why the difference? What are they doing right that we aren’t? Is it down to drink and drugs culture? Poverty? Lack of facilities?

It's a bit of a weird one. Even if you look at the Belgian league compared to the Scottish league there's not much between the 2. They just seem to produce far more world superstars than Scotland.
 
ptCp8e6.jpg

Look no further :mad:
 
Players that are good, but under 6ft are not given a chance / hammer throwers not given a chance

When you demote and strip the money from one of your biggest teams and best contributors to the national squad you will also struggle

When said team have players good enough, but they get booed when they play, then you really are struggling
 
Everything is wrong with whole set up. Piss poor facilities, no kids kicking a ball around anymore. They'd rather be on the ipad or PS4, the SFA Dinosaurs, Youth football doesn't seem as prevelant as it used too.

I'm 40 and growing up you had BB football which was thriving. School football then we played with our club's too. Some weekends we played 3 games and 2 most weekends.

That's just the tip of the problem.
 
There will be some valid reasons, but the main one is probably just randomness. Sometimes a small country has loads of good players come through at the same time. If Belgium are top #5 in the World in 15 years time I'd be very surprised.
 
Last edited:
When a country is pish for a while they rip everything up and start again from the bottom

France did it in the 90s
Belgium did it in 2000 or so
Germany around 2000 as well
England in 2008

And they all appear to have reaped rewards.

Probably more examples of countries doing it some on a smaller scale than above.

Scotland appear to be content with keeping the old guard and old methods and its put the country about 20 years behind pretty much every developed nation in Europe. Even when we win we are never convincing unless it’s against countries with the same population as Falkirk
 
Culture is and in my opinion has a huge bearing from a very early age however in this case we only need to look at the state of our governing bodies and the facilities available the length and breadth of Scotland.. we have fallen 25 years behind even the mediocre nations in Europe and its not getting any better fast.
 
1 Physicality being the most important factor of the league.
2 Drink and drugs culture. Players can be talented but 95% will rather be out with there mates chasing girls and drinking to excess rather than working hard at age 16/17
3. Mollycoddling parents not letting kids experience things. Kids being given things without earning them continues into later life and they fall out of love when they arn’t given everything at higher levels
4. Lack of facilities for kids to play on eg school parks being locked after school or weekends forcing kids to play in substandard ash pitches or random patches of grass with no ball games signs
5. Lack of leadership from the top sfa/spfl not fit for purpose
6. Govt worrying about ‘bigger issues’ like independence rather than things like this.
7. Far more distractions with ps4/Xbox. Kids would rather play Fifa than practise

Off the top of my head probs more
 
It’s all sorts of things.

Firstly, the coaching is better. They actually teach kids technique before they start forcing them to lump it up the park aged 8 in competitive matches.

Then, they actually referee matches better. Our fucking useless referees allow shocking challenges to go unpunished week after week. Is it any wonder skills are brutalised out of the game up here.

Thirdly, our governance is awful. All the money that is wasted on blazers should be getting spent on facilities and kids and clubs youth programmes.

Still on governance, we need business people running football. Then we might actually get a decent TV deal and a fairer share of the Sky money.

Lastly, our league structure and our two biggest clubs being caught in a fight to the death every season discourages young players being given a chance to improve their skills.
 
We don't just permit hammer throwing, we laud it. We see it week in week out but it was even worse in the 3rd division and so on. People bang on about the lack of facilities etc for kids but that is largely a nonsense so far as I am concerned. The first thing we need to do is sort out the refereeing in this country. Ignoring the fact that we are refereed to a different standard, Scottish football is refereed unlike anywhere else in the world. We are in the dark ages.
 
Belgium had some horrible years, a long period of not qualifying for a single tournament etc. so from the government down to the small clubs they started focusing on youth. The likes of Anderlecht, Brugge, Genk,... started to invest massively in youth development, built top level training grounds,... and then this is what happened.

However I don't think we can forget the impact of how many of Belgian players got their education in The Netherlands.

Vertonghen, Alderweireld, Moussa Dembele, Mertens,... all got their breakthroughs playing there.
 
They ripped up their whole program about 15/20 years ago and whatever they did worked brilliantly.

When a country is pish for a while they rip everything up and start again from the bottom

France did it in the 90s
Belgium did it in 2000 or so
Germany around 2000 as well
England in 2008

And they all appear to have reaped rewards.

Probably more examples of countries doing it some on a smaller scale than above.

Scotland appear to be content with keeping the old guard and old methods and its put the country about 20 years behind pretty much every developed nation in Europe. Even when we win we are never convincing unless it’s against countries with the same population as Falkirk

I could be wrong but I'm under the impression that they haven't done anything in particular and the current generation of players just happened almost luckily or randomly. Germany had a big reboot but Belgium were just lucky to get a world class group of players coming through at the same time.
 
Everything is wrong with whole set up. Piss poor facilities, no kids kicking a ball around anymore. They'd rather be on the ipad or PS4, the SFA Dinosaurs, Youth football doesn't seem as prevelant as it used too.

I'm 40 and growing up you had BB football which was thriving. School football then we played with our club's too. Some weekends we played 3 games and 2 most weekends.

That's just the tip of the problem.


I’m not sure mate.

My lad is 14 and plays for school and boys team.

Plenty artificial pitches and no lack of facilities.

SYFA are a joke tho.
 
When a country is pish for a while they rip everything up and start again from the bottom

France did it in the 90s
Belgium did it in 2000 or so
Germany around 2000 as well
England in 2008

And they all appear to have reaped rewards.

Probably more examples of countries doing it some on a smaller scale than above.

Scotland appear to be content with keeping the old guard and old methods and its put the country about 20 years behind pretty much every developed nation in Europe. Even when we win we are never convincing unless it’s against countries with the same population as Falkirk
Germany s done it 2/3 times after 1966 and again late mid 80's Spain have restructured twice that I can remember only one to stick its head in the ground is guess who?
 
We don't just permit hammer throwing, we laud it. We see it week in week out but it was even worse in the 3rd division and so on. People bang on about the lack of facilities etc for kids but that is largely a nonsense so far as I am concerned. The first thing we need to do is sort out the refereeing in this country. Ignoring the fact that we are refereed to a different standard, Scottish football is refereed unlike anywhere else in the world. We are in the dark ages.

Agree with this completely.

The refereeing in this country is a real problem.

It absolutely brutalises any skills right out the game.

Players should never be allowed a freebie dull one at the start of the game. If it’s a red card in the 85th minute, it’s a red card in the 1st minute
 
I’m not sure mate.

My lad is 14 and plays for school and boys team.

Plenty artificial pitches and no lack of facilities.

SYFA are a joke tho.

Pro youth or whatever the fck it's called has destroyed it along with the SFA's lack of vision or willingness to change and overhaul. The lack of basic skills to even control a ball or pass it 10 yards is frightening.
 
Back in early 2000's I remember passing by a public park in Offenbach Germany, there was a bout 20 pitches back to back and side to side, most of them were full, a lot of them were just kids having a kickabout - grass pitches, they all had nets between the ends.

I spoke to my boss about it 'ja this is normal' and they were free to play on anytime, leagues could book them for matches, for free.

Here they take down the goal posts in pitches during the summer.... and dont ever expect to see a net!
 
It's a bit of a weird one. Even if you look at the Belgian league compared to the Scottish league there's not much between the 2. They just seem to produce far more world superstars than Scotland.
I would guess apart from us and them most other Scottish teams would get relegated from the Belgian top league. They can rarely ever get through a first tie in Europe.
 
In my experience up to 7 a-side coaching and focusing on kids development is good.

The move from 7s to 11s on full size pitches at p7 / S1 age was crazy! No longer was skills a focus but strength, size and kicking range!

Believe 9s now in place as an interim.
 
Germany s done it 2/3 times after 1966 and again late mid 80's Spain have restructured twice that I can remember only one to stick its head in the ground is guess who?

The best example currently are the Dutch side.

Two none qualifications and now look at them and their club side Ajax.

It's not rocket science surely. We can all see it.
 
Agree with this completely.

The refereeing in this country is a real problem.

It absolutely brutalises any skills right out the game.

Players should never be allowed a freebie dull one at the start of the game. If it’s a red card in the 85th minute, it’s a red card in the 1st minute
Yep, I have always been a big believer in your final point. A foul should always be judged on its severity regardless of where and when it occurs.
 
Lodged between France and Holland it would be difficult for Belgium not to have some of that football greatness rub off on it. A relevant question might be; why did it take them so long to become good?
 
Petrie will sort it out !!!!! - ohh wait he has been one of them in power for the last few decades ..............

starts at the top, same cronies with no fooking clue what they are doing
 
We used to play with tennis balls at school. There were 50 pitches at 50 pitches - now there are 2.

We used to get the bus to the other side of Glasgow and play for the school then back again to play for the boys club in the afternoon.

We used to go down the 'Pubbie' park every day after school and play 3 and in or Headies.

We used to play in the street - kerbie or cross and score on the gate.

Since my son left home I've not seen a football in this street
 
Lodged between France and Holland it would be difficult for Belgium not to have some of that football greatness rub off on it. A relevant question might be; why did it take them so long to become good?

Because half of them are Dutch, half of them are French and presumably one half won't speak to the other.
 
We used to play with tennis balls at school. There were 50 pitches at 50 pitches - now there are 2.

We used to get the bus to the other side of Glasgow and play for the school then back again to play for the boys club in the afternoon.

We used to go down the 'Pubbie' park every day after school and play 3 and in or Headies.

We used to play in the street - kerbie or cross and score on the gate.

Since my son left home I've not seen a football in this street

Scotland were shite then too though to be fair.
 
I coach grassroots football and they have it all non competitive and its crap basically.

They teach them from a young age that winning or losing doesn't matter then they hit 12 and all of a sudden it matters.

Then you have gordon strachan coming out with we need taller players haha no, we need smarter players and teach them better technique along with a winning mentality.

Scottish football is all about running fast and crunching tackles, every other nation is about moving the ball around at pace and technique.
 
Scottish Football has been, and continues to be run like a bowling club committee with jumped up blazers who have little or no experience of the real world at the helm.

Wipe every last one of them out and employee professional administrators with zero self serving interests. Individuals who put the good of the game first as opposed to the good of one team.

Unfortunately turkeys don't vote for Christmas.
 
When a country is pish for a while they rip everything up and start again from the bottom

France did it in the 90s
Belgium did it in 2000 or so
Germany around 2000 as well
England in 2008

And they all appear to have reaped rewards.

Probably more examples of countries doing it some on a smaller scale than above.

Scotland appear to be content with keeping the old guard and old methods and its put the country about 20 years behind pretty much every developed nation in Europe. Even when we win we are never convincing unless it’s against countries with the same population as Falkirk
Look at the likes of Iceland and closer to home the likes of Northern Ireland - not full of world class players but able to play to their strengths. We haven’t got a core of players like we used to have ie Gough,Mcall, Mcallister and Mcoist along with a few from the other lot.
I don’t think We could rip it up to start again as I don’t think the SFA would know where to begin. We seem to be happy currently playing to the Mhedia and the agendas that come from that game that we will quite simply implode and results like we saw under Mcleish recently will become common place.

We can no longer use the excuse that we are a nation a tenth the size of England when we are getting pumped by Kazakhstan. Until there are major changes within the SFA nothing will push us up the rankings again. Sad state of affairs - Id love to take the wee man to a World Cup and watch us at a big tournament but there’s more chance of Kirk Broadfoot winning next years Ballon D’or.
 
Back
Top