Last week BBC Scotland aired two programmes that tackled the
issue of youth development in our national game, questioning whether we were in
fact a ‘match for Europe?’ Developing
elite athletes in any sport is a tricky matter with lessons often only learnt
regarding the effectiveness of our processes with the benefit of
hindsight. Identifying objective
parameters to judge the effectiveness of youth development programs however can
be even harder, the pursuit of such criteria however is not without merit. After all, with clubs and sponsors investing
large sums of money in youth academies they are within their rights to expect
clearly defined objectives and a structured approach to achieving them.
In order to assess whether we are succeeding in developing
the next generation of Scottish players we must first decide what our marker
(or markers) of success is (are), something which was not overly clear
following the debate on BBC1. In this
series of blogs we will explore some of the major issues surrounding youth
development within football, using examples from the realms of business and
sport.
What is our marker of success?
There seemed to be two main areas identified by the BBC as
being important in assessing the effectiveness of our youth development
programs; the number of Scottish players competing within the SPL and the
success of our National team on the World and European stage. Depending on which one of these we choose as
our marker of success, has implications for the strategy we adopt in developing
young players in the future!
Success of the national team
If we take the current FIFA world rankings as a starting
point we can see that there is no particular pattern between teams occupying
the top 30 places and the strength of their national competitions. For example Brazil, a team synonymous with a
style of football based on flair and technical expertise recently fielded a
side where 9 of the starting players played their club football outside of
South America. Similar statistics can be
found for other teams in the top 30, for example Argentina, Republic of Ireland
and Cote d’Ivoire. Clearly then it is
possible to have a successful national team without the necessity for a strong
domestic competition. It could be argued
that to develop a strong national team in the absence of a quality domestic
competition, our young players would be best served moving to clubs competing
at a higher level. For Scottish players
this would probably mean an EPL club.
This may become more prominent with moves afoot in England to allow
category 1 academies to recruit player’s out-with the traditional 1.5 hour
travel radius. So here is the first
question regarding major aims and strategy.
If we are trying for improvements in the national team are we better
served focusing on developing players up to 16 years of age at which point they
will be eligible for recruitment by larger clubs competing in higher profile
competitions? If the answer to this is
yes then our effort and resource should go into coach education and athlete
development for players up to the age of 16.
(We will deal with issues surrounding talent identification and
development in a later post).
An alternative may be the pursuit of a strategy to enhance
the quality of our domestic game, after all there are examples of this approach
amongst a number of teams in the top 10 of the FIFA world rankings, notably
England, Spain and Germany. This
strategy will almost certainly require the recruitment of world class overseas
players in order to make it work thereby limiting the opportunities for home
grown players to progress to first team football. In the documentary aired on the BBC the
German system was highlighted as having provided excellent results in the
development of young players. This is
certainly true however their domestic game is supplemented with talent from
around the globe, for example of the 18 man squad Bayern Munich fielded this
week in the Champions league 8 were from overseas. Barcelona are synonymous with the brand of
football played by Spain in their recent successes on the World and European
stage, it should be remembered however that some of their brightest starts
including Messi, Thiago and Keita hail from overseas. The requirement to look out with our own
youth development systems should come as no surprise when we view the
recruitment and talent development strategies of successful businesses. All successful organisations invest in
developing their employees, sometimes through extensive CPD opportunities and
in more recent times through graduate recruitment schemes. At the same time, and especially at the
senior management level where competition is fiercest, companies will actively
head-hunt individuals from rival firms to enhance the skill set and expertise
within their own company. This process
is vital to successful business and creates a competitive marketplace where
ideas are exchanged and modified to bring about the most effective result. Like all global businesses, if a football
league wants to be the best it must attract the best talent from around the
globe.
Any strategy which utilises the success of the national team
must consider carefully what their marker of success and/or progression is. If we consider the eventual winners of
European Championships over recent years we see countries such as Greece
(2004), Czechoslovakia (1976) and the Soviet Union (1960). Whilst these teams were incredibly successful
at major tournaments does it necessarily tell us anything about their youth
development strategy?
Success of the domestic competition.
As I have discussed above, the success of the national team
may not necessarily depend on having a clearly defined progression route for
home grown players into the domestic league.
If however we shift the emphasis to developing players within our
academies for first team competition within the SPL our strategy and markers of
success may change a little. If we look
at the first team squads attached to current SPL teams we see that 53% of
players are of Scottish nationality. So
to be clear, within the league as a whole over half of the players available
for selection are Scottish. The number
of Scottish players per club ranges from 9 to 31 with the majority of clubs
carrying a squad of between 28 and 35.
The question which must be asked based on these figures is a simple one;
if we are going to judge the success of our youth development system on the
number of Scottish players progressing to first team football can the level we
are currently at (53% remember) be deemed adequate? If the answer is ‘yes’ clearly the clubs,
coaches and support staff are doing something right. If the answer is ‘no’ then what should our
aim be, 60%, 70% or even 100% and what is the rationale for settling upon that
figure? Until we have clearly identified
our aims for developing youth in an objective manner it is impossible to decide
upon a strategy.
The data for leagues 1 and 2 is a little more difficult to
ascertain however I would suggest that the percentage of Scottish players
competing in these leagues is higher than 53%.
Within academies we can only be judged on our ability to prepare players
for the demands of first team football in the league in which we compete and
the statistics currently show (in my opinion) that we are doing a reasonably
good job at this. As I said earlier, if
the powers that be feel that this percentage is too low I would like to hear a
well argued rationale for what the number should be. Whether these players are good enough to
enhance the profile of the SPL is dealt with below.
Arguably the best competition for domestic teams is the EUFA
Champions League however even here we see a relatively small group of clubs who
have succeeded in lifting the trophy.
The most recent English teams to do so, Manchester United and Liverpool
fielded 10 and 12 different nationalities in their final winning squads
respectively. This goes some way to
showing that few teams are able to achieve success at the highest level without
recruiting talented players from all around the globe. Developing home grown players is of paramount
importance and often forms the core of successful teams, for the above example
consider Gerrard and Carragher for Liverpool and Scholes for Manchester United. Investigating in isolation the success of our
national team and/or the number of home grown players within our domestic
leagues is unlikely to accurately reflect how well we are achieving this aim.
Financial implications.
The above data leads onto the final point for the current
blog which is the dependency on clubs and football governing bodies in general
for finance in order to sustain their business.
Both strategies already discussed, saturating our domestic competition
with home grown players and developing players to be sold on to bigger clubs in
different leagues (of course in time the latter may lead to the former) will
not necessarily generate high attendances within our leagues or to a product
which is attractive to TV corporations.
Without these two vital ingredients clubs will find it a struggle to
survive. A recent document published by
the EPL suggests that for category 1 clubs in the division a high annual spend
could be upwards of 4 million pounds which shows the importance of financial
stability in clubs who aspire to being able to nurture young players
longitudinally. As a consequence any
strategy that is decided upon to improve the development of young players must
take into account its impact on the final product which is sold to the fans. Interestingly the second lowest attendance of
the current SPL season was registered by a club who have the largest number of
Scottish players on its first team squad roster.
This is in contrast to the Bundesliga where the currently
placed bottom side Kaiserslautern is still able to boast an average attendance
of 41,185 whilst the lowest for the league is around 22,000. Compare this to the SPL where the lowest average
is 3934 and we see the importance of ensuring that our product is one that
attracts the highest number of fans possible in order to sustain the game.
Developing players is something that all clubs believe in
and strive toward in their academy programs, an endeavour which should be
commended especially given the huge amount of time that is given up by coaches,
volunteers and club officials, often without pay or acknowledgement. When we discuss youth development on a
national scale however we must be sure to arm ourselves with the relevant
information and be sure that whichever route and strategy we decide upon we
have clear and measurable objectives with which to judge its success. This should be done with a clear
acknowledgement of its implications for the wider game.
In the next blog we will discuss talent ID vs talent
development, look at some statistics regarding population changes in young
people and address the issue of development leagues and their structure.
