Youth development in Scottish football

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.