[Archived] England Decline Must End

[M-K]

What's this 'decline' then? As far as I'm aware, England won one tournament so long ago that most of the players are probably dead now, and did okay in another one 30 years later. Both of those were largely due to the fact that they got to play every game at home.

The rest of the time, they can console themselves by being better than Scotland. They're the Aston Villa of international football. Long may they continue to win nothing.

[roversR4ever]

Actually I will use my son as an example

When young as a toddler upto 4/5 liked playing football. Went and played not with a local team but weekly with coaching run separately and loved it - coaching was very good to be honest.

The coach moved and only option was local teams. Coaching not as good or as fun to be honest. and he wasn't enjoying it as much. Was doing other sports and slowly he lost interest in the football to the same extent.

He is now 9 and recently started playing more with his friends and loves being in goal. He is tall (im 6ft foot but my dad and some other relatives are taller) so he is likely to end up being tall. He has good hands (rugby helped) strong and brave so the position doesnt frighten him.

Now comes the interesting bit. Joined local team. Goes in goal but in training receives virtually no training specific to a goalkeeper. Talking to parents its the same for all the team local teams to us.

Fortunately a parent suggested an organisation specifically for goalkeepers which he now goes to weekly. Loves it to be honest doesn't mind training with local team but loves the specific goalkeeping training far more already improving with his technique. He may not end up being the best goalkeeper but his love of the game has really returned and he will no doubt be good enough to play at some level even if its just local teams when hes an adult if he sticks to doing the goalkeeping training for the next few years.

He is lucky I can afford the £25 a month for the training and am willing to drive to take him to the training. The training is overseen by someone who runs and is involved with goal keeping at a championship academy. What of the other kids locally who like to go in goal? The odd one may get into an academy (no guarantee that the smaller club academy will have a decent goalkeeper coach). So there's loads of kids out there who could be good goalkeepers but getting little or no training.

Goalkeeper is a very specific position I know. I just have come to the conclusion that poor coaching is almost as bad as no coaching.

Football has changed so much. Its such a faster game not as physical in the contact side, coaching in other countries reflects that. In the uk I don't think it has changed enough. The way youth football is setup and coached in this country still does not develop technique enough. It isn't just about whether its enough coaching its about the standard and type of coaching. I think at too young a level its about teams winning games rather than improving technique etc. Which leads to the pretty ugly sight of too many parents stood at sides lines screaming at kids refs etc.

Just to finish the rant, sports in primary schools (my county has first middle and high schools) is poor. With primary schools it seems sport is now pretty poor. My god the person who heads sport in my sons school - she is massively overweight now suffering diabetes because of it. Can barely get of a coach. There is one male teacher now - the only kind of decent sport is when outside coaches come to the school (not enough to compensate).

[Audax]

That Tom Ince comment about the PL is priceless!

Sounds like sour grapes because no (big enough) PL team has come in for him.

"I'm happy to be playing in the Championship" indeed. Pah!

It's like when they say play a team of Championship League players in these matches.

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To other posts I'm reading, Argentina too, haven't been to the semi-finals since 1990 though I think have done okay in South American tournaments, that's not exactly Europe.

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As for '66, as I said, a good number of the tournaments, other tournaments have a taint to them too, one can say Argentina had to have the hand of god in 1986 and there's plenty of other incidences with other teams. I don't want to badmouth other teams too much so I'd say usually the Cups Brazil has won have been honest but 2002, reportedly breaks were given to South Korea vs. Spain and Italy and I think Brazil was treated generously in their game vs. Belgium. You have a lot of that. It's to be taken with a grain of salt.

Speaking of '66, this article talks about those old German teams. http://m.nbcsports.com/content/doping-investigation-casts-cloud-over-west-germany%E2%80%99s-accomplishments I'm not saying that to be negative. This is just what is reported. I've got questions on Zizou too, mainly that it seems some substances were used in Italy previously where his career was. Hey, it's tainted the tour de France but I think a little of that has been in Football too, more so in certain countries. On and on it goes, Spain is a place that has had lesser regulation of cyclists and a number of athletes that have done well in recent years. I don't question their athletes but I think it's like the author goes on about in the article. It put things in context.

It's a bygone era anyway.

[Hanks]

Its Rovers before England for me as well, its probably because I invest more time and effort following Rovers. There is a larger emotional tie towards Rovers and like a lot of people on this board probably think of them almost every day. The same cannot be said for the national team. I would like them to do well and will be in the pub tonight cheering them on but if we lose it won't spoil my weekend. I hope we qualify as it will make the world cup more interesting but in between matches I rarely think about the national side, I have never even been to a{full} England game.

It was great when we won the world cup and I can still remember where I watched some of them, the games against France and Uruguay I watched through a shop window on a black and white telly whist somebody in the crowd that had formed on the pavement had a radio on for the commentary. We were on Holiday in Bournemouth at the time and not many hotels had TV's. However if we had not been hosting the competition I doubt we would have won it. The Brazilians were subject to some blatant thuggery in there opening games and were eliminated. Then on the day that we played Argentina and a German referee sent off Rattin an English referee sent off two Uruguayans in there game against the Germans. Oh and lets not forget the Russian Linesman.

[RevidgeBlue]

That Tom Ince comment about the PL is priceless!

Sounds like sour grapes because no (big enough) PL team has come in for him.

"I'm happy to be playing in the Championship" indeed. Pah!

Even less enthused than usual about England's fortunes than usual. The lack of talent coming through since Sven spectacularly underperformed with the golden generation mean we're now a very average side with a worse manager imo.

That aside the thing that really naffs me off most about England at the moment is that whilst he's at Blackpool Tom Ince would never get within a million miles of a full England call up.

Yet if he were transferred to Liverpool or Man Ure tomorrow and stuck on the bench or in their reserves Hodgson would have him in the England side in a flash. Ditto Zaha. He never got a look in last season whilst playing for Palace. He comes back to United temporarily and goes straight in the England side. If he were to be sent out on loan again to a Chsmpionship side no doubt he wouldn't get a look in again yet he's the same player. It's all a bit of a farce imo.

[Stuart]

Even less enthused than usual about England's fortunes than usual. The lack of talent coming through since Sven spectacularly underperformed with the golden generation mean we're now a very average side with a worse manager imo.

That aside the thing that really naffs me off most about England at the moment is that whilst he's at Blackpool Tom Ince would never get within a million miles of a full England call up.

Yet if he were transferred to Liverpool or Man Ure tomorrow and stuck on the bench or in their reserves Hodgson would have him in the England side in a flash. Ditto Zaha. He never got a look in last season whilst playing for Palace. He comes back to United temporarily and goes straight in the England side. If he were to be sent out on loan again to a Chsmpionship side no doubt he wouldn't get a look in again yet he's the same player. It's all a bit of a farce imo.

Personally I'd pick the entire England team from the Championship - with one or two exceptions. But I'm highlighting the hollow comment from Ince that he would rather be in the Championship than the PL when the reality is, if any of the top 8 came in he'd be off.

[RevidgeBlue]

Personally I'd pick the entire England team from the Championship - with one or two exceptions. But I'm highlighting the hollow comment from Ince that he would rather be in the Championship than the PL when the reality is, if any of the top 8 came in he'd be off.

I quite admire Ince for taking what seems at this stage seems to be a primarily family based decision and not uprooting his wife and new child and leaving his Dad etc. etc.albeit it was "only" Cardiff.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

I 'd like to know what they're doing right in Belgium. It's a small country but what a team they've developed recently.

[Audax]

I 'd like to know what they're doing right in Belgium. It's a small country but what a team they've developed recently.

True. But in the meantime, since making the 2002 World Cup, they've missed every World Cup and Euro. Dipped to #71 FIFA in 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium_national_football_team#European_Championship

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Back to the '66 World Cup, West Germany was able to draw that up 2-2 on a free-kick they probably should not have been given.

I think those games are on youtube now. I might watch one this weekend. I know all those things are said about that Argentina England game. Think I started watching it once. It's not always as clear as what one reads and now most of the games can be seen on youtube. My point is not to discredit a team but I think winning is not always what it's cracked up to be.

Tab Ramos, USA was bloodied up by Leonardo, Brazil, bad foul in the '94 World Cup but Luis Enrique of Spain was on the end of a vicious elbow from an Italian player. Those two teams were in the final. England didn't even go to that one. Still, there are some acts by teams I'd find it hard to think other teams, a Belgium or England would do.

[Stuart]

I quite admire Ince for taking what seems at this stage seems to be a primarily family based decision and not uprooting his wife and new child and leaving his Dad etc. etc.albeit it was "only" Cardiff.

Easy decision for him. No decision at all.

Nothing to do with being family-oriented. Footballers get better offers (or are out of contract) all the time. Relocation is an occupational hazard. This is purely and simply down to lack of offers and he's trying to come out of it looking good.

Now if he'd made these comments the week BEFORE the window closed, I might be tempted to be less cynical. But he didn't.

[bob fleming]

Well said Stu. Ince is a wrong un.

Anyway. Having watched that tonight it's quite clear that England have no chance. We don't have a world class out and out striker! Not had one since Shearer.

As for The FA's proposals. Well they sold the national team down the river when they let the "big" clubs dictate the terms of The PL when it was formed, as Greg admitted. Now it's like turkeys and Christmas. Simple solution is 2 players qualified to play for England start in every game next season, 3 the season after and 4 the season after that. Failure to do so means a points fine.

Oh the pain. "What about the quality?". Nah, not for me. I don't care for the PL. I don't care if Utd, Chelsea etc win the champions league. I'd sooner see us winning the World Cup. I think most fans who go to games in this country agree as well. Yes, no guarantees but when Barry comes on tonight, not played all season, (unless I'm mistaken) an established international, then you know it's gone too far.

Then again most posters don't give a damn anyway about England.

[Stuart]

As for The FA's proposals. Well they sold the national team down the river when they let the "big" clubs dictate the terms of The PL when it was formed, as Greg admitted. Now it's like turkeys and Christmas. Simple solution is 2 players qualified to play for England start in every game next season, 3 the season after and 4 the season after that. Failure to do so means a points fine.

Completely agree. Newcastle are the new Arsenal where this issue is concerned.

The problem is the bleeding hearts' lawyers will say it's not fair on foreign players (within the EU, of course) and declare it an illegal restriction of trade.

Then there's "the R word" of course - even Dyke had to qualify his comments by saying he wasn't "the X word". 'Is it cos I is Belgique?'

[Baz]

Belgium, is the new Turkey, as was Romania at one point. Once in a while you will get a golden generation of top players.

The places to look are those that consistently produce good winning teams, the likes of Germany, Holland, Spain, Italy & Argentina who despite a relatively small population always seem to produce top quality players.

But you have to look from ages 4-5 all the way through to 30 to truely evaluate that progress.

In this country we quite often get rid of smaller built ball-players from academies in favour of bigger stronger quicker lads. In spain for example its not unusual to have 50+ professionals 16-21 to give them time to fully develop physically, and technically, whereas theres a stat that only 7% of those with a professional contract at 17 in the uk still have one at 21. I agree somewhat the cream will come to the top, but maybe our iniesta / mata / carzolas are just out-physicalled from the game at an earlier stage?

[den]

Restrictions on foreign players surely is the wrong way to go?

What we must do, is ensure that we have youngsters coming through that can play at the level of the top foreigners. We must not bring the standards of the English leauges down to suit our inadeaquicies. The Academy system, costing clubs a fortune, was set up to raise the standard of young, home grown talent. The real problem for English football is that managers like Wenger immediately by passed the basic reasons for the introduction of the academy system - and went shopping around Europe for the best talent, using the attraction of the high tech academies, to attract foreign lads. Of course, from then on, in order to compete, every club has gone down that route. For me, the long term aim has to be using the academies solely for the purpose of developing home grown players.

[jim mk2]

I 'd like to know what they're doing right in Belgium. It's a small country but what a team they've developed recently.

Accident of birth. Happens alot, good players for some reason come through at the same time.

[DE.]

Restrictions on foreign players surely is the wrong way to go?

What we must do, is ensure that we have youngsters coming through that can play at the level of the top foreigners. We must not bring the standards of the English leauges down to suit our inadeaquicies. The Academy system, costing clubs a fortune, was set up to raise the standard of young, home grown talent. The real problem for English football is that managers like Wenger immediately by passed the basic reasons for the introduction of the academy system - and went shopping around Europe for the best talent, using the attraction of the high tech academies, to attract foreign lads. Of course, from then on, in order to compete, every club has gone down that route. For me, the long term aim has to be using the academies solely for the purpose of developing home grown players.

Absolutely.

The problem goes far deeper than there being a lot of foreign players in the PL, anyway. That's just an easy excuse. The entire ethos of how football is taught in this country from the youngest ages upwards has to be radically changed. Germany underwent a similar transformation a decade or so ago and they're doing alright now. Time and money needs to be invested in getting kids to play the right way, rather than moaning and griping about how the foreigners are keeping young English players out of PL teams. If the youngsters are truly good enough, they'll force their way into the fold like Rooney, Wilshere, Ramsay, Phil Jones and others have done.

[bob fleming]

Learn from your zolas, klinsmans, bergkamps etc. the reality is somewhat different. As we, Rovers, should know more than most.

What we have at the moment, as Dyke pointed out, is the complete opposite of what the claim was when the PL was formed. Every Tom, Dick and Harry bought in from abroad. Some are OK, some are superb, a lot are absolute rubbish. Lets take that "untapped market" of Portugal for example. Just dross in our league, utter crap.

Fact of the matter is that Germany said to hell with it. We'll concentrate on our own. No Champions League success for us, a couple of very poor (by their standards) World Cups and away they went. They came through together. It looks superb as well. They actually stand up at matches (in standing areas) and have an atmosphere!

You can blame all the coaches in the world but when you have a top tier of clubs intent on buying (instant) success through the Sky money it will always be the same. It's that or instant failure. Take the lad from Palace who Utd signed, Sinclair Mk II. What's the point? Here's your cash son, you'll never get a game though unless Nani gets injured but your made for life! Way to go!

Unfortunately Dyke can talk all he likes but the fact is the top tier of clubs have the power. If they don't like what he said, which I think we'll all agree they didn't, they'll just ignore him.

Euro super league in 10 years.

And in case our two resident dingles have used their multitude of fingers to get this far down the MB - yes, yes it is far more interesting playing you feckers than playing Fulham or Norwich, but both our teams (and fans) would sooner be up there to give these "big clubs" a bloody nose now and again. Wouldn't we??

Now I've said it.... Hmmm

Anyway, again, off topic (again!) England. No top class striker. No chance.

[patrickvalery]

For me the biggest problem has always been the consequences of falling off the Premier League gravy train. Until this gap is shortened then England just cannot hope to play a better brand of football and it becomes harder for our national players to learn how to retain posession and feel comfortable with the ball at their feet. After all, this seems to be how the foreign game is played.

English clubs have this tendancy to flood their playing staff from academy level through to the first team with English 'triers' and foreign technical players. There seems to be this opinion that only foreign players have the ability to play as a number ten. So when the best English lads come together we are devoid of anyone who can unlock the opposition. Maybe with a handful of exceptions over the years. OK they can do it against lesser sides, but against the best they run out of ideas.

Also, the way the PL has so much dominance and financial reward means clubs set up not to lose lower down the table. There are even some managers who have forged careers out of being able to keep sides up in this division. Needless to say, these guarantees come at a cost - namely style. If sides weren't crippled by the cost of relegation from the top flight i am sure you would see many more 'projects' in the making. Sides who develop an ideology and style which they want to play in. If they suffer relegation along the way but believe the long term goal may be benefical in terms of enticing fans through the turnstiles then so be it. But if the current set up continues then clubs simply vanish from sight once the Premier League money disappears. IMO it is imperative that this gap is closed. If clubs are allowed to coach their youngsters right the way through from i don't know, say 10 - 18 in a fashion where they will fit the clubs ethos then we may see more players coming through who are comfortable on the ball and can rival the likes of Wilsher or Gascoigne.

Having said all the above, i have often wondered whether England would have been more successful in the short term had Allardyce got the gig. I know it aint too pretty and longer term it would have been problematic and we would still have found ourselves in the same position we're currently in a few years down the line. But watching England try to match top foreign sides is painfull because we simply can't do what they do. I wonder if Allardyce might have got a tune out of the national side by just doing what we are currently good at. Out muscle rather than out think. Direct, incisive football - real up n at em stuff which the foreign legion don't like. As i say, it'd be short term only and probably easy to counter given time, but i often think with Big Sam or such like at the helm and no apologies for playing the way he does, we might have (to steal Bob's phrase) bloodied a few more noses along the way.

[AJW]

i keep hearing that youngsters from abroad are technically more gifted than ours so thats why they end up in our academies ... well what about bringing the people who coached them to coach our youngsters instead?

[Majiball]

Absolutely.

The problem goes far deeper than there being a lot of foreign players in the PL, anyway. That's just an easy excuse. The entire ethos of how football is taught in this country from the youngest ages upwards has to be radically changed. Germany underwent a similar transformation a decade or so ago and they're doing alright now. Time and money needs to be invested in getting kids to play the right way, rather than moaning and griping about how the foreigners are keeping young English players out of PL teams. If the youngsters are truly good enough, they'll force their way into the fold like Rooney, Wilshere, Ramsay, Phil Jones and others have done.

But that's what the EPPP is meant to be all about. Lets hope the belgiums can pass on their knowledge better than the spainish and french before them.

[thenodrog]

Even less enthused than usual about England's fortunes than usual. The lack of talent coming through since Sven spectacularly underperformed with the golden generation mean we're now a very average side with a worse manager imo.

That aside the thing that really naffs me off most about England at the moment is that whilst he's at Blackpool Tom Ince would never get within a million miles of a full England call up.

Yet if he were transferred to Liverpool or Man Ure tomorrow and stuck on the bench or in their reserves Hodgson would have him in the England side in a flash. Ditto Zaha. He never got a look in last season whilst playing for Palace. He comes back to United temporarily and goes straight in the England side. If he were to be sent out on loan again to a Chsmpionship side no doubt he wouldn't get a look in again yet he's the same player. It's all a bit of a farce imo.

Heskey and Crouch bear testamant to that. Like em or not as soon as both left Lpool their England careers were at an end..... prematurely for Crouch imo.

[thenodrog]

Belgium, is the new Turkey, as was Romania at one point. Once in a while you will get a golden generation of top players.

The places to look are those that consistently produce good winning teams, the likes of Germany, Holland, Spain, Italy & Argentina who despite a relatively small population always seem to produce top quality players.

But you have to look from ages 4-5 all the way through to 30 to truely evaluate that progress.

In this country we quite often get rid of smaller built ball-players from academies in favour of bigger stronger quicker lads. In spain for example its not unusual to have 50+ professionals 16-21 to give them time to fully develop physically, and technically, whereas theres a stat that only 7% of those with a professional contract at 17 in the uk still have one at 21. I agree somewhat the cream will come to the top, but maybe our iniesta / mata / carzolas are just out-physicalled from the game at an earlier stage?

Spain? I doubt I'd include Spain in that list. They won little and consistently under achieved until just a few years ago. In fact I'd prob use Spain as the counter argument.

[Amo]

San Marino lost 9-0 to Ukraine.

Just what IS the point of them? They're one of the lowest ranked teams in world football, and have only won one game since their conception in 1988. They've spent the rest of that time being the whipping boys of whipping boys. I bet their players would rather do national service than have to face getting battered every time they step onto the pitch. There should be some sort of play-off system for the lesser nations to earn the right to play in the qualifiers, instead of throwing them in there just to make up the numbers.

[thenodrog]

Restrictions on foreign players surely is the wrong way to go?

What we must do, is ensure that we have youngsters coming through that can play at the level of the top foreigners. We must not bring the standards of the English leauges down to suit our inadeaquicies. The Academy system, costing clubs a fortune, was set up to raise the standard of young, home grown talent. The real problem for English football is that managers like Wenger immediately by passed the basic reasons for the introduction of the academy system - and went shopping around Europe for the best talent, using the attraction of the high tech academies, to attract foreign lads. Of course, from then on, in order to compete, every club has gone down that route. For me, the long term aim has to be using the academies solely for the purpose of developing home grown players.

The real issue is money again. Time and again we hear managers telling us that equivalent talent is much cheaper from abroad.

[Salgado Is A Hero]

I think people are doing Belgium a disservice when they say they're just lucky at the moment. They just did what Germany did and sorted out their academies, coaching etc. I think I read that their under 21s beat Italy 3-1 away the other day.

Their team is loaded with top quality young players. Dembele, Lukaku, and Mignolet aren't even first team regulars. Here's an article I read a couple of days ago that explains it pretty well. Sorry for the different font sizes, I can't be arsed to change it.

"No one can say for certain when the tipping point was reached. When Belgian football looked deep into its soul and discovered an empty hollow. Some say the European Championship of 2000 was the watershed. Co-hosts of the tournament with Holland, Belgian aspirations were high.

They would go on to reach a sixth successive World Cup in 2002, they were a nation to be reckoned with.

But the days of Enzo Scifo and Franky Vercauteren had gone. When Turkey pipped the co-hosts as qualifiers from their first-round group at Euro 2000, there was humiliation. But no real surprise.

Their best young players were heading elsewhere. To France and the Netherlands. The Jupiler pro league was no longer seen as a place for young players to blossom and grow.

At the glass-fronted offices of the Belgian Football Association on the outskirts of Brussels, the technical director, Michel Sablon, saw football moving on and Belgium failing to move with it.

‘Our professional clubs were failing,’ he tells Sportsmail. ‘And the level of football from the national teams was not good enough.

‘We could not compete with the major countries like Spain and France.

‘So, in 2002 we started to look closely at France and had meetings with them twice a year. We did the same with Holland. Sometimes we met with Germany as well and tried to improve what we were doing.

‘At that time we were nowhere. Our Under-17 and Under-19 teams were ranked between 23 and 28 in the world. We really were nowhere. Now? We are top 10.’

It was hardly an overnight journey.

Sablon, a member of the Belgian coaching team at the World Cup finals in Mexico, Italy and the United States, sat down with a blank notepad. What he wrote down was hardly reinventing the wheel.

But the blueprint produced was enough to create stirrings of unrest and dissent amongst clubs for years to come. Relationships built up over many years in the Belgian game were tested.

‘We made a brochure,’ Sablon recalls. It was more of a book, in fact.

‘We had a whole group of people around a table in the technical department and we decided to make a plan for three target groups.

‘First of all was the clubs, secondly the national team and third the coaches of the schools.

‘So we adopted the same vision for all three groups. We went to the clubs and asked them to play a certain way below Under-18 levels.

‘We asked them to play 4-3-3 with wingers and three midfielders and a flat back four. In the old days, it was always a flat back three, so this was brand new to them.

‘It took more than five or six years before everyone could bring themselves to accept it. Because for most of the coaches and the clubs, all they cared about was winning the game. Nothing else.

‘But that was absolutely wrong for the development of all the players. Totally wrong.

‘It wasn’t easy. In the beginning it was terrible. But eventually they began to see it. They went with us because they saw that what we told them worked. It made players better.

‘I knew the coaches over many years. I convinced them that we were serious people.

‘That this was no b*******. We knew what we were doing.’

Even so, telling Anderlecht and Standard Liege how they should raise their young players and what formation they should play was a thorny, complex issue. Calling in university boffins, Sablon asked the academics to film 1,500 youth games and analyse them.

The conclusion? That winning at all costs was over-rated. In response, the Belgian FA urged five against five games at youth levels, seven against seven for older kids and a delayed introduction to full-size pitches.

At youth international level, promising young players were moved up to the next level as quickly as possible, even when it meant weakening the chances of qualification for European championships.

Yet, in 2007, a youth team featuring Eden Hazard and Christian Benteke made the last four of the European Under-17 championships for the first time in Belgium’s history. The next year, a slightly older group featuring Marouane Fellaini and Vincent Kompany had a good Olympics.

‘It was working,’ adds Sablon. ‘Players like Fellaini, Hazard, (Jan) Vertonghen and (Thomas) Vermaelen were good at 17 or 18.

‘But I have no doubt. What we did with our development system made them better. It made them the players they are now.

‘The clubs looked at the FIFA rankings and saw us moving up. Finally they said: “This works”.’

Unsurprisingly, Sablon’s blueprint has been adopted wholesale by SFA performance director Mark Wotte.

The Dutchman offers no apology for looking at a golden generation of Belgian players containing Kompany, Hazard, Fellaini, Benteke, Vertonghen, Moussa Dembele, Nacer Chadli, Vermaelen and Romelu Lukaku and saying: “This is the way to go”.’

Mark McGhee, Gordon Strachan’s assistant, believes it’s less simple than that. The Belgians have a population of 11 million. They have also benefited from a huge wave of multicultural immigration.

In Brussels, Europe’s business and political heartland, footballers of African descent were born. Benteke and Kompany are of Congolese parentage, while Fellaini’s background is Moroccan. Yet almost all of the team are born in Belgium.

Sixteen now play for the biggest clubs in the English Premiership. Kompany is Manchester City captain, Fellaini has completed a £27million move to Manchester United, while big-spending Spurs have Vertonghen, Chadli and Dembele in their ranks.

To try to ape this, the SFA have invested £20m in seven performance schools and indoor training centres. Yet the bricks and mortar is the easy part.

Sablon tried to change the psychology of a nation. To change the entire footballing culture from a win-at-all-costs mentality.

‘Scotland is in the shadow of England. But you know what? That makes England a target.

‘We compare ourselves in Belgium to the best in the world now. That started with Spain and France.

‘We are not the best in the world — but we are working hard to be there.

‘We didn’t want to be condemned to the role of also-rans any longer. But we didn’t sit around feeling sorry for ourselves.

‘We did what Scotland is trying to do — we went out and we did something about it.’