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Why is Belgium so good? Maybe this .....


itsnomarooned

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23 minutes ago, itsnomarooned said:

 

A few interesting nuggets in there. Firstly, this idea which seems to be permeating Scottish football that kids are overcoached is nonsense. Secondly, in Anderlecht they appear to have a team who're onside with the idea of developing the national game, whereas we've got the OF.

 

There are aspects of this which sound similar to what Hearts are doing at younger levels (smaller games, more ball-time etc), so hopefully it'll pay dividends in years to come.

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Great read, it just shows what can happen when a football association can achieve with a shared vision.

 

Hearts are doing something very similar.

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34 minutes ago, Craig_ said:

 

A few interesting nuggets in there. Firstly, this idea which seems to be permeating Scottish football that kids are overcoached is nonsense. Secondly, in Anderlecht they appear to have a team who're onside with the idea of developing the national game, whereas we've got the OF.

 

There are aspects of this which sound similar to what Hearts are doing at younger levels (smaller games, more ball-time etc), so hopefully it'll pay dividends in years to come.

The old firm and SFA are the main culprits here , how can northern Ireland have a decent team and we cant

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16 minutes ago, NB GIN said:

The old firm and SFA are the main culprits here , how can northern Ireland have a decent team and we cant

I make 7 English born players from that squad. Maybe if we can tap into the pool of Englishmen with Scottish connections we'll really be onto a winner...

 

In seriousness though, I reckon it has more to do with things like management (and tbf the Scottish national team does now have a good manager after the McCleish debacle), pride in the jersey, support etc. Historically Scotland were decent enough and have fell to levels below our standards which has need frustration, anger and apathy; on the flip side, Northern Ireland are enjoying probably one of their best periods in a long time and that has really got the fans going and caring about the national team more than we could really hope for

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52 minutes ago, Deans Jambo said:

One thing though,  as good as the national team is the Belgium league is still pretty poor. 

cracking teams in it mate Anderlecht, Kaa Gent, Krc Genk, Royal Antwerp Fc, Standard Liege, Club Brugge, they would give the Scottish league a run for their money That Club Brugge just sold a guy called Wesley to Aston villa for £22.50m. 

Edited by Bongo 1874
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55 minutes ago, Deans Jambo said:

One thing though,  as good as the national team is the Belgium league is still pretty poor. 

 

It's far better than ours. Far far better.

 

Anderlecht

Genk

Gent

Club Brugge

Antwerp

Standard Liege

 

are all on a at least a par / better than the old firm.

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I think cultural differences also contribute to the difference between Scotland and Belgium, and how our elite athletes of of varying sporting codes progress. Also money has to be made available. About twenty years ago under the Blair govt, money was set aside for the benefit of promising young tennis players and the results were Murray and a few others who didn't quite make it. We certainly have room for improvement. TBF, I'd never have imagined Belgium being as good as they are now. Was great watching such a good side.

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29 minutes ago, Homme said:

 

It's far better than ours. Far far better.

 

Anderlecht

Genk

Gent

Club Brugge

Antwerp

Standard Liege

 

are all on a at least a par / better than the old firm.

In comparative terms against their national side is what I really meant.

 

Far far better than our league is a bit much. Better I'd give you (against us, Aberdeen,  Hibs etc) but I'd give the o.f a chance against those sides you mentioned. Celtic not put Anderlecht out of Europe recently?

Edited by Deans Jambo
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10 minutes ago, Deans Jambo said:

In comparative terms against their national side is what I really meant.

 

Far far better than our league is a bit much. Better I'd give you (against us, Aberdeen,  Hibs etc) but I'd give the o.f a chance against those sides you mentioned. Celtic not put Anderlecht out of Europe recently?

Well considering Club Brugge are still in the champions league with a group of Galatasaray fc Psg and Real Madrid would suggest otherwise. Celtic got put out by a Romanian team called Cfr Cluj. 

Edited by Bongo 1874
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2 hours ago, Finlay James said:

Great read, it just shows what can happen when a football association can achieve with a shared vision.

 

Hearts are doing something very similar.

The thing is it benefits both the clubs and country.Clubs rake in fees and the national teams become great.

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1 hour ago, Homme said:

 

It's far better than ours. Far far better.

 

Anderlecht

Genk

Gent

Club Brugge

Antwerp

Standard Liege

 

are all on a at least a par / better than the old firm.

 

Hardly far, far better, but certainly on a par.  Big difference is the money they get from sponsorship (Jupiler beer) and European TV coverage.  Neil Doncaster has been abysmal when it comes to generating funding for the SPFL.      

 

The OF are ahead when it comes to crowd sizes but Brussels, Brugge, Antwerp, Liege, etc. have better stadia due to Euro 2000 resulting in more clubs with attendances averaging over 20K.  

 

 

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Whilst Scotland, and I mean SFA, officials, players, coaches, fans, managers all believe that perspiration trumps inspiration we will never prosper.

 

Imagine what a season or five of really strict and consistent officiating could do?

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Dusk_Till_Dawn
23 minutes ago, Spellczech said:

Whilst Scotland, and I mean SFA, officials, players, coaches, fans, managers all believe that perspiration trumps inspiration we will never prosper.

 

Imagine what a season or five of really strict and consistent officiating could do?

 

That’s one of a thousand issues in Scotland, all of which conspire to make us terrible. Scottish football is desperate for VAR, to stop inept refs bottling big decisions (especially when the Old Firm are involved).

 

I wonder who in the Scottish set-up is seen as a truly innovative thinker. It all feels so insular and uninspired. Unfortunately it’ll take a complete overhaul to change the culture and the SFA don’t have the self awareness to do that

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3 hours ago, Finlay James said:

Great read, it just shows what can happen when a football association can achieve with a shared vision.

 

 

And we ve got Doncaster... 

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3 hours ago, i8hibsh said:

They don't have Doncaster in charge. That will set any team up at an advantage

 

Ding ding ding, we have a winner. 

 

Seriously though, getting rid of this hapless fud would be a step to addressing the issue, but wouldn't address the underlying issue - that the SFA in inherently biased. All the support staff will be OF fans, the guys coming into top jobs are invariably from the OF. How can we seriously expect anything to change? 

 

SFA must be moved out of Glasgow, frankly, I don't care where - Dundee would be pretty neutral although Edinburgh has better facilities. They need a culture and mentality change, being forced to physically relocate would begin to address the problems within the SFA, although more work would be needed to improve transparency and accountability as currently there is none (like actually ZERO, we say Levein has the safest job in Football, but i'd argue Doncaster does).

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Our set up doffs it's cap to the uglies at the expense of all other teams, condones sectarianism in the game by it's complete lack of appreciation of how it has infested our national sport, has a largely west coast tainted base for match officialdom, and is simply not interested in upsetting their own wee applecart.

 

Until all that stops, we are going to get nowhere on a national level.

 

Don't hold your breath.

 

.

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A_A wehatethehibs

Maybe every top country is on advanced performance enhancing drugs, Scotland is the only country which hasn’t clocked how to beat the system. 

 

At times that’s how it looks on the pitch. Teams are just faster, fitter, mentally on another level. 

 

 

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Mark Wotte and Brian mcclair both attempted to drag Scottish football out of the dark ages but the clubs would not engage and they were left banging their head off of a brick wall.

 

The SFA have tried to bring change but they haven't tried hard enough.  Belgium, Iceland etc started their change programmes 20 years ago, we will be even further behind and going backwards in the coming years rather than playing catch up.  It's a depressing picture.

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2 hours ago, Bongo 1874 said:

Well considering Club Brugge are still in the champions league with a group of Galatasaray fc Psg and Real Madrid would suggest otherwise. Celtic got put out by a Romanian team called Cfr Cluj. 

.....But Celtic have also been in champions league groups in previous years. 🤷‍♂️

 

Anyway not looking to argue about Scottish football being poor, we've enough negativity. 

 

My point was their national team is world class, their league is average.

 

The looking deep into why a national team is doing well may have merit but sometimes it's just down to luck (outwith the bigger nations). Groups of quality players come through at various times over the generations. Belgium have a group of quality players right now but then so to did Romania and Bulgaria 30 years ago. 

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Big Slim Stylee
2 minutes ago, Deans Jambo said:

.....But Celtic have also been in champions league groups in previous years. 🤷‍♂️

 

Anyway not looking to argue about Scottish football being poor, we've enough negativity. 

 

My point was their national team is world class, their league is average.

 

The looking deep into why a national team is doing well may have merit but sometimes it's just down to luck (outwith the bigger nations). Groups of quality players come through at various times over the generations. Belgium have a group of quality players right now but then so to did Romania and Bulgaria 30 years ago. 

 

You haven’t bothered reading those articles, have you?😀 

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Lord Beni of Gorgie

Not necessarily are a rule of thumb but the 5th team in Belgium beat the side, that thrashed the 4th team in Scotland just in August .

 

Maybe a rough form guide 

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3 minutes ago, Deans Jambo said:

.....But Celtic have also been in champions league groups in previous years. 🤷‍♂️

 

Anyway not looking to argue about Scottish football being poor, we've enough negativity. 

 

My point was their national team is world class, their league is average.

 

The looking deep into why a national team is doing well may have merit but sometimes it's just down to luck (outwith the bigger nations). Groups of quality players come through at various times over the generations. Belgium have a group of quality players right now but then so to did Romania and Bulgaria 30 years ago. 

 

 

Do a large percentage of their international team not play in other countries, rather than at home in their league. 

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Bazzas right boot
48 minutes ago, Busby8 said:

Our set up doffs it's cap to the uglies at the expense of all other teams, condones sectarianism in the game by it's complete lack of appreciation of how it has infested our national sport, has a largely west coast tainted base for match officialdom, and is simply not interested in upsetting their own wee applecart.

 

Until all that stops, we are going to get nowhere on a national level.

 

Don't hold your breath.

 

.

 

1 hour ago, Smoked-Glass said:

And we ve got Doncaster... 

 

2 hours ago, vegas-voss said:

The thing is it benefits both the clubs and country.Clubs rake in fees and the national teams become great.

 

4 hours ago, Mikey1874 said:

Michael O'Neill had one win in his first 18 games with N.Ireland. So sticking with Steve Clarke would be one thing. 

 

4 hours ago, i8hibsh said:

They don't have Doncaster in charge. That will set any team up at an advantage

 

4 hours ago, NB GIN said:

The old firm and SFA are the main culprits here , how can northern Ireland have a decent team and we cant

 

4 hours ago, Finlay James said:

Great read, it just shows what can happen when a football association can achieve with a shared vision.

 

Hearts are doing something very similar.

 

Aye, aye n aye. 

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5 hours ago, itsnomarooned said:

 

Great OP. What's the chances of anyone in the Scottish football hierarchy paying any attention?

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Lord Beni of Gorgie

The negative side youngsters being poached for pennies.  Be interesting to see if sell on taxes could be paid at higher rates 

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Guest ToqueJambo

Countries with less prominent teams in their top leagues, with similar populations, with worst supported domestic leagues, and/or with worst overall economies that have done much, much better than Scotland at international level since 1998 in terms of qualifying and competing at tournament finals: Croatia, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Greece, Switzerland, Uruguay. I'm sure there are more. Give Rod Petrie a backpack and tell him not to come back until he has travelled around and compiled a detailed report on all of these countries.

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  • Maple Leaf changed the title to Why is Belgium so good? Maybe this .....

Both really interesting, particularly age selection bias,  which also applies in education,  although more so in England.

 

One thing that jumped out, a  country of 11 million,  34 professional clubs, playing in 2 leagues

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Diadora Van Basten

I think player development is a cop out. We have good players in some positions but not all. I think back to 98 and that was not that great a team. One of the biggest problems is people don’t take the National team seriously. McLeish stumbled upon a good team before the Kazakhstan match then had 6 players unavailable for that match. If Belgium lost 6 first team players they would struggle. I remember Scotland playing Sweden in a friendly and Webster called off whilst Zlatan player.

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1 hour ago, Spellczech said:

Whilst Scotland, and I mean SFA, officials, players, coaches, fans, managers all believe that perspiration trumps inspiration we will never prosper.

 

Imagine what a season or five of really strict and consistent officiating could do?

I can tell you one thing they can do is this:  Any kid at 8-12 that tries a yellow minimum tackle during a game gets immediately taken off by their coach for a 'cooling off' period. It's just accepted far too easily.  We really need to change the way the game is refereed and try to stamp out the 'intimidation' hard-man aspects of our game.  It's so detrimental to development!

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in the halcyon days of 74-98, nobody said Scotland was short on quality or couldn't compete. Albeit never got past the groups in the finals which was regarded as failure back then. I think part of the problem is we get tough qualifiers. Kosovo and Bulgaria are massively weaker than current Russia (for example). I also wouldn't trust them to beat Cyprus. 

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48 minutes ago, Deans Jambo said:

.....But Celtic have also been in champions league groups in previous years. 🤷‍♂️

 

Anyway not looking to argue about Scottish football being poor, we've enough negativity. 

 

My point was their national team is world class, their league is average.

 

The looking deep into why a national team is doing well may have merit but sometimes it's just down to luck (outwith the bigger nations). Groups of quality players come through at various times over the generations. Belgium have a group of quality players right now but then so to did Romania and Bulgaria 30 years ago

 

..and Belgium did too in the eighties/early nineties.

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Dusk_Till_Dawn
14 minutes ago, JackLadd said:

in the halcyon days of 74-98, nobody said Scotland was short on quality or couldn't compete. Albeit never got past the groups in the finals which was regarded as failure back then. I think part of the problem is we get tough qualifiers. Kosovo and Bulgaria are massively weaker than current Russia (for example). I also wouldn't trust them to beat Cyprus. 

 

Yes but football moved on and we didn’t. We get tough qualifiers because we are utter shite and we blow over in a mild breeze.

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Just now, Dusk_Till_Dawn said:

 

Yes but football moved on and we didn’t. We get tough qualifiers because we are utter shite and we blow over in a mild breeze.

 

This is true, but put Belgium and Russia in England's group and they would have a job on.

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Dusk_Till_Dawn
3 minutes ago, JackLadd said:

 

This is true, but put Belgium and Russia in England's group and they would have a job on.

 

It’s seeded so England wouldn’t have got Belgium. Russia are bang average. England would beat them.

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1 minute ago, Dusk_Till_Dawn said:

 

It’s seeded so England wouldn’t have got Belgium. Russia are bang average. England would beat them.

 

Russia have a squad worth £200m which is not bang average. Bang average is Kosovo currently drawing with their asses. 

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Guest ToqueJambo
22 minutes ago, JackLadd said:

in the halcyon days of 74-98, nobody said Scotland was short on quality or couldn't compete. Albeit never got past the groups in the finals which was regarded as failure back then. I think part of the problem is we get tough qualifiers. Kosovo and Bulgaria are massively weaker than current Russia (for example). I also wouldn't trust them to beat Cyprus. 

 

Qualifying was much easier in those days. At the time I was as guilty as anyone of thinking our usual glorious failure at the Finals stage was really annoying but not that big a deal as we'd always have another chance. I suspect the SFA blazers were the same. Treated failure at the Finals stage as nothing to worry about and just fell asleep at the wheel. When they woke up a whole bunch of other countries has taken steps to get better, plus a load of other new countries had appeared to make life harder in qualifying.  

 

Appointing Clarke was somewhat a step in the right direction but even that you feel was down to the fans and media demanding him to be given the job rather than any great move by the SFA. After all, he had just as good a claim for the job when they appointed McLeish but wasn't considered apparently. It's the lack of urgency and leadership from the SFA that worries me. We might yet scrape into the Finals though the playoff and if we do they need to look on that as an opportunity to push on not sit back and think they've turned things around.

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Guest ToqueJambo
4 minutes ago, Dusk_Till_Dawn said:

I watched the Scotland-Russia game. They were nothing special.

 

They had one world class player. That's what we're missing. Robertson is world class right now, for Liverpool at least, but we need someone who can make things happen further up the pitch. It is a worry that we don't seem to make great game-changing strikers and midfielders any more while other nations can. The likes of Billy Gilmour, Fraser Hornby and Liam Henderson seem to have talent, we need to give them chances. Wales, NI, England are all giving teenagers chances.

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Seymour M Hersh
1 hour ago, upgotheheads said:

 

Great OP. What's the chances of anyone in the Scottish football hierarchy paying any attention?

 

None. Too busy wiping the champagne marks off their blazers. 

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Dusk_Till_Dawn
14 minutes ago, Seymour M Hersh said:

 

None. Too busy wiping the champagne marks off their blazers. 

 

I’m surely they’re embarrassed by the state of it all but turkeys don’t vote for Christmas and in any case, I doubt the likes of Tache have the wit to come up with a fresh plan anyway.

 

we desperately need new leadership at the top and a proven performance director who can create a proper development model. We’re 100% shot and carrying on regardless will only make things worse.

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Guest ToqueJambo
1 hour ago, JackLadd said:

in the halcyon days of 74-98, nobody said Scotland was short on quality or couldn't compete. Albeit never got past the groups in the finals which was regarded as failure back then. I think part of the problem is we get tough qualifiers. Kosovo and Bulgaria are massively weaker than current Russia (for example). I also wouldn't trust them to beat Cyprus. 

 

I would be genuinely worried if we were playing Kosovo or Bulgaria next. That's how bad we are.

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1 hour ago, ArcticJambo said:

I can tell you one thing they can do is this:  Any kid at 8-12 that tries a yellow minimum tackle during a game gets immediately taken off by their coach for a 'cooling off' period. It's just accepted far too easily.  We really need to change the way the game is refereed and try to stamp out the 'intimidation' hard-man aspects of our game.  It's so detrimental to development!


“You have to know that tackling is forbidden in Anderlecht. You can only anticipate or intercept, till they come to Under-21 team, in the second team of Anderlecht,” Kindermans says. “Our main motivation is we want to create technically skilled football players. If our centre-backs try to provide a solution by tackling and putting the ball out, I don’t like it. I want to educate as good as possible: ‘When do I have to anticipate? When do I have to drop off?’ I want to create intelligent players, not butchers.”

Straight from the horses mouth, they appear to share your view that it should be about skill and not about getting some big bugger to wreck the talented players. 
 

7 minutes ago, Dusk_Till_Dawn said:

 

I’m surely they’re embarrassed by the state of it all but turkeys don’t vote for Christmas and in any case, I doubt the likes of Tache have the wit to come up with a fresh plan anyway.

 

we desperately need new leadership at the top and a proven performance director who can create a proper development model. We’re 100% shot and carrying on regardless will only make things worse.


Few have the nerve to get the self-serving bigot brothers on side, let alone the spineless Petrie. We're ****ed. 

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Guest ToqueJambo
2 minutes ago, Gizmo said:


“You have to know that tackling is forbidden in Anderlecht. You can only anticipate or intercept, till they come to Under-21 team, in the second team of Anderlecht,” Kindermans says. “Our main motivation is we want to create technically skilled football players. If our centre-backs try to provide a solution by tackling and putting the ball out, I don’t like it. I want to educate as good as possible: ‘When do I have to anticipate? When do I have to drop off?’ I want to create intelligent players, not butchers.”

 

Don't worry, the future is in safe hands. Scott Brown is doing his coach badges and wants to be a manager. Oh...

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Dusk_Till_Dawn
2 minutes ago, ToqueJambo said:

 

Don't worry, the future is in safe hands. Scott Brown is doing his coach badges and wants to be a manager. Oh...

And big malky’s in the building too. Another dinosaur

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7 minutes ago, Gizmo said:


“You have to know that tackling is forbidden in Anderlecht. You can only anticipate or intercept, till they come to Under-21 team, in the second team of Anderlecht,” Kindermans says. “Our main motivation is we want to create technically skilled football players. If our centre-backs try to provide a solution by tackling and putting the ball out, I don’t like it. I want to educate as good as possible: ‘When do I have to anticipate? When do I have to drop off?’ I want to create intelligent players, not butchers.”

Straight from the horses mouth, they appear to share your view that it should be about skill and not about getting some big bugger to wreck the talented players. 

Was that a quote from the guardian article?  (I only read the more current skysports one.)

 

Would be interesting if that no tackling philosophy is practiced at lower levels throughout Belgium (up to u21) or just at Anderlecht.

 

The way the game is being played (and ref-ed to an extent) we're seeing a necessity for defenders to stay on their feet and not dive in anyway but I suspect that Scotland is waaaaay behind in any form of this aspect.  Traditionally we've always likes our blood & thunder game but perhaps the newer gens of fans are becoming a bit more nuanced in their appreciation of technical skill.

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Dusk_Till_Dawn
6 minutes ago, ArcticJambo said:

Was that a quote from the guardian article?  (I only read the more current skysports one.)

 

Would be interesting if that no tackling philosophy is practiced at lower levels throughout Belgium (up to u21) or just at Anderlecht.

 

The way the game is being played (and ref-ed to an extent) we're seeing a necessity for defenders to stay on their feet and not dive in anyway but I suspect that Scotland is waaaaay behind in any form of this aspect.  Traditionally we've always likes our blood & thunder game but perhaps the newer gens of fans are becoming a bit more nuanced in their appreciation of technical skill.

 

Most coaches in elite leagues want defenders (and goalkeepers for that matter) to be ball players. The physical defensive stuff is secondary and to many of them, irrelevant.

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