| NextGen Series Gives Our Youth A Chance? |
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| Written by Neil McCallum | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monday, 12 December 2011 22:02 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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At the end of the 6 matches, Group 1 finished like this:
Group 1 winners Barcelona and runners up Marseille will be joined in the quarter finals by Liverpool, Sporting Lisbon, Spurs, Aston Villa, Ajax and more than likely Inter Milan will make up the eight. Barcelona have shown us a left back Grimaldo, in my opinion a centre mid with a real chance in the game Samper who previously turned down Arsenal and a Cameroon centre forward Dongou sent of in the aforementioned Marseille game scored a hat-trick against us in the last game. Not to be outdone we have brought through Paul George at Ross County, Marcus Fraser coming on in the Rennes game, Dylan McGeouch scoring against St Mirren. Following behind a young lad moved up from Dumfries at 14 current Scotland International Denny Johnstone comes from good stock, his great-grandfather having won the Scottish League Cup with East Fife before having a long career with Queen of the South. Johnstone, being a bit younger than the rest made the bench in Barcelona.
Will the competition prove worthwhile? Well those involved have certainly been impressed and it looks like next season will be expanded to 24 teams with a TV contract. Moreover with no reserve league these kids need somewhere to play and be tested. The challenge of bringing youngsters through is always that difficult transition to first team football. How many times have we heard about this kid or that who’s going to be the next big thing but ends up being the next big nearly guy. Has anyone thought they haven't taken their chance at first team football? If we are to bring them through they must get more regular football. Oustanding talent such as Forrest or McGeady can make the grade, but often you’ll hear those in football comment that someone didn’t make it because they missed out on that next step up at 17/18 so when the chance came at 20, they were just not quite ready, for example, 19 year old Matthews and Wanyama have had a season and a half at least of regular first team football. The challenge for our club is how do we give them that vital extra level of experience without flooding the first team with untried youngsters.
The question for us fans - rather than track others around Europe are we willing to be patient and give them a chance?
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| Last Updated on Monday, 19 December 2011 23:49 |
Comments
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_UEFA_European_Under-19_Football_Championship_squads
From that squad, the best Scottish youth side in over 20 years, i'd say only 4 players have really achieved anything significant in the senior game.
Steven Fletcher, Lee Wallace, Graham Dorrans, and Robert Snodgrass are all playing at a decent level - old firm, EPL, or in Snodgrass' case a sleeping Championship giant with the likelyhood of an EPL move in the near future.
The rest of the squad ended up being split fairly evenly between leaving professional football altogether (including Charlie Grant, a key player in the team and highly touted Celtic youth prospect), provincial SPL/SFL clubs, and lower league English sides.
I dont think we are currently in a position where we can afford to gamble on throwing a good quality teenager into the side. All four of the success stories from that Scotland side played for smaller clubs where youth players could be more easily accomodated in the first team.
None of the six Celtic players really got a chance in the first team. McGlinchey, Grant and Ferry i remember as very highly rated youth team prospects. By that time, their paths to the first team were not being blocked by top-quality players from the Seville side, but largely by seasoned yet less talented senior players as compared to the previous six or seven years.
Injuries may have affected the chances of Grant and Ferry in particular, but the fact remains that none of the six, or the Rangers player Brian Gilmour, ever came close to being a first team player.
I think the best way to see how good the current generation of youth team players are would be to get them out on loan, to other SPL clubs or teams in the lower English leagues. Judge them against senior professionals, not fellow teenagers.
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