The UEFA European Under 19 Championships finished on Saturday with an unusual finalist.
One of the main problems with British football is the lack of quality coaching for the many young footballers up and down the country -- as Sir Trevor Brooking has recently pointed out ( and caused a minor kerfuffle involving Brian Mawhinney in the process ).
But the Scottish under 19 side has just done very well indeed by reaching the final of the European Championships held in Poland this summer and gallantly losing (what else?) to Spain 2-1 in the final.
Scottish football has long been in the doldrums at international level, with the 1998 World Cup in France their last appearance at a major international tournament and the excellent players of the 1980s like Kenny Dalglish, Alan Hansen and Gordon Strachan replaced with Kenny Miller, Darren Fletcher and James McFadden -- hardly a fair swap.
But the class of 2006 has done Scotland proud and hopefully a footballing renaissance can take place north of the border -- fans have been poorly served in the last decade with the top division being won by one of the Glasgow duo Rangers or Celtic (known as the Old Firm) every year since 1985 and some miserable performances by the national team.
A quick digression: my personal theory on Scottish decline centres around the mysterious disappearance of the "Macs".
Of the last squad assembled by current manager Walter Smith only four members of the 36-strong party bore a proudly Caledonian surname that started with Mc or Mac (OK, Mc and Mac are originally Irish surnames, but bear with me).
Of the last decent Scottish side that narrowly failed to get out of the (senior) European Championships group stage at Sweden 1992 due to goal difference, seven of the starting XI were Maccas.
McDonalds, McTavishes, McSporrans -- your country (or nation or however you consider your chilly part of Northern Britain) needs you.
Back to Poland 2006 -- the tournament consisted of eight teams in two groups of four, with the top two qualifying for the semi-finals.
Scotland did well just to get out of Group B -- drawn with the age group specialists Spain and Portugal as well as the impressive Turkey. Group A contained the hosts, Austria, Czech Republic and Belgium.
Spain waltzed through the group unbeaten including a 4-0 tonking of Scotland. Turkey deserve a mention for being the entertainers of the tournament - an astonishing 21 goals were scored in their three matches, although they only managed one point in a wonderful 4-4 draw with Portugal.
Things were slightly more sober in Group A without a team quite as good as Spain. The Czechs and Austrians both qualified on six points while Belgium attempted to "do a Turkey" by winning their first match against the Czech Republic 4-2 and then slumping to 4-1 defeats to both Austria and Poland. The one disappointment of the whole tournament was that the Turks and Belgians never managed to play each other - all records for defensive ineptitude and goals scored in a 90-minute match would surely have been broken.
In the semi finals, Scotland squeaked past the Czechs 1-0 and set up a second meeting with Spain who had hammered home their superiority by thrashing the poor Austrians 5-0.
Scotland certainly weren't disgraced in losing 2-1 to Spain and wnt in at half time drawing 0-0. The Spanish showed their class in the second half, although a late Graeme Dorrans header gave the Tartan Army brief hope of a comeback.
The Spanish have won the tournament three times now in the last five years and continue to be the class European act at these youth tournaments although that hardly helps them at the senior level where underperformance is the order of the day. But other teams that consistently treat these tournaments as important developmental staging points for their promising players like Argentina and France get good results at both junior and senior level so maybe there is a lesson for British football.
The top scorer at the finals was shared between Turkey and Kayserispor's Ilhan Parlak and Real Madrid's Spanish forward Alberto Bueno who both bagged five goals. Despite this neither of them manage to makes UEFA's ten talents to track. Despite the charming alliteration, you wonder why they just didn't include an extra player and make it a team of the tournament, but who knows how those UEFA minds work?
If you fancy seeing some highlights you can go to UEFA's website and have a look.
