It wasn’t too long ago that you reguarly saw two home nations appearing at a major tournament. Nowadays, however, it is something of a relief to see England there. Where did it all go wrong for the home nations in international football?
Whatever you may think of the FIFA rankings, they do tell you a lot about the current situation of the countries in the UK and Ireland. Wales are 117th in the world behind teams like Haiti; Northern Ireland are 59th; Scotland rank a measly 55th. The Republic of Ireland, meanwhile, are a respectable 31st in the world.
A perfect example of the recent decline is with Scotland. Scottish supporters have not seen the Saint Andrew’s Cross flying proudly at a major competition since 1998. Despite the win over Lithuania, which has kept alive their hopes of qualifying for Euro 2012, recent campaigns have followed an all-too-familiar pattern of hope and disappointment.
The growth of the Premier League has had an adverse effect on the fortunes of the home nations. The money on offer in the English league is eye-watering in comparison to that of the Scottish league system, and as a result it has all but been consumed by it. It now seems that the best players in the SPL are only good enough to play in the second tier of English football and is it not very often you see a Scottish player making the move to a top end Premier League team, Shaun Maloney’s move to Wigan being the most recent example. The SPL’s record top scorer, Kris Boyd, was deemed only good enough to play in the Championship which does illustrate the poor standard of football in the Scottish league. However I don’t think this should affect the national team as much as it has, since other nations that have poor domestic leagues still impress on the international stage. The Dutch league is not the greatest in the world but they still produce world class players on a regular basis, therefore I think there is a deeper problem at the heart of the poor performances.
[ad_pod id=’vip-2′ align=’centre’]
Another major problem is that the higher seeded nations get an easier draw and as soon as a nation hits a period of decline they find it hard to re-emerge due to their low seeding position giving them tougher groups. The best these nations can rely on is finishing in 2nd place behind the highest ranked team and then having to win the dreaded playoff to qualify.
While Scotland and Northern Ireland may be able to pull off a surprise result with their best eleven they do not have the squad capable of maintaining such a high standard for an extremely long qualifying campaign, conducted over a period of fourteen months. While both teams have a few players who are of Premier League standard, and who are proven performers at international level, the rest of the squaf is made of players who frequent the Championship, League One and the SPL. This is certainly the case with Wales who have a couple of high-profile names supported by a squad of lower league players. Hence, when these bigger players are missing, Wales seem to struggle.
The Welsh and Northern Irish domestic football leagues remain of very poor quality, which is unlikely to produce many future members of a successful international team. They have always relied on the English leagues to unearth and develop their top players and, with the ever-increasing number of foreign players in the Premier League, it has become even harder for these players to make it at the top.
As the number of countries taking part in qualifying tournaments has increased, with the collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia, qualification has expanded making it harder for a smaller nation such as Scotland or Northern Ireland to get there and the minnows have improved in quality. When Northern Ireland are losing 4-1 away to Estonia it is time to worry and I think we may have to accept that we are unlikely to see the home nations countries at a major championship any time soon.
Let me know your thoughts and follow me on twitter @aidanmccartney for more thoughts and views on the biggest issues in football.
[divider]
Fancy a Premier League Box Experience? Click on banner below to find out more
[divider]
