STEVE Clarke today claimed that Scotland are capable of emulating the success Croatia have enjoyed at international level in future – but has stressed that everyone involved in the national game needs to embrace the radical changes which are required from grassroots level upwards.
Luka Modric and his team mates are currently in 12th place in the FIFA World Rankings and are strong favourites to defeat their hosts, who they beat 2-1 in Zagreb last month, in their penultimate Nations League Group A1 match at Hampden tomorrow evening.
The visitors have, despite their country having a population of fewer than four million people, been one of the most formidable sides in the global game in modern times. They have twice finished in third place in the World Cup and were runners-up at Russia 2018.
Clarke, who is hoping his charges can build on the 0-0 draw they ground out with Portugal in their previous outing in Glasgow and boost their chances of A League survival with their first competitive win in over a year tomorrow night, is a big admirer. Not just of the Croatian players either, of the system which produced them.
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The SFA is actively trying to address the problems which are preventing our most talented youngsters from making the successful step up to senior level. A number of potential solutions were put forward in the “Transition Phase” paper which they published in May.
The Scotland manager feels that wholesale changes in how his homeland develop and promote gifted prospects are vital and has warned that nothing will improve at the highest level in the years to come if the status quo is retained.
“Croatia have got a system set up right from the young ages all the way through,” he said. “They seem to have a conveyor belt of talent. They keep bringing players through. They also have a lot of players with longevity at the top level, with over 100 caps or between 75 and 100.
“They’ve just got the balance right. They produce a lot of good young players and allow them to play a lot of games in their own country before they move out, which is a really good grounding and something we can maybe get better at here. They show a pathway for the young players. There’s a lot we need to try and change if we want to get better.
“We can get to that level, but we still have a lot of work to do. At some stage, people have to sit down, a think tank or whatever, and try something a bit different that we haven’t tried before to see if we can improve it. If we keep doing what we’re doing, it’s not going to get better.
“I’m Scotland head coach and in these camps, I concentrate on trying to get the results and performances the Tartan Army want because they come and watch us. Going down into the youth level needs someone with a different skillset or me to step away from this job and really think about it more deeply.
“Is there an understanding from the top? Yeah, I think there is, but it needs a collective. It's not just the people at the Scottish FA, it's the people that are in charge at the clubs. Everybody has to sit down and try to work out a way that we can improve going forward.”
Clarke added: “For my group of players the national team is very important. When they come away they've shown that they want to be successful for their country.
“I can't really speak for the clubs, whether they think the national team is more important than their club. Having been a club manager you know you've got your own interests that you have to look after.
“When you're the national team manager, you can't forget that you've been a club manager. I understand both sides of the argument. As a club manager you're under pressure every week to get results and if that means that you find more experienced players sometimes that's what you do.
“But what we have to do is we have to find, like Croatia, a conveyor belt of talent and more young players. If you do that, the more likely it is that some of them will get into the first team.
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“If you go back to when I was coming through, St Mirren and Aberdeen, Dundee United, they all had Scottish players and they were good. It’s something that we have to do. I don't think we'll ever go back to the utopia where you've got 16 Scottish players at one club that feed the first team.
“That's not going to happen anymore. At the moment, you've probably only got two or three that are in and around the fridges at most clubs. But can we get more? Can we get half a dozen? Can we get eight? That's the type of numbers that I think we should be looking to get.
“I’d been away from Scotland for a hell of a long time before Kilmarnock. I believe that previously we tried to put the stipulation that you had to have under 21 players on the bench. Basically, all you do there is you put a young player on the bench and he misses out on game time.
Real Madrid superstar Modric – who will, if selected, win his 183rd international cap in Glasgow tomorrow evening – has enjoyed a stellar career and Clarke played tribute to the iconic Croatian captain at his pre-match press conference.
“There are certain players that even I would pay to go and watch,” he said. “Players at that level, you want to go and see, to say you've seen them play live. That’s what I'd say about Luka Modric. Last month we had Cristiano Ronaldo. It's nice to see these top-level players.”
