Sports
Steve Clarke begs Celtic to help fix the issue confronting Scotland
Steve Clarke has asked Celtic and other top-tier teams in the country to collaborate with the Scottish FA to assist build a pathway for young players to thrive at the senior level.
The Scotland head coach addressed the contentious topic of young players in the professional game, as well as a lack of numbers for Scottish Premiership clubs.
The Hoops do not have a particularly strong group of academy graduates competing for slots in Brendan Rodgers’ matchday squad.
In fact, according to data recently revealed on social media by analyst and Stenhousemuir scout Gary King, Celtic have given ZERO opportunities to under-21 players in SPFL games.
Steve Clarke feels Celtic and other clubs must find a way to fix the youth system
Goalkeeper Jack Clarke, 20, and Mitchel Frame, 18, have previously appeared in friendly matches, while Francis Turley is the most recent player to be featured in the 2024/25 squad photo.
However, the manager believes that the country’s major clubs aren’t doing enough to protect our national team’s future by developing young players in first-team settings.
The Scotland manager believes it is time for the governing body’s leaders and clubs, including Celtic, to meet together at a table and devise a strategy.
He also mentioned Croatia, a smaller country but, like the Scots, frequently wins major international tournaments such as the World Cup and European Championships.
How Scotland compares to Croatia on the international stage
“That’s a very, very good question,” Clarke said, when asked about what Croatia are getting right that Scotland have not clicked onto.
“They’ve got their system set up right from the young ages all the way through.
“Because they seem to have a conveyer belt of talent where they keep bringing these players through.
“They also have a lot of players with longevity at the top level with over 100 caps or getting between 75 and 100 caps. They’ve just got the balance right.
“They produce a lot of good young players, they bring them through, they allow them to play quite a lot of games in their own country before they move out.
“Which I think is a really good grounding and something that maybe we can get better at in this country.
“And show a pathway for the young players. There’s a lot that we need to keep trying to change in Scotland if we want to get better.
“We need to come up with something that’s maybe a little bit different because if we keep doing what we’re doing, it isn’t going to get any better.
“If we continue to do what we’re doing, we’ll always get what we get.
“So we have to try and find a way but the change has to be driven from the top so they have to understand that we need to change and then we try to change.”
Clarke acknowledges that club managers have a difficult job because they live week to week based on their results.
That can hinder them from taking chances on young people in a results-driven industry.
However, he believes that something can be done in the future to aid the country as a whole and bring through talent from the youth ranks worthy of a berth on the Scotland squad.
What Steve Clarke said about Premiership clubs helping Scotland in the long-term
“It needs a collective understanding,” added Clarke. “It’s not just the people at the SFA, it’s the people that are in charge of the clubs.
“Everybody needs to sit down and try to work out a way that we can improve moving forward.
“I can’t speak for the clubs, whether they think the national team is more important than their club.
“Having been a club manager, you have got your own interests to look after, so I understand both sides of the argument.
“As a club manager you’re under pressure every week to get results and if that means playing more experienced players, sometimes that’s what you do.
“But what we have to do is we have to find more young players, the more young players you find the more likely it is that some of them will get into the first team.
“At the moment you’ve probably only got two or three (young Scottish players) who are in and around the fringes at most clubs.
“Can we get more? Can we get half-a-dozen? Can we get eight? That’s the sort of numbers we should be looking to get.
“It’s really important for young players to play. It’s to find a way to get these young players to play, not to stipulate that they have to be in the matchday squad.
“Because then they don’t play at the underage level, they don’t play in the matchday squad, they don’t get any minutes.
“The more minutes they get, the more likely they are to have a career.”
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