No Scotland. No Party

[EssexPhil]

Feeling a bit sorry for Steve Clarke. 2 things made his job extremely difficult:-

1. The SPL, and particularly the Old Firm, do not provide the support they could. Celtic/Rangers provided 5 men in a 26-man squad. 3 Defenders, a GK who played 0 games in the SPL last year, and a Midfielder on loan at Kilmarnock. I appreciate budgets are tight-but if Celtic and Rangers spent as much on Scottish players as Japanese/English he would have had more of a chance. As examples, where are the youngsters coming through? Why is Gunn not playing any football?

2. The current 48 team format is totally unfair to the early Groups. Because the later Groups know exactly what is required to be a qualifying 3rd place finisher. Knowing FIFA, their solution will likely be a 64 team format

[Ironside]

1) MONEY MONEY MONEY, in a rich man's world, Rangers and Celtic have the fan base and the stadiums to be regular top 6 top 4 teams in the EPL. Currently they can't compete with the english teams due to the fact they can't get the sponsors and TV money. Which means the best Scottish players end up in smaller clubs lke Bournemouth or Southampton. Or warming benches. Provincial Teams will spend money on youth development but then fail to give them game time to devolep properly as the cost of relegation looms large. Then when the youths are about to be ready for the next step the old firm will come in offering 4 times more money to sit on their benches before they end up down south.
2) The draw was incredible against Scotland. Getting both Brazil and Morrocco getting anything against either was a long shot, both could/should of been number 1 seeds. But this has too be looked with the knowledge more teams getting their gave Scotland a much better chance of making the finals in the first place.

my brain hurts but overall per head of population Scotland getting to the finals of the Euros and WC is above expections but US proud Scots just crave getting one up on our cocky Neighbours