Like you, I was delighted at Ajax performance and 1-4 win in the Bernabeu last night. It was a victory for clubs in small nations everywhere, who have been disenfranchised by leagues with more valuable television contracts. This was not a backs against the wall performance, like our win over Barcelona in 2012, Ajax attacked relentlessly, they could have scored more.
When Dutch fans left the Johan Cruyff Arena last month, having watched Real Madrid secure a 1-2 victory, they must have assumed their European adventure was over for this season, but they would have consoled themselves with the knowledge that at least they did better than last season. Then, they were beaten home and away in the Europa League qualifiers by Rosenborg, just two weeks after Celtic dumped Rosenborg out of the Champions League qualifiers.
A glass ceiling exists for clubs from the smaller leagues, and when Brendan Rodgers left the building last week, the point was made to me that perhaps group stage fodder in the Champions League is the new limit for a club with Celtic’s resources.
What Ajax have established is that it is very difficult for clubs like them and Celtic to perform consistently well in Europe. Good players will leave quickly, replacing with players of a similar standard is haphazard, but while an occasional defeat to the likes of Rosenborg (or AEK) will happen, the ceiling is significantly higher than one win and five defeats in the Champions League group stage. We should not be cannon fodder.
All efforts at Celtic right now are focussed on winning the league and Scottish Cup, but by the summer, the club will have set their ambitions for the medium-term. By any reasonable measure, Brendan was a roaring success, but for the money (football budget, not just his wage), we could do much better in the Champions League. Ajax will force us to ask some harder questions. Winning 10-in-a-row will be an historic high, but it is not the only yardstick in town.
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does this
Euro champs,
Considering that our stadium was selected to be front & centre at the recent Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, theres no chance that would have happened sans Safety Certificate/ Inspection…
100% in agreement with today’s article.
Regarding Celtic following the Ajax model. We could start by trying to get a ‘B team’ playing further down the divisions. This would help bridge the gap between reserve and 1st team football in a competitive environment. Ajax have a policy that their manager must play a 4-3-3 attacking brand of football (with flexibility allowed within that) and that they must promote a specified number of academy graduates to the 1st team each season ( I think it’s 2 or 3). It might be worthwhile thinking of adopting something similar. If we could start to sell our developed players to the big boys for big bucks then we could see much greater investment in our playing squad. There’s obviously more to it than that but I think it would be a good place to start.
Young players from the Netherlands are just much better than young scots. Ajax have better younger players coming through their academy to make their team better and sell on
De Jong went for €75m, de ligt will probably go for a similar amount
That’ll be over €300m in the last fifteen years, and that doesn’t include transfer fees for players they signed from other clubs and from abroad, like Sanchez and Suarez.
Hot Smoked on 6th March 2019 1:08 pm
ernie
Could a Safety Certificate have been issued without an inspection having taken place? I think the report said that one club had not been INSPECTED for nineteen years.
***
Do the reports not say that Glasgow Cooncil DO carry out inspections?
There’s no way it’s Ipox. There’s no way it’s CP.
Not naming the stadium is presumably just a tactic to stir up a bit of interest.
See if or when we get ten are we not bothered about eleven ? What about getting nine in a row ad infinitum ?
Maybe Real were just p@@@ last night .
hairlikespaghetti on 6th March 2019 1:25 pm
It would also have been mentioned in Matt McGlone’s recent unsuccessful court action.
AG @ 12.58
Europe has to be our focus regarding football matters.
You need to win the SPL to have a chance of getting into the CL.
That should be our focus — win the league to get into the CL.
And make sure that we get into the CL group stages.
We are stuck in a third level league.
That is where we are and what we have to deal with.
Our football environment is insular and lacking in ambition.
However we have to work hard at maximising our strengths and minimising our weaknesses.
Tough gig but not impossible.
There are myriad football business models, and we ought to be careful in picking out one (in this case Ajax) on the basis of a run in one season in one competition. Granted they were runners up in last season’s Europa League, but they hadn’t qualified for the UCL in 4 attempts prior to this season.
Marseille, Salzburg, Sporting, Vigo, Genk, Olympiakos and many other clubs have enjoyed a season of results on a budget similar to or less than Celtic’s in recent years.
On balance, Celtic are the match for any of these clubs in terms of operations, finances and opportunity. It’s just that sometimes a given club gets a run of results that belies their strength. Celtic too have our moments.
Unfortunately there are two big differences between Ajax and Celtic
Players from the Netherlands are better than scots
Players move from clubs from the Netherlands to big clubs in big leagues, it hasn’t happened in Scotland since the king of kings
CELTIC40ME
I don’t know if the foreign younger players are much better up until the ages of around 16ish. I think that we all know that a lot of Scottish players get to that age then it’s bevvy, burds etc that is their downfall. I think a lot of the really successful European academies provide an education to their young players with regards to diet and nutrition but also have programmes with regards to respect for the opponents, referees, how they look after the equipment they’ve been provided and how they should look after their bodies. I think we could learn a lot in these areas.
Celtic – Southampton – Spurs/liverpool
Or Ajax – Spurs (Sanchez)
Ajax – Liverpool (Suarez)
Glad to see the 3rd Ajax goal standing.
There was enough wiggle room between it either being out of play or hitting the defender’s arm for the referee to disallow it and confirm the ‘Big Clubs get all the decisions’ idea.
However, they should really stop the clock like in rugby when there’s a VAR.
The Star Above The Crest 1:35
Would agree with pretty much all of that, although there’s no way the dinosaurs of Scottish football will allow us to have a youth team in the leagues.
I saw some debate on Ajax earlier on today on twitter.
It’s interesting, as their broad football department strategy has certainly paid dividends this season.
However surely it must be noted that they have went through a long period of pain in order to get to today’s exciting young team.
In doing so, they have sacrificed on success for a number of years. The title of dutch champions has been passed around PSV, Ajax, and Feyenoord for the past decade and a bit. And any degree of impact in Europe up until now has been scarce.
Therefore a bit of perspective is needed when lauding the current crop. It caused shock-waves across Europe, because it was Real Madrid. It was the Bernabeau.
THE STAR ABOVE THE CREST on 6TH MARCH 2019 1:49 PM
That sounds a lot like a cultural issue, which puts them at another advantage over us.
I don’t know any Scottish seventeen year old and my experience of kids from the Netherlands is the grand total of two weeks last summer on my holidays, but I was, honestly, struck by how respectful teenagers were there and how the older people there expected a certain level of behavior from the kids
There is no law that says Dutch boys must be better players than Scottish boys. I think we need to concentrate more resources on youth development. We have done quite well recently, with Tierney, McGregor and Forrest becoming regular first team players, but we should be aiming higher, something like 5 of our home-grown players in the first team, backed by good experienced professionals signed from elsewhere. We need a top European youth coach working with our youngsters (because a European coach will put the emphasis on technique), not a Damien Duff or Sean Maloney type who are given the job to learn the management ropes. Young players also need to be given the opportunity to play in the first team – so play them at least in the League Cup. Unfortunately we now have an obsession with winning trebles, so we are afraid to take a chance.
If everyone thinks its as simple as copying their strategy. Then be prepared for periods of non-success, and a long wait.
We have found the talent but we have not managed the talent.
Last 10 years:
We had SB from a local source at a cost.
We had AMcG and SM coming through the ranks.
We had JMcC available on our doorstep.
We found GH, JL and Ki — Grade B talent.
We found FF and VW — Grade A talent.
We found VvD — Grade A talent.
We have found DB, CG and JS — Grade B talent.
We have youth talent in JF and CMcG — they have the opportunity to be Grade B talent.
We have youth talent in KT — Grade A talent.
We have had access to PR — Grade A talent.
We have found MD and OE — Grade A talent — one now / one next season.
We have youths like MJ, AO, KD waiting in the wings.
We have lost AR — Grade A talent — size snobbery seemingly at play.
We have lost JMcG — Potentially Grade A talent.
We have available locally SMcK — Grade B talent potentially.
Then there all the near misses from our scouting expeditions.
Plus quality players I have forgotten.
It is not a caae that we cannot find talent more a case that we don’t always recognise it and we don’t always manage it correctly. We could never hold onto all the talent listed above as some would not want to sit on the bench.
However we could have made better use of what we had in front of us.
We need to focus on building a team rather than playing Moneyball badly.
Ajax are only a target they should not be a glass ceiling.
TBB @ 1.45
You have to give those in charge of the club the ability to pick out the good in the Ajax model and ignore the bad.
Consequently employ the best.
BR was close but his EU record means he is not good enough.
Off the top of my head I’m struggling to think of any sport in Scotland that has produced a teenage superstar.
Obviously putting the conveyor belt of Auchenhowie to one side.
I can see no physiological reason why Dutch youngsters would be inherently better footballers than Scots youngsters . Surely it’s down to nurture rather than nature.
Although I can accept that learning to play with clogs on would certainly sharpen up ball control.
79CAPS on 6TH MARCH 2019 2:00 PM
There is no law that says Dutch boys must be better players than Scottish boys
There isn’t, but all the evidence suggests that they go on to be.
Arguably the best defender in Europe at the moment, certainly the most expensive,VVD, is from the Netherlands but didn’t have the benefit of a footballing education at Ajax.
B67 @ 2.10
Is it cold under that bridge?
Please start with AM and tennis.
Lesson to be learned — focus and hard work.
Auchenhowie conveyor belt
http://ministryofgifs.org/post/128202016112
RUGGYGMAN on 6TH MARCH 2019 2:00 PM
If everyone thinks its as simple as copying their strategy. Then be prepared for periods of non-success, and a long wait.
I’m sure we wouldnt be the first to try it.
Last year it was we should be more like AEK, then we should be more like The Red Bull brigades of Austria and Germany, now its we should be more like Ajax ,folk just like to moan moan moan imho, nothing wrong in wanting your team to improve, and domestically we have ( have Ajax), but why not, ach forget it, moaners…
H.H
our academy is already producing more quality Scottish players than the all the other teams in the country put together
I’m not saying we can’t learn from Ajax but imo it’s unrealistuc to expect our academy to start producing €75m players when Scottish football hasn’t produced one in decades
CELTIC40ME
I agree that it’s a cultural/societal issue and there’s not much we can expect Celtic to do about that. I think that with the players we do have an influence over it would be worthwhile trying to instill these good behaviours and habits in. Now if some of them could play fitbaw as well, we’d be laughing ?
MADMITCH
I was meaning recently. I was going to mention Andy Murray but it’s well documented that much of his development took place in Spain. Add in the fact his mum is a tennis coach he really is the exception
Fanatic
Aitchison can’t get a game for Alloa, the standard they’re playing at in reserves is SFL1 or SFL2, think you should keep that in mind, none of those players you mentioned are at the required level yet.
Nothing against an appearance for 1 or 2 when the league is secured.
I remember playing youth football at under 14s and U’15s level, and 2 years on the trot we went over to Netherlands to participate in some annual football tournament.
We faced youth teams aligned to Den Haag. Heracles, De Graafshcap… and we beat these teams comfortably. We were victorious with score’s of 5-0, 7-1 and similar scorelines.
However at U’15s were put on to the park to win. To be competitive. On the other hand, these young dutch teams were put on the park, to do the right things, the right way.
At some point in the journey they catch-up, then over-take.
On the Ajax debate, our current strategy already relies heavily upon home grown talent or picking up young players and nurturing them. I think our failing has been to not integrate players of a higher quality (through purchases) into the squad to enable us to push on.
We already have Forrest, Tierney and McGregor in the team. Added to that, we signed each of Ajer, Christie and Rogic as youths and developed them and have recently introduced Ralston, Mikey and Henderson. We certainly could do better, but our youth system has borne some fruit for the club.
On the topic of why Dutch players are better than Scots, I think it simply comes down to education. Until there is a societal change, I don’t expect Scotland to routinely produce quality players.
Look at Tony Watt, John Fleck and Leigh Griffiths. Even when they are banging on the door of the first team or are a mainstay of it, their off the field behavior is unbecoming of a professional athlete.
Gordon Strachan once quipped that if there was an olympics for under 5’5” Scotland would top the medal table.
Our children are getting taller or maybe we’re shrinking. We are improving physically as a nation but our lifestyle, weather and lack of numbers has hindered us. I remember John Beattie discussing this with regards to rugby some years ago but one look at the physique of rugby players here now would show that the gap has closed
SID
So they are to be judged only in the environment they play in?
How will we ever know if they are good enough if that’s the criteria.
Henderson who is clearly good enough only got picked after he knocked back a contract and threatened to leave over playing time.
Without the situation arising we could easily have lost a great young talent due to such criteria.
Atchison has scored in the SPL on a rare outing.
Would KT ever have been given the chance if injury and suspension not forced the coaches hand?
Have seen McInroy show examples of skill in last two games that some of our first team would struggle to replicate.
IMO FWIW, the main reason countries like The Netherlands, Portugal produce better footballers than scotland does is down to the referees, they let their footballers flourish, we encourage the total opposite.
I have said it many times and I will keep saying it till it changes or I kick the bucket, I reckon kicking the bucket will come first, if the hun decided tomorrow that they wanted to play free flowing football the referees would change overnight to accommodate them, till then, it’s the agricultural football.
BORGO67
Good post.
Would also put a lot down to the standard of coaching.