IF you missed it, England won the FIFA under-17 World Cup final in India last weekend, beating Spain in the final. Well done them. I say that, because I mean it, genuinely. It was a fantastic achievement, particularly the comprehensive manner of their victory in the final, against a nation, who for many, are the benchmark for youth football and coaching.
Equally, I also genuinely meant it over the weekend, when on social media, I commented that sports editors up and down England would be noting the date in their diary and planning ahead for five, ten and 20 years hence, for a “where are they now” feature. Predictable, yes, but justified even more.
You see, great as England’s success was, those who almost immediately predicted English success in the 2026 World Cup, were getting a wee bit ahead of themselves. Because, as we’ve seen before, there isn’t always a correlation between success at youth level, either as a team or individually, and what might pan out in the future.
Back in 1989, Saudi Arabia won the under-16’s world championship, famously – or maybe that should be infamously – beating hosts Scotland in the final at Hampden. Within five year, the Saudi senior squad had qualified for their first World Cup, in the USA, and followed that by making it to the finals in France, Japan and South Korea in 2002, and Germany four years later. But Saudi winning the World Cup? Alas, we are still waiting.
As are us Scots. We lost to those ‘teenage’ Saudi Arabians (maybe they were just big and extremely hirsute boys for their age) on penalties, having been 2-0 up at one stage. How terribly Scottish.
That home-grown bunch of 15 and 16 year-olds did us proud. However, nine years hence, when Scotland reached the 1998 World Cup finals in France, and when that class of ’89 should have been in their prime, not a single member of that squad made the finals.
Neil Murray won a treble with Rangers, Brian O’Neill made it to the Bundesliga with Wolfsburg, while Paul Dickov scored his way in to Manchester City folklore with a goal against Gillingham. But from the same group, Scott Marshall is possibly best recalled for one on-loan appearance with Celtic, Kevin McGoldrick worked in a tannery and landed a coaching role in China with Manchester City, while Andy McLaren won a cap, failed a drug test, battled alcoholism, then set up his A&M Scotland charity. As for goalkeeper Jim Will, once of Arsenal, he chucked fitba and joined the polis.
We would all like to think of young starlets (to use a once-favourite phrase of the Scottish press) blossoming in to international stars. Mark Schwarzer, Claudio Reyna, Roberto Abbondanzieri, Abel Xavier and a certain Luis Figo did after appearing in Scotland in ‘89. But in the main, they were exceptions. Kids who play at the highest level in their teenage years, are not guaranteed to still be in football ten years on.
Having outgrown their contemporaries at an early age, football can then outgrow them.
Paul McStay made it big. For many, he first came to prominence during an epic, televised 5-4 Scotland win at Wembley in the schoolboy international against England in 1980. Ally Dick also played that day, and like McStay, won the European Championship with Scotland in 1982, then collected a UEFA Cup winners medal with Spurs in 1984, then sat on the Ajax bench (with Dennis Bergkamp) in the 1988 Cup-WinnersCup final, but never won a full cap. McStay won 76 and went to a World Cup.
John Robertson was capped sixteen times and became an all-time great with Hearts. However, Austin O’Connor became a prison office and Paul Nicholas (Charlie’s cousin) worked for a New York merchant bank. Wembley for them was their pinnacle.
If making the most of your talents is hard, then talent spotting is even more difficult.
The November 2007 edition of World Soccer listed the 50 ‘Most Exciting Teenagers On The Planet.’ Fast forward ten years, and that list makes fascinating reading. Di Maria, Kroos, Ozil, Bale, Mata, Benzema and Aguero all come under the ‘boy done good’ heading, Kermit Erasmus, Fran Merida and Sadick Adams less so.
Of those fifty for the future, only one played in Scotland, Romanian Dumitru Copil of Hearts. Who? Exactly.
So the next time you are in a bank, taxi or prison, remember the guy next to you could have once been a contender.
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