What constitutes success for Scotland’s under-21 team? And by extension, their coach, Scot Gemmill?
If it is qualification for major tournaments, then his trackie jacket must be on the shoogliest of shoogly pegs.
After losing their last two matches of their qualification group for Euro 2025, firstly to Belgium at Tynecastle and then to Kazakhstan in Pavlodar on Tuesday, the young Scots managed to throw away a golden opportunity to make it to the tournament for the first time since 1996.
And they did it in the most Scottish way possible, too, with the tale like one straight from the pages of those awful, barren years suffered by the senior side before Steve Clarke ended the long, long wait for major tournament qualification.
Belgium had to lose to Hungary on their own patch for the Scots to have any chance of progression, a long shot at best. They duly did, though, and had Gemmill’s men taken care of business against a side they had dismantled in Paisley back in March, they would have finished behind Spain in second place.
They, however, did not, and their 3-2 defeat to the Kazakhs – who had lost every other match in the section that wasn’t against Malta – meant that another chance to break the cycle of failure at this level, one that Gemmill has failed to end during his eight years in post, slipped past.
If, however, the aim of the Scotland under-21 side is to provide players for the senior set-up, is the case for Gemmill to remain in that post on any firmer ground?
When speaking recently about senior call-ups for Connor Barron and Josh Doig – both of them prompted by a spate of injury call-offs – Gemmill clearly laid out the parameters by which he believes he should be judged.
"It's definitely positive, that's why this team exists, to develop young players," Gemmill said.
The evidence though that involvement in the under-21 set-up has much to do with the elevation of players to the senior side isn’t exactly abundant, nor watertight. And in fairness to Gemmill, that stretches back beyond his time in charge.
Of the players who started for Scotland against Portugal at Hampden on Tuesday night, only three had played 10 times or more for the under 21 side, with Billy Gilmour out in front with 13 appearances.
Grant Hanley played once at that level, while three players never turned out for the under-21s at all. Though, in fairness, only Craig Gordon of those three – the others being Scott McTominay and Che Adams – had declared their allegiance to the Scotland set-up while still eligible for that age group.
There is of course no straight line to the top of the game. Captain Andy Robertson, for instance, was a late bloomer who only got four caps at under-21 level, but now has 78 full caps to his name.
In total though, the starting XI for Scotland had 61 under-21 caps between them. By contrast, on the opposite side, Bruno Fernandes, Vitinha and Diogo Jota clocked up just two less for Portugal’s under-21s between the three of them.
There were players who bypassed that stage or stopped only fleetingly in their line up too, but there does seem to be a clearer, more determined pathway within their set-up through the age groups than currently exists with Scotland.
Read more:
-
The shirt Nicky Devlin will treasure above Cristiano Ronaldo's from Scotland bow
-
From Ballon D'Or to 'balloon': How Cristiano Ronaldo fared against Scotland
Who was the last Scotland player that Gemmill could take any real credit for helping on his way through to becoming a mainstay of the national team?
Ben Doak? He played seven times under his charge, but was well on his way to full international football even before then. Nathan Patterson played just four times for Gemmill. Aaron Hickey on just three occasions, and he famously pulled out of under-21 squads on a regular basis feeling that playing at the level was doing nothing to aid his development.
Not all of this is Gemmill’s fault. It is easy to question his position given what I have laid out here, but the truth of the matter is that we don’t actually know who is answering to and on what parameters he is being judged. And that is an issue in itself.
When working on The Herald’s ‘Gamechanger’ investigation into youth development recently, a project sparked by the SFA’s report into the ‘transition phase’ (the stage in a player’s development between the ages of 16 and 21), there were some fascinating ideas and theories put forward by experts and stakeholders in the game as to how Scotland can improve when it comes to producing players.
Many of those ideas came from within the SFA itself, with Chief Football Officer Andy Gould and Head of Men’s Elite Strategy Chris Docherty – the driving forces behind the transition report – lending their thoughts on the broader subject of developing young talent.
One of the most compelling arguments for me came from Docherty, where he stated that all clubs need to have a joined-up strategy from the boardroom down to the grassroots, where player development is their main priority.
They must decide on their DNA, how they want to play the game, and at all ages and all stages of a player’s journey, they should be preparing themselves for a seamless transition to the first team.
Perhaps the SFA could lead the way by applying that same logic throughout their own age groups. Gemmill, for example, set his side out in a 3-4-3 in Kazakhstan, while Steve Clarke is currently transitioning the top team to a 4-2-3-1. DNA runs deeper than formations, but it is an example of how there appears to be no common thread between what the under-21s are doing and what the A team are doing.
Which again begs the question of what it is that Gemmill is trying to achieve with the Scotland under-21 side.
There are exciting talents within that team, with Lennon Miller, David Watson, Lyall Cameron and more impressing of late with both club and country. But is playing for the under-21s really preparing them to make the step up into becoming full Scotland internationals?
The evidence would suggest not, and when it comes to Gemmill, it is pretty damning.
