stole this from ff. re dortmund. (a great example to us)

[calscot 0]

Does anyone actually know what the facts are behind Dortmunds current success?

 

I noticed that their turnover in 2011 was £125m and this will rise quite a bit in the following years. Their winning team may not have cost the earth but it must be within the budget they can afford and the whole squad will probably have cost more on top. I can't imagine their wage bill is not commensurable with their earnings.

 

I see that in 2011 it was £48.4m - more than we've ever had, although a fraction of Bayern at £131.7m.

 

When you see that and I think the cost of Madrids wages were £197m, then you really have to wonder what it is they are doing right. Could it just be they have merely found the next Alex Ferguson and that once he is gone so is their amazing "system"? Could it just be the luck of finding 11 players that play fantastically together? Is getting Morinho and giving him £200m to spend just so inferior?

 

One problem for us is that their system gave them 5 years of doing nothing much at all - 5th or 6th at best and nothing in Europe.

 

If their grand plan requires this, where would that leave Rangers if we copied them? Struggling for promotion and then mid table in the SPL? Would our fans really stand for that?

 

Can we afford to do what they have done - after all with their income they can have as many scouts as the want in as many countries. They also benefit from the whole German football infrastructure and coaching, as well as eastern block immigrants looking to make it big.

 

What does our income and home in Scotland offer in comparison?

 

In fact, even if we had £30m to spend and could entice what are considered the best Scottish players to the club ie the Scotland team, we'd still have an incredibly shit side. What does that say about our youngsters who seem to be getting worse every generation?

 

Yes, we can utilise a lot of our own talent and win the 3rd division with a huge gap, but as people have seen, they don't actually have the stomach for what is on display from them, or the inconsistency of results. In fact many on here actually like to peddle to us that these youngsters don't even exist - they are a "myth". No matter how much we see them on the pitch or on the team sheet, they are not acknowledged by some...

 

In any case, I don't really see how anyone can have a process where they produce a conveyor belt of local talent - even less when you consider the pool of potential available in the Glasgow area. It's always the case of the bigger area you cast your net, the more likely you are to find quality catches - but you can't expect kids to move or travel, so large clubs wait until they have developed and then pay good money for them.

 

Ironically Dortmund don't seem to be too interested in "building a team for the future". No, they follow the latter and go out and pay top dollar the best young players they can find. Is that a model we can really follow with our current income? Haven't we done that for decades with great criticism and mixed results?

 

Anyway for me, Dortmund's current success if far too fantastic to really pin down what they are doing right - it's just too freaky and I doubt they really know themselves. Real Madrid and José will be left scratching their heads too. You've got to give it that the Chosen One is far more of an expert on the game than any of us here, yet he is clueless about this, and we have people who claim to know the secret.

 

I'd love us to be as successful as Dortmund have been in the last few years (although I'd be pissed off about being 20 points behind in the league - and ironically a "crap" manager like McCoist needed a 10 point deduction for that to happen); however, I don't think it's as easy as just trying to copy everything they do - especially as we hardly have the means or the environment and there is no empirical evidence whatsoever that they are doing anything special that is transferable to another club like us.

 

We can try but that does not guarantee that we will succeed. But the first thing we need to find out is: apart from their money, their country's infrastructure, their manager and their players, what it is they are doing DIFFERENTLY that makes the difference?

Edited April 26, 2013 by calscot

[calscot 0]

Dortmund won the Bundusliga last season so I don't think anyone would have thought they were going to be rubbish.

 

They won the Bundusliga the season before, and last season in the CL they were pretty much - rubbish...

 

The point is that to really believe in their system you'd have had to predict them doing very well. It's pretty glib to do it after the fact.

 

Last year, Bayern were the club to model... And they are also the best club this year.

Edited April 26, 2013 by calscot

[Super Cooper 0]

To think we spent £48m from 07-12 and still couldn't get past the likes of Unirea, Kaunas, Malmo and Maribor.

[calscot 0]

Looking through the UEFA rankings it's depressing to see the top mostly full of the top five coutries with mega bucks tv deals, state sponsorship and sugar daddies. There are also the likes of Russian and Ukrainian teams who also seem to have mega bucks and we can't even compete money-wise with Galataseray.

 

The ones that stand our are the top four Portugese teams and the top three Dutch (not Feyenoord at 123rd) - and yet I don't think we can even compete with them - Portugal due to the Brazilians and Netherlands due to their money, populationa and amazing countrywide, grass-roots system.

 

You have to drop to 34th to see a team that maybe we could compete with for finances and population size. That is the Swiss team, Basel. Maybe we should have a look at them...

 

38 Olympiakos? Surely we can compete with a bankrupt country? Where you'd think it's too hot to play...

 

45 FC Copenhagen. They aren't doing brilliantly but they seem to be steady enough.

 

Going down we encounter a couple of Belgian teams - not outwith our potential surely?

 

At 61 comes BATE Borisov. Surely we could use the IPO money just to buy their whole team?

 

Then at 62 comes Celtic so I'll stop there.

 

Ironically we were way above the level those teams five years ago at 24th. Maybe that IS the model to follow...

 

PS The guy who said the UEFA rankings were as poor as the FIFA ones needs to learn a lot more about it.

 

Try here for a start:

http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/data/index.html

[calscot 0]

To think we spent £48m from 07-12 and still couldn't get past the likes of Unirea, Kaunas, Malmo and Maribor.

 

And yet we got to the Europa final...

 

We should really have done better under Whyte, shouldn't we..?

 

To think that Morinho spent about £200m and still couldn't get past Dortmund... What a failure that guy is.

 

Shitty anti-Rangers point.

[Super Cooper 0]

And yet we got to the Europa final...

 

We should really have done better under Whyte, shouldn't we..?

 

To think that Morinho spent about £200m and still couldn't get past Dortmund... What a failure that guy is.

 

Shitty anti-Rangers point.

 

Sarcasm and insults, is this how people debate on here?

[der Berliner 3,283]

Sometimes it beggars belief that people throw up negative results at one point or another, just so as if we always performed that badly. As if they happened unto football only a few years back and have a solid selective memory.

 

Football hardly ever works alongside set rules, especially when it come to cup games. It is a game of chance with a lot of variables. By default, those who spend money on quality will, over the course of time reap greater rewards than those who can't spend. That is what happened to us, at least domestically. We had a right good streak of bad results after 2008 (the pendulum swung back, so to speak), but nigh each time, there were reasons for those bad results, though some rather term them - IMHO rather cynical - "excuses". Yet, if you want to have a realistic and objective debate, you should inlcude all points of view, even "excuses".

[Tumshie RFC 0]

Dortmund, Ajax and others are a great example of what we should be trying to achieve at the club. We need to invest heavily in youth and a proper scouting system.

At Dortmund the most important man at the club is their Director of Football Michael Zorc who has full control over the youth programme and the scouting system. They don't buy a player that they can't sell on for cash.

 

Interesting to note as well that Dortmund would have went down the same route we had to last summer if Bayern Munich hadn't have given them a 3 million Euro loan when they were right in the financial grubber - and we are still waiting on transfer fees and prize money from the SFA/SPL.

[calscot 0]

Sarcasm and insults, is this how people debate on here?

 

I really don't think it was that bad.

 

When some comes on with an incredibly negative post that ignores the normal ups and downs of ALL football teams to just put Rangers down, yes sarcasm is a reach-to reply - and pretty relevant. You've got to expect retaliation in kind.

 

Maybe you need to look at your debating style where you deliberately take things out of context to attack the club that all of us support on here. To me that's more the MO of an enemy than a friend. I personally don't expect people not to criticise but it should be respectful and where it is due. We don't like our club and fans being singled out for harsh criticism externally where we are no worse than anyone else, so why do it to the club here?

 

But looking at myself, perhaps I need to hold back. You don't get anywhere by being confrontational. So I apologise for the sarcasm (don't really see the insult).

 

My reply should have been:

 

Firstly the money spent was over a period and so isn't really a fair representation of any one team.

 

Secondly, all teams have ups and downs for lots of reasons. The same team that lost to Kaunas, had a long hard season where they contested the Europa final - the first final for over 30 years so the investment wasn't that bad. The team won both cups and you would expect them to have won the league and also put in a better fight in the final had they not had to play so many games in so short a time while St Petersburg had a couple of weeks off.

 

Thirdly, ALL teams at some point lose to cheaper sides with Real Madrid being an obvious example. Man City don't seem to be doing so well for their grotesque investment. Great Rangers teams in the past have lost to sides with less resources. If football was so predictable it would be incredibly boring - like the SPL race now, but then on individual games Celtic have lost and drawn plenty. I'm sure if we were in a league with Kaunas, Unirea, Malmo and Maribor, we would finish above them. Maybe my opinion but I think it's pretty strong.

 

Fourthly, to complain about a couple of results when the manager was trying to build a team under the shyster, Whyte, who was deceiving us all and only pretending to deal seriously is a bit harsh.

 

Fifthly, I doubt you watched the Unirea games, they were freaky and full of bad luck. Even neutrals see it that way. I think you have to be pretty biased against Rangers to not see that.

 

Sixthly, a basic understanding of European football would suggest that the champions of a country have a pretty good chance against the champions of a fairly midling and declining football country. The champions of Sweden have won the UEFA cup in the past against sides with much more money. It happens and it's disrespectful to think they should be a walk over.

 

Seventhly, having sending offs to lose a tie is hardly related to how much money you spend.

 

I don't see how your point holds much water and I'm confused at its motivation.

[calscot 0]

Dortmund, Ajax and others are a great example of what we should be trying to achieve at the club. We need to invest heavily in youth and a proper scouting system.

At Dortmund the most important man at the club is their Director of Football Michael Zorc who has full control over the youth programme and the scouting system. They don't buy a player that they can't sell on for cash.

 

Interesting to note as well that Dortmund would have went down the same route we had to last summer if Bayern Munich hadn't have given them a 3 million Euro loan when they were right in the financial grubber - and we are still waiting on transfer fees and prize money from the SFA/SPL.

 

How many home grown youths do Dortmund play? I'll wager it's a lot less than us, so what can we really learn from it that is relevant to us?

 

Ajax imo don't really count as firstly, the whole Dutch system is behind them - which I'd love to transfer to Scotland, but that's not Rangers' remit. Also, according to Pete, their youth system hasn't been that successful of late.

 

The more I read about Basel, the more I think they are more relevant to us.

Edited April 26, 2013 by calscot