Pedro: It Ain't the Meat, It's the Motion

[Uilleam 5,444]

Pedro comments, to journalist Phil Gordon, on Strachan's explanation/excuse/piss take re: the importance of size.

A reasonable piece from one who, normally, would not willingly speak well of any/all matters Rangers, if my memory serves.

 

Maybe the media now realise that Strachan is more of a crank than any damned foreigner, or damned intellectual, or damned foreign intellectual.......

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/pedro-caixinha-genetics-i-respect-the-view-but-cannot-agree-wfbm6nh6x (Paywall)

 

Pedro Caixinha: Genetics? I respect the view but cannot agree

 

Now Pedro Caixinha takes issue with Gordon Strachan’s Scotland beliefs

Phil Gordon

October 12 2017, 12:01am,

The Times

 

If it is not the Tartan Army ridiculing him, it is Ruaridh Jackson, the Glasgow Warriors rugby player, or Mark Wotte, the Scottish Football Association’s former performance director. Gordon Strachan, the Scotland manager, will never live this down. His claim that “genetics” are responsible for Scotland’s failure to reach the 2018 World Cup playoffs was still going strong yesterday as it wound its way through to Rangers and their manager, Pedro Caixinha.

 

At the club’s training base in Auchenhowie, where he was preparing for his team’s Ladbrokes Premiership match against St Johnstone tomorrow night, the Portuguese coach was asked about the week’s burning issue. Could it be true that Scottish footballers are not big enough? Would a sudden growth in the average player’s vital statistics take them to the finals of a major tournament?

 

Ronaldo is a tall player but Messi is not. Both of them are the best players in the world and you have two different types

“I respect the opinion about the genetics but I cannot agree,” Caixinha said. “Even more so if you compare it with the Spaniards because the players are the same height. In handball, the players are higher. The same in volleyball. And definitely in basketball. [Cristiano] Ronaldo is a tall player but [Lionel] Messi is not. Both of them are the best players in the world and you have two different types. As I said, I respect that opinion, but I don’t agree with it.”

 

Like everybody else, Caixinha is sad that Scotland have failed to negotiate a qualifying campaign for more than two decades. He says he remembers the days of Graeme Souness and Kenny Dalglish. In an effort to recall the goalkeeper of a few years later, he rubs his eyebrows with imaginary Vaseline. Jim Leighton will be glad to hear that he is also remembered for his saves.

 

When Caixinha gained his Uefa A licence, Colin Hendry, the former Scotland centre back, was a fellow student. The Scot’s nickname, inevitably, was Braveheart. “I remember ’98,” said the Rangers manager. “The first match was Brazil v Scotland and Colin was down there with his kilt on. I have that image in my mind from 20 years ago.”

 

It has been a long time, but Scotland are not the only ones to have spent an eternity in the wilderness. As Caixinha recalls, his native Portugal had been to the finals of only four major tournaments before 2000. Since the millennium, they have have never missed out.

 

So how did a nation that so consistently underachieved become one that hardly puts a foot wrong? And what can Scotland learn from their experience? Caixinha traces it back to the work of Carlos Queiroz, the former Portugal manager, who introduced a new approach to the country’s age groups during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

 

“He changed all the bases, the competitions and the mentality of our approach for young footballers. The methodology changed drastically. What we preach is not that it should be faster, stronger or quicker, but how the boys understand the game and what decisions to make in the games. Carlos has put our boys one step ahead.”

 

In other words, no amount of technique, energy and strength, however well it is honed in training drills, will be effective unless players develop the intelligence to know when and how it should be applied in matches. That, says Caixinha, laid the foundations of Portugal’s growth, which has since become a self-perpetuating phenomenon.

 

The emergence of better players brings greater success, more money to reinvest in facilities and bigger inspiration for emerging talent. Caixinha says that, before their ‘golden generation’ came along, Portugal lacked the mentality to succeed at international level.

 

The unknown makes you fear what to expect

“In those days, Portuguese footballers only played in Portugal so, when we went to play against England, Germany or France, for example, we were afraid. We were not ready. It is part of being human when you don’t know what is going to happen. The unknown makes you fear what to expect.

 

“But the Luis Figos and Rui Costas, those players went and played in huge teams. When they spoke about football, and them and us as players, we didn’t know or feel any different. So these players brought this mentality to the national team and that spread.”

 

It all seems a long way off for Scotland whose players can hardly hold down a place in England’s Championship, never mind La Liga or Serie A. Caixinha rejects the theory that Scottish players are technically inferior — he says Graham Dorrans, the Rangers midfielder, proves that one wrong — but is in no doubt that the country’s climate is a disadvantage.

 

While Portuguese children play in the street, or barefoot on the beach, young Scottish players must be manufactured in artificial conditions. Caixinha uses an analogy favoured by José Mourinho to explain that only repeated exposure to a football will bring an understanding of how it should be used. “Did you ever see a pianist getting skill from running around a piano? He needs 10,000 hours to become an expert. But not from running around it. From touching the keys. Again and again.”

Edited October 12, 2017 by Uilleam

[der Berliner 3,257]

You should read some of Phil Gordon's articles in Germany's main football mag Kicker ...

 

Anyway, PC tells it as it is. What he needs at Rangers is obviously time and that is usually a very dear commodity. It looks like that the club is changing the academy et al around, to provide the youngsters a better platform to develop, which sure started before PC. Whether Scotland can follow the ideas above remains to be seen, but taking a look how Iceland has developed as they have may help. Ah ... and getting kids away from smartphones and Playstations/x-boxes ...

Edited October 12, 2017 by der Berliner

[Rousseau 9,399]

I'm not sure Scotland fans, or the people in positions of power, have the patience or awareness to implement a project like the Portuguese did with 20 years or so until it bares any fruit. It's going to take something like that to change our fortunes. That Pianist analogy is spot on; you don't get anywhere by making our players more physical.

Edited October 12, 2017 by Rousseau

[SteveC 150]

Smartphones and Xboxes exist in other countries, too.

[Oleg_Mcnoleg 50]

I'm not sure Scotland fans, or the people in positions of power, have the patience or awareness to implement a project like the Portuguese did with 20 years or so until it bares any fruit. It's going to take something like that to change our fortunes. That Pianist analogy is spot on; you don't get anywhere by making our players more physical.

That may well be so. And you've got the league-association split which makes it harder to coordinate sub-first team development and, where necessary, apply thumbscrews to the clubs. Heard similar arguments about the lack of game intelligence that Pedro makes applied to the English. But I guess they get away with it to a point because they've got a higher calibre of unintelligent player.

[Uilleam 5,444]

I'm not sure Scotland fans, or the people in positions of power, have the patience or awareness to implement a project like the Portuguese did with 20 years or so until it bares any fruit. It's going to take something like that to change our fortunes. That Pianist analogy is spot on; you don't get anywhere by making our players more physical.

 

It's been 20 years since we have had the, ahem, pleasure of watching a Scotland team perform at a major Championship. I see nothing, now, on the football front, to suggest that the National XI will qualify for a tournament in the next 20 years. Changes to rules, format, and qualification processes may ease Scotland's path to a Championship, although I should not class that as a gimme. Moreover, such reorganisations seem unlikely immediately, and directly, to improve the quality of the teams play, or to produce, in short order, players with a high degree of skill and game intelligence.

[aweebluesoandso 290]

To paraphrase an late great actress, ''it's not the players in your life that matters, it's the life in your players''

[les186 271]

It helps if you've got a Ronaldo or a Gareth Bale in your side. Portugal were successful when they had Eusebio.

[Oleg_Mcnoleg 50]

It's been 20 years since we have had the, ahem, pleasure of watching a Scotland team perform at a major Championship. I see nothing, now, on the football front, to suggest that the National XI will qualify for a tournament in the next 20 years. Changes to rules, format, and qualification processes may ease Scotland's path to a Championship, although I should not class that as a gimme. Moreover, such reorganisations seem unlikely immediately, and directly, to improve the quality of the teams play, or to produce, in short order, players with a high degree of skill and game intelligence.

 

A bit of luck and a favourable draw and we might have scraped in. But it would change the fundamental problems

[colinstein 294]

It helps if you've got a Ronaldo or a Gareth Bale in your side. Portugal were successful when they had Eusebio.

 

and now they've got Alves

 

anyway.....we don't need Eusabio....we've got.............