Wasted Youth

Wasted Youth

By the

Provocative H

“We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future” – Franklin D Roosevelt

I was struck recently by something that Ronald Koeman spoke about when previewing the Champions League encounter between Barcelona and Ajax. Like one of his legendary free kicks, his comments were delivered with panache, skill and hit the spot. He was discussing the youth policy at Ajax, and lamented over the transfers of their players at an age that he deemed was too young. He considered that these transfers, largely agent inspired  and laced with the inevitable promises of bounty to be obtained in far off lands, was having a detrimental impact on not only his old club, but on the players themselves.

He considered  that the players were too young (often leaving Ajax at between the age of 19 and 21) and therefore not mature enough to deal with all that is involved in leaving home for foreign fields. This would often manifest itself into unrealised potential, with those players struggling to hit the form for which doubtless many millions of euros had been paid for their talents. In the modern football age, patience is a luxury that few managers can afford and the results are often inevitable – precocious talent is side-lined and individual development stalled.

Whilst Ajax may have a much celebrated youth policy, of course any team will struggle to maintain consistency if there is a revolving door at the club. Koemam pointed out that the transfers put additional strain on the youth policy as perhaps the successor to a recently transferred player may not be of the same standard, or indeed may again be too young to be thrust into the spotlight of the first team, in particular one with the heritage and associated expectations of a club like Ajax.

If a club with such renown is experiencing this difficulty, what does it mean for Celtic? What indeed is our youth policy, is it working and what should we expect it to deliver?

Celtic have always had what I would call a traditional youth policy for much of its existence. Recruitment from the schools (do S forms still exist?), boys club, to recent international scouting leading all the way up to training at Lennoxtown and playing in competitions like NextGen. It feels a much more professional set up these days (largely instigated by Tommy Burns), with various coaches focussing on skills, fitness and nutrition. I don’t have the legendary balance sheet to hand, but I would hazard an educated guess that the maintenance of this type of infrastructure does not come cheap.

With all this in place, it’s not clear to me what the present “policy” is of our youth policy though. You would tend to think that this environment should be dedicated to the production of players who are of a sufficient standard to step into the first team in the manner that someone like Paul McStay did (with perhaps a “by product” of the policy producing players who leave Celtic and manage to forge decent careers at other clubs).

The Maestro is an exceptional example though, as it was clear from an early age that he was not only of first team grade, but indeed the best Scottish player of his generation. In a time when there was less science involved at this level, Celtic managed to produce the backbone of the Lisbon Lions, the Quality Street Gang and even into the late 70’s and early 80’s players of the calibre of Pat Bonner, Roy Aitken, Tommy Burns and Charlie Nicholas. The youth policy and promotion of these players delivered much more to the first team in terms of endurance, quality and trophies than what we have seen from arguably the early 1990’s until present day.

Even amongst those who have been over promoted since the 1990’s though, there has been the odd gem. Aiden McGeady springs to mind (regardless of your opinion, he contributed to a trophy winning, Champions league team and did bring in a massive transfer fee which must be a key component of the policy).

However, too often the policy has produced players of an inferior standard who either through circumstances (luck, necessity, change of manager) have found themselves playing for the first team. When viewed against the investment, the yields have been relatively poor and for me the lack of young players either being produced or being given their opportunity in a carefully managed and structured way suggests that either our policy is either non-existent or is being applied without the care, skill and attention that it deserves.

Any such policy does not need to be made public in a 4-2-2-2 esque manner, nor overly scientific.  Ideally we should have an embedded culture that fosters the talent and sees the regular promotion of a number of youth players to the first team squad that can genuinely fight for a place. Let’s stop the annual August and January transfer hysteria with some publicity around the promotion of these guys on the many social and media platforms the club uses, let them feel like they have just signed for Celtic and give an incentive to the many others of young players at the club (or who may be contemplating signing for us).

Celtic are uniquely placed to take more of a risk on youth just now. The next time that Emilio Izaguirre or Scott Brown gets injured, let’s look to who plays in their position in the youth team. This practice must be set by the football management team and in the same way we hope an incoming transferred player works out, the support need to be almost more patient with our youth players. I say this, not just because often these young players will be supporters who get to play for our club, but supporters have a responsibility to acknowledge these young guys with raw talent are still developing a broader feel for the big boys game.

However, let’s be brave enough to let that player keep his position if they maintain form, but also wise enough to know when to let them rest and take some time out. Our policy here though is that we have a youth player keeping the usual first team regular on their toes, and we are not afraid to place our confidence in them. Eventually this player becomes the natural successor in the same way that Danny McGrain did with Jim Craig.

Finally, all this lovely postulating and theory is based on one thing, and that is that the infrastructure is producing talent of the calibre of a club our size and, dare I say, ambition, requires. For all the excellent training and scouting infrastructure that Celtic have, it is the quality of the coaches that is critical. Do we have coaches with a Largs/SFA inspired vision or should we be sending out our coaches to those reputable and powerhouse football academies to see what they are doing? Are our coaches in sync with the first team management, and is the balance between coaching systems/tactics and developing natural talent correct?

Whilst football is more of a team game than ever these days, the role of natural talent still undoubtedly has a place and I always fear that coaches are more pre-occupied these days with streamlining that talent as opposed to developing it and accommodating it – in tight games it can be the only difference.

Lionel Messi, for all his understanding of his duties within the team, will get us out of our seats with a piece of individual talent in the opposition penalty box than knowing when to lay a ball off. And his trophy haul has not suffered as a result.