Malky Mackay gets tough with Scotland's Under-16s and Under-17s

Malky Mackay is demanding Scotlands young players make big sacrifices. Picture: SNS.

Scotland has suffered from a baffling drop of quality in the older teen years of the youth squads. While the Under-16s and Under-17s have achieved fantastically positive recent results, progress seems to end there.

Scotland’s Under-19s have now exited the Elite Group stage four years in a row – after three defeats this week in Czech Republic – and have not qualified for the finals in 11 years since they reached the final against Spain in Poland.

The Under-21s had a miserable last qualifying campaign in which they finished second bottom of their group.

That is in stark contrast to the Under-17s, who won six out of six qualifying games, including beating Portugal, and the Under-16s, who recently won a Uefa Development  Tournament.

SFA performance director Mackay has now revealed his new approach into cajoling the cream of Scotland’s kids to dedicate their life to football and improving. At the heart of it is the necessity to make  sacrifices.

Mackay believes this group of youngsters will be the first set of Scottish talent who will not start to stagnate at older levels, as he blasted the “neediness and social media-obsessed” older age-group kids in Scotland.

He said: “Our Under-16s won that tournament at Oriam a few weeks ago. After the game we spoke to the boys and asked them: ‘How are you going to become a professional footballer?’ I said: ‘Tell me your thoughts, how are you going to do it?’ Because I want every one of them in a Scotland  jersey.

“Their diet has to be right. Their body fat must be right. Their athleticism – they have to be able to run and have shoulders like those Icelandic boys. Their waists have to be as slim as the Icelanders. They have to work on their bad foot.

“They have to work in the afternoons on their own. They have to cut their own clips and watch them back. They can’t leave their clubs at 2pm and go home.

“What we’re looking for is sacrifice from these boys. That’s what it takes to become a footballer because it’s so hard for that 1 per cent who make it.

“If you think it’s going to come easy, it really isn’t. If you look at the Andy Murrays and Laura Muirs, what do they do? They just work harder than everyone else.

“I’m not sure we’ve got that yet.

“We have to get young players realising that they must work harder than everyone they’re competing against. These 16-year-olds are a different group to the 21-year-olds we have. That culture of neediness and a sensitive nature isn’t there.

“There’s no more not being able to take constructive criticism and expecting your dad to always say terrific things. I’ve told these boys to ask their dads what they could have done better, not what they did well. Because working on what you could have done better is going to make you better.

“That’s the shift we have to get back to. We need to get back to the fundamentals with these 15/16-year-olds. That’s when we’ll have a chance again. The boys have to work on making themselves physically better. I tell them: ‘Go and do a press-up contest with yourself in the room every night’. That doesn’t take a fitness coach, a sports scientist or a specialist. That takes you. You looking at your body in the mirror and deciding you need to look better – which means eating properly and being disciplined.

“That’s the way I’m going to be with our young groups, really vociferous with those demands. It’s their career, no-one else’s. So it’s up to them to decide how they want to do it.

“The 16-year-olds were very receptive that day. They gave me the right answers. Because the generations are different. They’re different to our 21 and 22-year-olds now.

“We’ll see where they go. But it’s up to them, we have to put the onus on them. It’s not about: ‘I didn’t make it because the coach didn’t like me’. We have to get away from that. It’s about them.”

And Mackay has impressed upon them the need to follow the example of the most professional senior pro at their club instead of drifting into the social media generation beloved of plenty of Scottish young players.

He explained: “I spoke to them about role models. I’ve told them to pick one at their club, the best pro they see working every day. And then be like him, act like him, eat like him. See what he has for his lunch and you do the same. Run next to him in the gym. Sit and talk to him at some point in the day.

“Is the hunger there? Are boys now more interested in social media and the trappings that come with being a footballer? That’s something I’ve seen with the 20/21-year-olds in the past few years.

“So that’s why I’m speaking to the 15 and 16-year-olds. They’re the new group, they’re ready to step into full-time football. They’re ready to walk into a man’s environment and I’m asking them: ‘Can you be different?’ If they are, they’ll have a chance of becoming a player.

“It’s hard enough to do it nowadays with foreign players coming and English ones arriving on loan. It’s so difficult. But if you’ve got a great attitude – coming in first, leaving last, being the fittest you can possibly be – you’ve got a chance.

“I think the 15/16-year-olds have to be preached to about that. We have to be in their  faces all the time about hard work and discipline.”