Scotland Under-21s opened a new era with a commanding 5-2 win over Azerbaijan at Rugby Park, a performance in which Rangers winger Findlay Curtis was involved in all five of his side’s goals.
Curtis was at the heart of an attacking display that new head coach Tony Docherty and his assistant Steven Naismith had asked for. The pair took charge of the age group after replacing Scot Gemmill, who had led Scotland’s best young talent for the past decade.
“My message to them was I want you to create an identity for the Scotland Under-21 team – by your attacking style of play, by your counter-pressing,” Docherty told BBC Scotland afterwards. “And I thought we did that in abundance. The performance level, enthusiasm and energy of the players was outstanding.”
Those appointments were the headline item amid a sweeping set of changes to the coaching set-up across Scotland’s international youth teams, initiated by the Scottish FA’s new chief football officer Craig Mulholland. The stated aim is a more streamlined and effective pathway for young Scottish players into Sebastien Pocognoli’s senior men’s side – and the under-21s are meant to reflect the first team’s style and structure to make that step easier.
That was visible in how Docherty set his team up. He used the same 3-4-2-1 system Pocognoli favours, and which Docherty himself employed at Dundee. Tyler Fletcher and St Mirren’s Ryan Carr occupied the midfield berths, with Curtis and James Wilson operating as inside forwards behind West Brom’s Barney Stewart. Scotland pressed high, smothered their opponents and moved the ball quickly and with purpose. Mulholland, SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell and Scotland assistant Alan Irvine were all in Kilmarnock on Wednesday night to watch it unfold.
Docherty had been in La Manga with the senior squad before their Nations League games, and Pocognoli has delivered a presentation on his game model to the age-grade coaches. The message has landed with the players. “They want us to mirror exactly what the first team do,” said Stewart, who scored twice on the night. “We sit down and watch the first-team games. I’ve got everyone in my ear saying, ‘you see what they did there?’ We watch patterns of play, pressing, you name it.”
Curtis and Wilson had initially been involved in the senior squad’s camp before linking up with the under-21s, while Fletcher has also played for the men’s side. None of the trio allowed that to show. Curtis had a hand in every goal, and both Fletcher and Wilson got on the scoresheet. “I came back with them from the camp,” Docherty said. “They couldn’t have been better with their attitude and leadership in the group. The team performance, including the subs, was really strong. But they deserve special mention because their attitude to the group has been brilliant and we need to make sure we continue that going forward.”
The revamp stretches well beyond the under-21s, reaching as low as a new under-14s squad. Tam Courts, who led Dundee United to fourth in the Scottish Premiership in 2022 with a young side before a short stint at Honved in Hungary, is leading the under-19s programme alongside former Hearts and Rangers left-back Lee Wallace, now a youth coach back at Tynecastle. David McCallum, who led the Rangers and Queen’s Park academies, is paired with former Aberdeen and Celtic winger Jonny Hayes at under-17 level. Rhys McCabe takes charge of the under-16s following his spell as player-manager at Airdrieonians, working with current SFA coaches James Grady and Stephen Clarke. Former Aberdeen first-team coach Peter Leven and Neil McFarlane, now a first-team coach at Brentford after leading their B-side, will support across the groups.
Each group has been given an age grade to work with, but the intention is for the coaches to operate more as a team, so that everyone has eyes across the entire pathway. A ‘Scottish DNA’ is to be introduced: the under-21s mirror the first team, while the age groups below will have more licence to play differently from Pocognoli’s side, underpinned by the same principles. Courts framed that as channelling Scotland’s reputation for passion and hard work while adding technical improvement. “If you want to be a team that has credibility on the top stage, for sure we need to have more dominance and control of the ball,” he said. “We need to develop more players that are technically capable of playing in smaller spaces and also creating and scoring chances, because just now at the top level of the game, spaces are at a premium, chances are at a premium and we have to recognise that this is where the game is going. We have to develop players that can actually execute in those situations.”
It is no coincidence that the coaches chosen all have significant experience of coaching and managing within Scotland’s biggest clubs, as the SFA looks to align more closely with the people who work with young players daily – a contrast with Gemmill, who neither played nor coached at a Scottish club and so had no natural link. Player development remains the focus, but the new structure also creates a potential pathway for young coaches. McCabe was thrown into management at just 29 while still playing for Airdrieonians and led the club from League 1 to the Championship play-offs while playing a possession-based game. “There’s a lot of learning and personal development that I want to do first hand,” he said. “Working with Sebastien and guys that have been about the game at different levels and had different experiences. I want to channel that and use that to ultimately make me a better coach.”
The success of these changes, and of other SFA reforms to youth football in Scotland, can only ultimately be judged over the long term. What is already clear is that they are shaking up the status quo – and that the under-21s made a rousing start to it.