WITH yet another major championship about to get under way without a Scottish presence, questions are again being asked about the underlying reasons for a run stretching back to France in 1998.
The failure to reach three World Cups and four European Championships is a sad indictment of the Scottish FA's long-running youth initiative, but could recent developments lead to a brighter future?
Lessons, it seems, are being learned from previous mistakes. It is now three years since Celtic started a project combining football and education on a scale never seen before in the British game. It was subsequently adopted at a lower age group by Dundee United, while the SFA will roll out seven performance schools of their own in August.
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