Findlay Curtis involved in all five goals as new-look Scotland Under-21s hammer Azerbaijan to launch SFA youth revolution
Rangers winger Findlay Curtis announced himself as the talisman of Scottish football's youth revolution, playing a hand in all five goals as Scotland Under-21s opened the Tony Docherty era with a rampant 5-2 win over Azerbaijan in Kilmarnock.
Curtis ran riot, Tyler Fletcher cruised through the game in midfield and three different strikers scored in a performance full of attacking elan and aggressive pressing — exactly the type of display new head coach Docherty and his assistant Steven Naismith demanded after replacing Scot Gemmill, who had been in charge of 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 after the win. "And I thought we did that in abundance. The performance level, enthusiasm and energy of the players was outstanding."
Mirroring the first team
It may only have been one game — and one Scotland should expect to win — but the under-21s showed their intent to emulate Sebastien Pocognoli's senior side. The SFA's plan is for the under-21s to reflect the style and structure of the first team to make it easier for players to step up, and Docherty was at the senior squad's La Manga training camp before their Nations League fixtures, where Pocognoli presented his game model to the age-grade coaches.
The new hierarchy were out in force on Wednesday night, with SFA chief football officer Craig Mulholland, chief executive Ian Maxwell and Scotland assistant Alan Irvine all watching as Docherty set his team up in the same 3-4-2-1 system Pocognoli favours — and one Docherty used himself at Dundee.
Fletcher and St Mirren's Ryan Carr occupied the midfield berths, with Curtis and James Wilson operating as inside forwards behind West Brom striker Barney Stewart. Scotland pressed high, smothered their opponents and moved the ball quickly and with purpose — the type of football Pocognoli promised when taking the senior job, but which his own team has delivered in only one half so far, against Slovenia.
"They want us to mirror exactly what the first team do," Stewart, who scored twice on the night, told BBC Scotland. "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."
Senior trio lead by example
Curtis and Wilson joined up with the under-21s having initially been involved in the senior squad's camp, and it could have been viewed as a setback for them — and for Fletcher too, with all three having already played for the men's side. None of them showed it on the pitch: Curtis had a hand in all five goals, while Fletcher and Wilson both scored.
"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."
A sweeping revamp from under-14s up
The revamp of Scotland's national youth teams spreads well beyond the under-21s. Docherty and Naismith are just two of a suite of new coaches appointed under Mulholland's sweeping changes, starting as low as a new under-14s squad.
Former Dundee United manager Tam Courts, who steered United to fourth in the Scottish Premiership in 2022 with a young squad before a short stint at Honved in Hungary, leads the under-19s programme alongside former Hearts and Rangers left-back Lee Wallace, now back at Tynecastle as a youth coach. David McCallum, who led the Rangers and Queen's Park academies, is paired with former Aberdeen and Celtic winger Jonny Hayes — now a coach with the latter — at under-17 level.
At under-16s, Rhys McCabe takes charge after a successful spell as player-manager at Airdrieonians, where he was thrown into management at just 29 and led the club from League 1 into the Championship play-offs playing a possession-based game. He works alongside current SFA coaches James Grady and Stephen Clarke, with former Aberdeen first-team coach Peter Leven and Neil McFarlane — now a Brentford first-team coach after leading their B-side — assisting across the groups.
While each coach has been given an age grade, the idea is that they will operate more as a team, with eyes across the entire pathway. They have been tasked with instilling a 'Scottish DNA': the under-21s mirror the first team, but the age groups below will have more licence to play differently from Pocognoli's side, underpinned by the same principles.
"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," Courts 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 at Scotland's biggest clubs, as the SFA aligns itself with those who have the greatest hand in the daily progress of young players — a contrast to Gemmill, who did not play or coach at a Scottish club and so lacked a natural link. The new set-up also creates an opportunity and potential pathway for young coaches such as McCabe.
"There's a lot of learning and personal development that I want to do first hand," McCabe 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, and other SFA changes to youth football in Scotland, can only ultimately be judged over the long term. But one thing is certain after Wednesday night: the status quo is being well and truly shaken up, and the under-21s have set the tone in emphatic fashion.