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The first thing that pops into my head, or used to, when thinking about the lone striker was Craig Browns Scotland team. A team so bereft of talent that they just parked the bus in front of the goal. My first instinct is still that it's a negative system designed to flood the midfield and stop the opposition playing. Although you see more progressive versions of the formation, i.e. Spain, the trend seems to be to have two holding midfielders, two wide players and an advanced playmaker. The problem I find is if the lone striker is a bit below par, or marked out the game you can't attack properly.

in the 90s everyone played 3-5-2 now everyone is playing 4-2-3-1 which hate as an amateur playing.

I think scotland have benefited playng 4-4-2 at home and 4-5-1 away which to a certain extent has worked (france 07)

Very interesting as always, but I think one thing has maybe been missed.

While it's great to see a team who can control play and pass the ball around for 80mins per game, it's massively frustrating as a fan to see the same team score only four goals in 4 and a bit games to win football's showcase tournament. Albeit, they weren't exactly short of chances.

I'm not sure it's negative in the sense that it's playing not to lose (in Spain's case anyway), but I do feel that it's far from entertaining. Maybe I concentrate too much on goals for my entertainment though!

Formations make a difference of course, but they are very much second to playing style. Having an extra man in midfield is useful if, like Spain, you mainly pass the ball to feet. Building attacks more slowly means that support gets forward so your striker isn't just left on his own.

If on the other hand your main attacking strategy is having your full-back knock it into the channels for a forward to chase then playing one up front isn't going to get you very far. Sadly, the Scottish game still has a bit too much of this, at all levels.

You can be assured that the only thing the managers and coaches from Scotland will have looked at as regards Spain was the way the Dutch played. This easily suits the mindsets of the thugs that ruin our game on a yearly basis.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind you are going to see more and more of the bully boy thuggish attitiude to the game in order to stop the better teams taking the mickey.

The Dutch took the attitude if you cant join them thenm just "beat them up" , an interesting twist in the old addage. There are still too many people all over Britain who despise the Arsenal way and are too ready to tell you how its a mans game , just look at comments from Bruce,Hughes etc. Scotland is no different if you dont have people who can play football then your only other option is to stop them , that is exactly the attitude the Dutch took.

Unfortunately its the attitude Walter Smith took when Rangers went on their Euro run a couple of years ago , its the attitude Morhinlo took for Inter against Barcelona and its the attitude almost all countries took against Spain in the world cup.

Be absolutely sure unless things change dramaticaly in the mindset of people teaching our kids the game then "hell will freeze" before we produce footballers ever again.

Jack,

I can't help but think that you're being a little naive here. Fife Ger got it exactly right when he mentions that it's only Holland's approach that will make any impact in Scotland - the fact that you can hold Spain for 90 minutes if you boot them off the park.

The problem is that, for all the soul searching that will no doubt result in Scotland due to the Spanish win, the response, as always, will just take the form of lip service. There'll be a couple of meaningless soundbites and nothing will change. This is because there's no quick fix. You can't suddenly tell players to start playing a certain style and then everything will be alright.

You cite your experience with Falkirk, and whilst it's admirable that Hughes has tried to play that sort of football with Falkirk and Hibs, what was played was a (very) pale imitation of the game that's played on the continent.

If we are to seriously overhaul things then we need to tear down everything about our game and start again. But it's not going to happen because it requires time and money - the latter won't be given by the government given the economic climate we're in, and the former certainly wont be given by the kids coaches involved, as it would involve them having to re-educate themselves and then forego personal glory in respect of their sides. Everyone knows that at kids level, the biggest players will win games simply because of their physicality. In fact, this ties in with the blog that Jim Spence wrote which covered a lot of the same ground.

Isnt it ironic not one day after I posted my first comment that I read in the newspaper today How John Hughes ( yes the one of Hibs who supposedly plays Spanish style football)was talking in glowing terms how Holland played and how he was going to follow in Hollands footsteps.

He was a great admirer of how they played ( not Spain , not Germany ). That just proves my point that Scottish football wants to remain in the dark ages, and that by and large The Holland anti football approach would be the one adopted rather than taking the first steps in a very very long road to real football.

If there is one thing that Spain has taught us during the world cup that is there is no substitute for talent, skill, and class. You can play any formation you want to combat it but in the end skill will triumph. That leaves Scottish football with a problem, we have no players with anything like the class Spain have.

We can't say we're only a small country and don't have the resources, you only need to look as far as Uruguay who only have a population of 3.5million and made the semis and Slovakia who have much the same population as Scotland and managed to get out the group stages and get some very good results. I think it's come to the point where we can't help ourselves anymore within our current structures, it's almost like we would have to be radically born again at grass-roots level to resurface as a credible footballing nation.

When I watched Spain and Barcelona last season they made it look simple, because that's what it is VERY SIMPLE!! football isn't about rocket science it's about skill, but you must develop it. It's time to develop the players we were famous for like Johnstone, Baxter, Mudoch, Cooper, Souness, Bremner and the rest, all dead gallus and could leave the big guys flat on their backsides, because that's what we as a nation are about. If we don't start making changes across the board there may be no way back.