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GORDON STRACHAN last night claimed Scotland have produced a nation of scared footballers.

The national manager struggled to hide his frustration on Sunday after the 1-0 defeat by Italy exposed a huge gulf in class.

It also dropped Scotland three places in the FIFA world rankings to 43rd.

And as Strachan and his squad flew from Malta to Metz to face Euro 2016 favourites France, he admitted there’s a deep-seated problem with the game that needs fixed before Scotland can ever dream of matching the ability of their hosts.

Scotland managed only a single off-target attempt at goal in the entire 90 minutes and barely left a scratch on Antonio Conte’s side.

(Image: SNS GROUP)

Strachan – who has thrown his weight behind performance director Brian McClair’s project to bring radical change to youth football in Scotland – said: “Why was our technique that bad and why was there so much pressure on the players when they got the ball?

“Even after working on it all in training, I still have that overriding feeling about technique and passing from youth level up.

“If you look at most top players, they can pass the ball and beat you. We as a nation, all I hear – especially at youth level – is ‘pass, pass, pass’. That’s fine. But there are points in a passing system when people will come up to you and you have to be able to protect the ball or beat them.

“What we do is play ‘scared football’ when we come up against big teams.

“We’ll play four or five passes but we’re not sure if they’re going to get there. We just flick it away, hope for the best and then go ‘oh, unlucky’. But if you watch David Silva, and all the best players in the world, they don’t pass with hope – they are 90 per cent sure what they’re doing is going to work.

“They have the ability to pass the ball, the ability to protect it and the ability to beat you under pressure.

“And if you’ve not got that, you play scared football. ‘Oh, I better not keep it because I can’t protect it and I can’t beat anybody, so I have to play it’ – and you play it 50 per cent hoping it gets there.

“And I watch training or games and all I hear from the stands and everyone else is ‘oh unlucky, unlucky’.

“No, it’s not unlucky. It will be the fourth time someone’s made a poor pass. We’re constantly doing it and we can make players a lot better technically.”

Strachan has spent the past year helping McClair plot a path to streamline a bloated academy set-up and the proposals are about to go to the clubs for approval.

He added: “We had some of the best footballers in Europe years ago. How did we do that? It’s quite simple really. If no one wants to ask me, that’s fine.

“But I should have a voice – I played at every level of the game from schoolboy up since I was 15.”

At 43rd, Scotland have now fallen behind Albania, Senegal, Iran and Denmark in the rankings.

World Cup Group F qualifying opponents England have fallen one place to 11th while Slovakia have moved up eight places to 24th. Our other group rivals Slovenia, Lithuania and Malta are ranked 57th, 127th and 166th.

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