SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell has admitted the lack of outstanding Scottish candidates for the vacant national team manager’s job has highlighted the governing body has a problem developing homegrown coaches which it needs to address.
However, he has dismissed the concerns which have been expressed by some members of the Tartan Army about a young foreigner taking over from Steve Clarke and backed Sebastien Pocognoli, the Belgian who was unveiled at Hampden yesterday, to energise supporters and take the country to “the next level”.
Scotland fans were stunned on Saturday when it emerged that Pocognoli, the former West Brom and Brighton left-back who is just 39 and has only spent two seasons as a manager in senior football, was going to replace Clarke, who stood down after his team exited the World Cup in June.
There has been a largely positive reaction to the surprise appointment of the man who led Royal Union Saint-Gilloise to their first Pro League title in 90 years in the 2024/25 season – but some critics have been unhappy the job was not given to an experienced Scot.
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“In an ideal world, we would have loved a Scottish coach,” said Maxwell. “The fact that we don't have an obvious one is a problem. That's something as an association we need to look at.
“We need to say, ‘Well, from a coach education perspective, how do we make sure whenever the next time comes that we've got a number of Scottish coaches who are at a level where they could go and become the next Scotland manager?’
“We need to take that on board and look at that from a coach education point of view and coaching pathway perspective. We need to look at how we're doing that.
“But a foreign coach coming in is just the way of the modern game. I'd be interested to know how many different nationalities of coach are coaching the players in our national team at club level.
“That's just football now. We even had a conversation about how important is it that someone actually speaks English. You look at the club environment and you go, ‘Well, [Roberto] De Zerbi went into Brighton and didn't speak English for the first two years’.
“Look at modern football. How many English managers are managing in the English Premier League? There are a lot of countries now that have a manager that's not from the country that he represents.
“So the players are used to that. It's actually becoming less of a thing, the world's becoming smaller and smaller. So it was a conversation, but it was never going to be a hindrance in any way.”
Clarke led Scotland through to the Euro 2020 and Euro 2024 finals as well as the World Cup this summer during his record-breaking seven year reign and is widely considered to be the country’s greatest-ever manager.
However, he proved unable to reach the knockout rounds at any of those tournaments and Maxwell admitted that will be the challenge for Pocognoli, who has signed a two year contract, in the months ahead.
“The expectation in the country is now that just qualifying for tournaments isn't enough,” he said. “We were very open about that with Seb and everybody else we spoke to.
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“Somebody is going to have to come in and take us on to the next level because that's what everybody expects. That's what we want to see, that's what the players want, that's what the country wants.
“It's a big opportunity. He's obviously got a core squad, a group that is now experienced in international football. They understand what it takes to qualify, understand what tournament football is like. We need to use the foundations Steve and the guys have laid over the last seven years and take that on to the next level.”
Maxwell, who led an exhaustive, data-driven recruitment process along with new SFA chief football officer Craig Mulholland after Clarke called it a day, conceded that bringing in Pocognoli is a “leftfield” move.
He is, though, optimistic the decision will be vindicated despite the new manager’s age and lack of experience as a coach in the international game.
“You have to look at what is going to bring us success on the pitch,” he said. “We looked at countries who have done better than us over a period of time and how they've done it, why they've done it and what their playing styles look like. All those different bits come together.
“Listen, it’s not an easy fix. There’s not a silver bullet. If everybody knew what the answer was, everybody would be doing it and nobody would ever lose a game of football. That's not how it works.
“It was always going to be different. Steve had been here for a while. We wanted a freshness, a fresh voice, different training sessions. These are all the things that Seb will bring.
“He wants to play on the front foot, he wants to be aggressive, he wants to get a high press, he wants to get after teams. All his teams have played that way. His teams have scored a lot of goals across the clubs he has managed.
“Scottish fans love nothing more than putting teams under pressure and winning the ball back high up the pitch. I'm sure that the supporters will be off their seats at the first game at Hampden when they see his team play. I'm sure the players are all really looking forward to it. It's always exciting when there's a change of manager.”
Maxwell continued, “I think in a lot of aspects, Scottish football needs to modernise itself. We need to think differently about how we do things across a range of areas.
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“Some guys have said: ‘Oh, it's a gamble, he’s got no international experience'. But it doesn't matter. There's no correlation between international experience and success.
“There has long been a view that a manager has a long, distinguished club career and then when he gets to a certain age he goes and works in international football. The game's not like that anymore.
“Seb’s young, he’s fresh, he's enthusiastic, he's energetic, he's dynamic. He's talked a lot about being engaged with the younger age groups and making sure he's going to games around the country and having a presence. He's just got a different outlook, a younger outlook on it.
“He spoke a lot about culture, he spoke a lot about players, he spoke a lot about his relationship with the players. The due diligence that we did highlighted that. Everybody we spoke to that had played with him or played for him really enjoyed it.
“That's obviously really important, particularly in an international setting where you don't spend a huge amount of time with players. You need to get that relationship going straight away. So as much as the data is one thing and that's important, there has to be a human element.
“You have to look someone in the eye and think, ‘Will you get on with the players, the fans, the media?’ Everything we have seen from him suggests he will do all of those things.”
