Jack Harper: Short-term gain put ahead of long-term good

The first thing I’ll say on the subject of Jack Harper is that every manager has the right to pick a team to try and get a result.

I get why Ricky Sbragia, the Scotland Under-19 coach, chose the players he wanted for this week’s Elite Round Games.

Also why he might think we should judge him purely on results. Results such as Thursday night’s 2-1 victory over Austria.

But the fact is Ricky is part of the process by which we develop our young players for the future.

And as everyone in the country knows by now, he left out a boy who has been given a five-year deal by Real Madrid in favour of Oliver McBurnie, who Bradford have out on loan at Chester City in the English Conference.

Nothing against McBurnie, he may turn out to be a fine player. He will almost certainly have been toughened by his experience of non-league football.

Look at that decision, though, and you have to come to the conclusion this is a coach who is concerned about right now not the future.

Real Madrid are one of the biggest clubs in the world. They are the current European champions. If they were in trying to buy one of our current internationalists we would all be going crazy about it.

This brings me to my concern that we have, and have always had, a system in place which sacrifices the long-term good of our national game in favour of short-term gain.

My mother found a report from back in 1972, back when I was playing for Scotland Under-18s. We had knocked France out of the European Championships, a very creditable result.

In the French team that day, though, were three players who went on to become part of their country’s European Championship winning team in 1984. I am talking about Michel Platini, Jean Tigana and Dominque Rocheteau.

Platini was the World Player of the year in 1984 and 1985, Tigana and Rocheteau were two exceptional talents who amassed over 100 caps between them.

None of the Scottish team went on to play for the senior side.

You look at examples such as that one and, more recently, of the team that ran Spain close in the 2006 Euro Under-19 Final and it is hard not to be concerned that we develop hard to beat age-level teams at the price of developing talent for the future.

It would be sad if Jack Harper did not make the squad because he was judged to lack the physicality for the games.

To be fair to the coach, there are other possibilities.

Harper has been brought up playing in Spain so it could be the Scottish style of game is alien to him.

But I must admit if that was the case I personally would have wanted to have him on my subs’ bench because of his potential to offer something different.

I also think Rick was wrong to be negative in his comments about Harper.

The father was, in stating that Spain might take a look at picking him, very positive about his son’s desire to play for Scotland.

We need that kind of enthusiasm. Across the board and particularly from the kids we have who play for Real Madrid.