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 move up to the next level.<\/p>\n
Docherty was in La Manga at the senior side’s training camp before their Nations League games and Pocognoli has given a presentation on his game model to the age-grade coaches.<\/p>\n
Mulholland as well as SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell and Scotland assistant Alan Irvine were in Kilmarnock on Wednesday night to observe as Docherty set his team up in the same 3-4-2-1 system Pocognoli favours – and that he himself used at Dundee.<\/p>\n
Fletcher and St Mirren’s Ryan Carr occupied the midfield berths, with Curtis and James Wilson playing as inside forwards behind West Brom’s Barney Stewart.<\/p>\n
Scotland pressed high, smothered their opponents and played the ball about quickly and with purpose. It was the type of football Pocognoli described when taking over the Scotland job but that his own team has only delivered in one half against Slovenia so far.<\/p>\n
“They want us to mirror exactly what the first team do,” former Falkirk striker Stewart, who scored twice on the night, told BBC Scotland.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
In that same vein, Curtis and Wilson joined up with the under-21s, having initially been involved in the senior squad’s camp. It could have been viewed as a setback for them and Fletcher too, the trio having already played for the men’s side.<\/p>\n
However, none of them showed it on the pitch, as Curtis had a hand in all five of the goals, with Fletcher and Wilson both scoring.<\/p>\n
“I came back with them from the camp,” Docherty said. “They couldn’t have been better with their attitude and leadership in the group.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The SFA’s plan is for the under-21s to reflect the style and structure of the first team, to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-867017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}