Arsenal icon tells SFA to take French path

ROBERT PIRES believes the SFA should study how France developed their new generation of World Cup-winning stars in a bid to end Scotland’s lengthy international decline. The Arsenal legend feels failures in youth structures are an obvious cause of Scottish exile from major finals since 1998. Pires was part of the French side crowned world champions on home soil that year and later looked on as his country’s federation refined their youth set-up — centred on the famous Clairefontaine academy — to breed the talents that recaptured the prize in Russia this summer. In Glasgow yesterday, he argued that the problems afflicting Scotland run deeper than recent poor results for Alex McLeish’s men. While the SFA have rolled out their Project Brave strategy to try to raise standards, Pires feels they could take further lessons from his homeland. ‘I’m not arrogant, but I think: “Yes” because, for the country and the clubs, the academy in France is capital,’ he said. ‘That why we find (Kylian) Mbappe, (Ousmane) Dembele, (Nabil) Fekir, (Benjamin) Pavard, (Benjamin) Mendy and so on. The team is very young. ‘But you need to work to prepare the future. The French federation did that and now Didier Deschamps has a good team. ‘For the Scottish federation, the most important thing is not the professional level but with young players at the beginning. You need to work to have the right education.’ Pires recalled being alongside a Scottish side as part of the semi-final line-up for the 1996 Under-21s European Championships in Barcelona. Scotland haven’t reached that tournament in the 22 years since, finishing fourth in their qualifying group this year. ‘Look now at what has happened for your country,’ he said. ‘You need talent. But you also need to find talent and they often come from the small academies and teams. ‘Mbappe came from a small team, but you need to go and watch all the time.’