In the opening decade of the European Cup, a Scottish club reaching the latter stages of the competition was to be expected. Hibernian reached the semi-finals in 1956, losing out to Stade-Reims of France. Four years later, the famous Rangers side of 1960 reached the semi-finals being Dennis Rodman Jersey convincingly knocked out by Eintracht Frankfurt, who won 12-4 on aggregate. Two years later, Dundee also reached the same stage but were defeated by eventual winners AC Milan. Then finally, the trophy came to Scotland with Celtic lifting the cup in 1967 against Inter Milan in Lisbon.An Image From The Kaunas Debacle Which Says It AllFast forward half a century and the demise of Scottish Football couldnt be more obvious. Celtics crushing defeat to Artmedia Bratislava in 2005 seemed to kick start an awful spell for the teams in Europe. It is now a regular feature to see our representatives humbled at an early stage by minnows from Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. Only in 2008, months after Rangers reached the UEFA Cup Final, they were disposed by Lithuanian cracks Kaunas a night which still hurts the club financially. The season afterwards in the Champions League, Unirea Urziceni defeated the Ibrox side 4-1 in their own backyard. Aberdeen, former European Cup Winners Cup holders, were absolutely destroyed by Czech side Sigma Olomouc. The examples are there for Thaddeus Young Jersey all to see but what has caused this capitulation from being one of the worlds most respected nations to a laughing stock?Sad Faces All Round in Scottish FootballFrom a domestic point of view, the lack of TV revenue is a real eye-opener and 2012/2013 will be a crunch time for Scottish Football as this is when the current TV deal with Sky and ESPN will be negotiated. To be honest, the deal is actually quite embarra sing and the Scottish Champions will only pick up 1m a year in TV money. Compare that with any English side and its probably about 100 times le s. Is our domestic game really that bad? Back at the beginning of the decade, Scottish Clubs were easily capable of targeting the best players with the De Boer twins, Giovanni Van Bronckhorst and Henrik Lar son just some of the names who starred back then. The Old Firm derby was something that would attract viewers from around the UK and would be a flagship match for Sky Sports. Now, were shifted to Sky Sports 3 behind meaningle s games such as Everton v Stoke, Hull v Portsmouth and the likes (No disrespect to any of those clubs). In the league rankings, the Scottish Premier League currently sits 14th in UEFAs rankings behind Romania, Denmark and Greece.Clearly though, there is a more striking i sue with Scottish Football and British Football for that matter. The quality of the homegrown players just isnt good enough and the infrastructure for youth football is quite Patrick Williams Jersey shambolic compared with our European neighbours. It has been well documented recently that the Spanish have the most UEFA qualified coaches with over 700 and the English have been slated for only having 100 or so. It is clear more has to be done in Scotland and the UK to nurture talented youngsters. The recent Henry McLeish report into Scottish Football said that over 500m was needed in investment for facilities acro s the country. The report highlighted nothing we did not already realise, but the fact we do not have a national football complex like the rest of Europe might be a small reason why we are Devon Dotson Jersey not able to compete.The new cla sy Toryglen centre in GlasgowInstead of splashing 500m on pitches, I would say Scotland needs to look at developing 2 or 3 national football centres in which the elite talent can be nurtured properly and be kept away from the distractions of teenage life. Without a doubt, we have enough normal pitches acro s the country but it really does not help that they are chained up during the school holidays. How can we develop talent when that is the attitude? Along with 2 or Lauri Markkanen Jersey 3 football centres, spending up to 5m on employing coaches and educating them from the same hymn sheet would be more beneficial and we could make use of school holidays by getting these coaches out to local facilities and running football training se sions for free. The Scottish Government is set to waste nearly 2bn on the 2014 Commonwealth Games by building expensive cycling veledromes and athlete villages. Is that really where the investment is needed?With another five Scottish clubs heading into Europe this season, can we expect another year of doom and gloom?Sadly, its difficult not to expect that.The Scottish game has been on a downward spiral for years and our governing body has literally a few years to make the crucial changes to youth football. Maybe then, we can see Scottish clubs doing something positive in European competitions.