The moment Aaron Hickey found the net in a draw that ended in 2-2 in the match between Bologna and Genoa in September of last year He became 4th Scottish goal-scoring player in the history of an Italian goal in Serie A.
The moment Aaron Hickey found the net in a draw that ended in 2-2 in the match between Bologna and Genoa in September of last year He became 4th Scottish goal-scoring player in the history of an Italian goal in Serie A. The other players? Joe Jordan, Graeme Souness and Denis Law. It's been a while since.
Hickey was who was a PS1.5m https://apkzup.com/ player who joined Hearts earlier in the year and went on to score additional four goals over during the season and was able to make it in to the Scottish national team, and drawing attention from numerous prospective suitors prior to his PS18m transfer into Brentford.
The success of the full-back in Italy has opened the https://romaseriale.me/ doors for others.
A former Celtic midfielder Liam Henderson, who's move to Italy preceded Hickey's arrival by two years, was a part of all of Empoli's Serie A fixtures last season as did Scotland's Lewis Ferguson, 22 along with Hibernian's Josh Doig, 20 have agreed to PS3m transfers towards Bologna as well as Hellas Verona respectively.
The players aren't the only ones who be targetted. Udinese made a bid to get Celtic's centre-back Stephen Welsh knocked back in January. Bologna has repeatedly attempted to acquire Calvin Ramsay from Aberdeen prior to his PS6.5m transfer towards Liverpool.
The expectation of Italy will be that other countries be added in the future.
"My first thought about Scottish football is that the Scottish Premiership is an incredibly, incredibly underrated league," Francesco Strozzi, a scout for Bologna between 2018 to 2021 informs Sky Sports over Zoom.
"In my view this doesn't get enough recognition to be noticed by numerous scouting agencies around the globe.
"Scottish football is fast, dynamic and physical, so for Italian clubs who are trying to find young players who have these requirements, I think it is a good league to watch and, right now, not find too much competition for players."
Strozzi has seen this from his own the experience. He was originally responsible for screening domestic prospects aged between 15 and 18 years old in his position at Bologna however, after the Covid outbreak that brought football to a halt at the end of March in 2020, Strozzi was transferred to analyze remote data from other leagues.
"When the first Covid lockdown happened, like my other colleagues, I was obliged to watch games with scouting video analysis tools and I had the chance to watch quite a lot of Scottish games, both the youth national teams and also clubs," He says.
Scotland was already the focus of Bologna's recruiting department at the time.
"When I arrived at Bologna in 2018, they were quite involved in scouting northern leagues, so Denmark, Finland, Sweden and of course Scotland," Strozzi says. Strozzi.
"I can say they operated there a long, long time ago."
Their understanding of the market assisted in signing Hickey.
"Behind a move like Aaron Hickey's one in 2020, we as Bologna spend tonnes of hours looking for the right player and analysing them, by video analysis and games in real life," Strozzi says. Strozzi.
"That portion of the job is always consistent, however I would say that the most difficult aspect of the job is to determine which player is the best fit for the Italian Serie A.
"When you watch Scottish Premiership games, you can tell there are a lot of valuable players, but when scouting based on Serie A, the priority is that they should be the right one for the team."
In the case of Hickey, Bologna felt they had grounds to believe in their case.
His most notable qualities were his attractive technical and physical qualities however, Bologna were also inspired by the fact that Andrew Robertson, his countryman and fellow left-back, prospered after the move away from Dundee United to Hull City and then Liverpool.
"Andrew Robertson was almost an unknown player but seeing his great development and his incredible impact with Liverpool from 2017 made a lot of clubs think that basing scouting activity in Scotland could be the right move," Strozzi says. Strozzi.
"Hickey according to me is a player that has similar characteristics similar to Robertson A fast and agile player who is able to perform runs from the left of the field and aid teams in both the offensive phase as well as the defensive phase.
"Those are his main characteristics, and they are what made Brentford go for him and take him to the Premier League."
Robertson's contribution to Liverpool led to a rise in interest within the Scottish market. It has also boosted interest in the Scottish market by Premier League clubs but, for those who are in Italy it's Hickey who has the greatest ability to demonstrate the benefits they can get from.
"The capital gain in the case of Hickey's sale was huge," Strozzi says. Strozzi.
"When you consider setting up an operation for scouting in nations like Scotland or Sweden or Finland You always consider the athletic side of the business and also the financial aspect.
"So that was a big, big plus to the operation."
The success of Hickey has been an the motivation to his fellow players as well, such as Ferguson and Doig Both of them took his advice prior to securing their own move to Italy this week.
"He seemed to really enjoy it and he has really kicked on and improved and developed as a player and that's something I want to go and do," Ferguson said. Ferguson on behalf of his International teammate.
Strozzi expects Ferguson to have the same success.
"I think he will be very, very important in the club's way of playing because Sinisa Mihajlovic is a coach who can bring out even more of Lewis Ferguson's qualities," the coach states.
"Ferguson is a central runner and scores goals from midfield. This is something that you don't see very often on Serie A.
"So, at a club like Bologna, and with the way of playing Mihajlovic wants, you can expect great things from Lewis Ferguson."
Hickey, Ferguson and Doig's move to Italy are cause for joy among those who are involved in the youth development process in Scotland as well as Ross County manager Malky Mackay who is the former Scottish Football Association performance director.
Mackay discusses the rising popularity of Scotland's young players partly due to Scotland's performance school program, which was introduced in the year 2012, with an goal of maximizing the potential of Scotland's youngsters and, ultimately, helping the national team.
"I'm delighted for the players themselves, but I'm also delighted for the SFA performance school coaches, led by Brian McLaughlin," Mackay stated to Sky Sports News this week.
"The quantity of work been put into this department over the last couple of years has resulted in youngsters getting attention initially from England and now Europe too, as a result of the attention they're getting.
"It is only positive to the Scottish national team..
"Eventually that's when we'll begin to see the fruits of our labor and we've witnessed the beginning of this with this new group of players who has been in the same group for 2 or 3 years with Steve Clarke.
"There's another group that is coming behind them who are hopefully going to fill that pool out."
The ultimate goal is to ensure that Scotland are more prepared to play in major tournaments, just as they have done at first since 1998, as they reached the semifinals in Euro 2020 last summer.
In the form of youngsters Billy Gilmour and Nathan Patterson Scotland's team at the tournament featured graduates of one of seven high-performance schools scattered across the country.
Gilmour is now a member of Chelsea was a student at the Grange Academy in Kilmarnock, while Patterson who accompanied his international team-mate into the Premier League when he moved from Rangers to Everton for PS16m in January of this year, attended Hollyrood Secondary in Glasgow.
These other institutions are located on Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Falkirk and Motherwell and each provides additional soccer coaching for secondary school players within an educational setting.
Gilmour And Patterson were the very first graduates of the program to be senior Scotland internationals. However, the youth squads are bursting with players, which is a testimony to the program's success. There are hundreds more all over the footballing pyramid of Scotland.
"There aren't many countries in Europe that do this programme and it is one of the things that I'm constantly asked about, in terms of my work with UEFA," Mackay said. Mackay.
"Our coaches do a wonderful job alongside the clubs and that's the big thing about it. It's with the clubs and it gives young players from 12 to 16 double the amount of touches of any other kids in Scotland."
The Performance Schools programme can be seen as part of the larger plan to increase the technical abilities of Scotland's youth players, and the impact of this is evident in the rising demand from Italy specifically.
"I am highly impressed by what the Scottish FA is doing," Strozzi says. Strozzi. "Watching numerous games played by their youth squad helped me appreciate their work in the development of coaching for football there.
"Their facilities are incredible and even when it comes to their club team, Scottish football is gaining increasing significance in European football, even if it already has historic clubs.
"In my view I think they're doing their best to stay competitive, and to let their promising young players develop into valuable assets for clubs outside of the UK.
"I believe that the recent changes are likely to make Scottish football into the sights of a lot more teams in Italy.
"At the beginning, we had a handful of clubs involved in scouting in the area. Bologna, of course but also Empoli, Lecce and Hellas Verona. Therefore smaller middle-tier Serie A teams went there.
"But now I think that this trend is going to increase and maybe bigger, more important clubs in Serie A are going to put more of an eye on Scottish football to bring some players to Italy."
From Scotland's standpoint, is that similar to Hickey the players benefit from experience gained from playing in other leagues , and the transfer fees will aid in raising the standards of development for youth in Scotland.
According to Mackay who was responsible for overseeing the school's performance program from 2016 to 2020, this funding component is vital to its continued achievement.
"It's a long-term project," said the official. "It must be viewed as such and be well-funded.
"That's the important thing for me. It's got to be believed in and it's got to be funded well over a number of years because that's when you start to see talent coming out of it and you start to see kids going to big clubs and eventually becoming Scotland players."