Scotland's next manager. 5000 Miles Away

 


Scotland's national football team has been on a depressing struggle in recent times. Despite qualifying for 2 consecutive Euro's, the feeling around Steve Clarke has been diminishing in recent months. No competive win in 400 days, one win in 15 games (against Gibraltar) and the general negative style of play has led to many fans to question if Clarke should lead the 2026 World Cup Qualifiers. 


But who should be the man to replace him, should the SFA pull the plug on the Clarke-ball tenure. A few names seem to regularly come up, with Kilmarnock's Derek McInnes and David Moyles being the names thrown up by fans, pundits and bookies alike. And whilst there are certainly arguments for and against these potenial new national team managers, there is one man who has yet to appear in the conversation to take over. That man is Japanese coach Toru Oniki.


A foreign coach for Scotland? Well that hasn't happened since Berti Vogts, 22 years ago. This of course was a disaster appointment, with Vogts only winning 8 games out of a possible 31 and despite his Scottish attire, he left under a dark cloud, especially with members of the Tartan Army. So why on earth should we potentially repeat that with another foreign coach, a coach from Asia and not Europe at that? And it is simple. Oniki is the complete opposite of Steve Clarke. A complete modern posession based style of football that encourages goals to be scored and chances to be continious. When asked about his clubs ambition in the 2021 season, Oniki said "To win the title by playing attacking football that is fun for the players to play and fun for the spectators to watch". A massive difference between this and a back 5 with no shots for 80 minutes

So who is Toru Oniki? Well he is the Kawasaki Frontale manager and despite it being his one and only job in coaching, he boasts an incredible resume. 216 wins in 382 games, 4 J league titles, 2 Emporers cups, 1 J League cup and 3 Japanese super cups. All of this in 7 years. Oh and a +380 goal difference. He is also the coach that developed Reo Hatate (Celtic), Kaoro Mitoma (Brighton), Hidemasa Morita (Sporting) and Ao Tanaka (Leeds). Oniki plays a 4-3-3 attacking formation typically and that seems to suit Scotland at the moment. A midfield 3 of Gilmour, Mctominay and Mcginn? Gies some of that. He is also willing to play younger players that suit his formation, which should give some of the more younger players a chance (Lennon Miller!!) instead of the usual names that have had Scotland fans shaking their head at when looking at the team sheet.

Despite his high emphasis on attacking football, Oniki still focuses on keeping a solid defensive backline. Under previous manager Yahiro Kazama, Kawasaki conceded an average of 46.2 goals per season. Under Oniki, it has went to 30.4 per season. Attacking wise it has went from 60.4 goals scored to 70.8 per season under Oniki. Prior to Toru Oniki taking over, Kwasaki Frontale had never won the J league title. They have won it 4 times since. And the style of play has garnered praise from former players. Michael Fitzgerald, former player of Kawasaki said, " The environment at Kawasaki is top class, it’s the best I’ve been in,” the 33-year-old said.

You’ve got these guys that are at the top of the J.League, but it doesn’t matter if they’re in the team or not in the team, everyone is just one hundred percent at training. No one questions ‘why am I on the bench?’ everyone is just waiting for an opportunity to play.

“And I think that has been a big part of the success, it’s not just the eleven players who are playing every week, the whole team is just such a tight knit unit.”


Some Scotland fans will be totally against the idea of a foreign coach and this could be understandable. But I truly believe in order for Scotland to progress and ultimately make a mark in major international competitions, we need to appoint a manager with domestic success, a modern attacking football mindset and a positive happy attitude. I do not think McInnes or Moyes, despite their successes as coaches match Toru Oniki and I think the SFA need to make a dramatic change in the next appointment or more and more fans are going to simply stop caring for their own national team.




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