Embarrassing but hardly surprising stuff.
Surely the whole point of youth internationals is developing players for the senior side, not results. Winning matches is all well and good but the real measure of success is in how many players go on to become full internationalists.
Loading up youth teams probably with big, physical players probably works quite well in tournaments but that doesn`t mean they`ll become decent players. I remember Scotland got to the final of the 2006 U-19 championships, losing to Spain, so decided to look and see how many players "made it" on each side.
On the Scotland team, only Lee Wallace and Graham Dorrans got senior caps and the rest of them never even got close. Most of them are lower league journeymen now, some of them are playing non-league football.
The Spanish team had Pique and Mata in it and Mario Squarez, Javi Garcia and Diego Capel got a few senior appearances. All of the squad are still playing full-time professional football in Spain.
Obviously there`s going to be more talent in the Spain side and there`s a always going to be a high turnover of players at youth level but it is telling that so few of the class of 2006 actually made it as footballers. It seems the focus on physicality over technique does the trick at youth level, but once those smaller, more technical players fill out a bit, they`ve got a lot more to their game.