The moment Aaron Hickey found the net in a draw that ended in 2-2 against Bologna and Genoa in September of last year and became only 4th Scottish athlete to have scored goals in Italy's Serie A.

 The moment Aaron Hickey found the net in a draw that ended in 2-2 against Bologna and Genoa in September of last year and became only 4th Scottish athlete to have scored goals in Italy's Serie A. The other players? Joe Jordan, Graeme Souness and Denis Law. It's been a while.

Hickey is an PS1.5m player who https://apkzup.com/ joined Hearts earlier in the year He scored additional four goals over during the season and was able to make it in to the Scottish national team, and drawing attention from numerous potential suitors prior to his PS18m transfer into Brentford.

The success of the full-back in Italy has opened the doors to other players.

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 the Aberdeen's Lewis Ferguson, 22 as well as Hibs' Josh Doig, 20 have agreed to PS3m transfers towards Bologna as well as Hellas Verona respectively.

It's not just them who are the https://romaseriale.me/ only ones who be targetted. Udinese was able to get Celtic's centre-back Stephen Welsh knocked back in January. Bologna repeatedly tried to acquire Calvin Ramsay from Aberdeen prior to his PS6.5m transfer towards Liverpool.

The expectation of Italy is that further 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 until 2021, says to Sky Sports over Zoom.

"In my view that it isn't getting enough respect from the perspective of 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 experiences. He was originally responsible for the scouting of domestic players between the ages of 15-18 in his position at Bologna but , when 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 department of recruitment at that 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 market knowledge was a huge help when it came to 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 adds. Strozzi.

"That portion of the job isn't inconsistent. However, I'm able to say that the hardest aspect of the job is to determine which player is the best fit to play in 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 the right reasons to feel confident.

His most notable qualities were his attractive physical and technical skills; however, Bologna were also inspired by the way Andrew Robertson, his countryman and fellow left-back gained a lot of success since the move to 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 I believe that Hickey is a player who has characteristics similar to Robertson A fast and agile player that can perform runs across the left-hand side of the field and assist teams both in the offensive and 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 influence at Liverpool led to a rise in the 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 best illustrates 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 countries such as Scotland or Sweden as well as Finland You always consider the athletic football component of the business as well as the financial aspect.

"So that was a big, big plus to the operation."

The success of Hickey has been an the motivation to his teammates as well, such as Ferguson and Doig Both of them were seeking his help prior to signing 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 about his fellow international teammate.

Strozzi now anticipates 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," He states.

"Ferguson is a central runner and scores goals from midfield. This is something that you don't see very often at all in Serie A.

"So, at a club like Bologna, and with the way Mihajlovic wants, you can expect great things from Lewis Ferguson."

Hickey, Ferguson and Doig's move to Italy can be a cause of joy among those who are involved in the youth development process in Scotland as well as Ross County manager Malky Mackay the former Scottish Football Association performance director.

Mackay describes the increasing appeal of Scotland's youngsters due in part to Scotland's performance school program, which was introduced at the end of 2012 to achieve the goal to maximise the potential of Scotland's young players , 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 involved in this department over the past couple of years has meant that youngsters have been attracting attention initially from England and now Europe also, because of the exposure they're receiving.

"It is only positive for Scotland." Scottish national team..

"Eventually this is when we'll see the results and we've witnessed the beginning of that with this youthful group of players who has been playing for the last 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 longer-term goal is to ensure that Scotland is better prepared to play in major tournaments like they have done in 1998 for the very first time, when they reached the semifinals in Euro 2020 last summer.

In young Billy Gilmour and Nathan Patterson Scotland's team at the tournament featured graduates of just two of the 7 high-performance schools scattered across the country.

Gilmour currently of Chelsea attended Grange Academy in Kilmarnock, while Patterson was his international team-mate into the Premier League when he moved from Rangers to Everton for PS16m in January, went to Hollyrood Secondary in Glasgow.

Other schools can be found located within Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Falkirk and Motherwell and each provides additional soccer coaching for secondary school players within an educational setting.

Gilmour as well as Patterson were the first two graduates of the program to become senior Scotland internationals. However, the youth squads are bursting with the two, a sign of the program's success. There are hundreds more across 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 capabilities of Scotland's youth players, and its effects is evident in the rising demand from Italy specifically.

"I am highly impressed by what the Scottish FA is doing," Strozzi says. Strozzi. "Watching many games played by Scotland's youth team helped me appreciate their efforts in the enhancement of the football coaching there.

"Their facilities are incredible and they are a dream to play in, and even to their club team, Scottish football is gaining increasingly prominence in European football, even though it already has significant clubs in the past.

"In my view that they're doing their best to stay competitive, and to allow their promising young players to develop into valuable assets for clubs outside of the UK.

"I believe the recent developments will make Scottish football back into the spotlight of a lot additional clubs throughout Italy.

"At the beginning, we had a few clubs that were scouting in the area. Bologna, of course but also Empoli, Lecce and Hellas Verona. Also smaller and mid-table 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."

The expectation, from Scotland's standpoint, is that similar to Hickey these players will benefit from experience gained from playing in different leagues, and that the money earned from transfer fees can help improve standards for the development of young people in Scotland.

According to Mackay who was responsible for overseeing the school's performance program between 2016 and 2020 the element of funding is vital to its ongoing achievement.

"It's a long-term project," said the director. "It is best to think of it as such and be properly 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."

Aaron Hickey may soon be only one among many.