Mark  Wotte has explained how a change in approach has breathed new life into Scotland’s under-age teams.
Tonight in Malta Scotland’s u-17 side face Holland with a place in the final of the European Championships up for grabs.
Wotte’s squad relies heavily on Celtic, with seven of the 18 players from the hoops academy, with the club benefiting from the international experience that the players are gaining.
Celtic fielded one of the youngest sides in the u-19 Champions League with next season’s u-20 squad likely to be mainly made up of graduates from the current u-16 and u-17 level.
Explaining the change in approach to the international game Wotte told uefa.com: “We started to work with these boys in a 4-3-3 – a new philosophy of playing football, a more continental style.
I’ve analysed all of the successful teams in the world and I couldn’t find any team that didn’t play 4-3-3 the
 Belgians, the Spanish, the Germans, the Dutch. You can see there’s a benchmark, they were always playing a 4-3-3 or a flexible 4-3-3.
“It’s not always possible because you need to have the players for it and the level of the players can dictate whether you can play like Spain, or you have to play like Scotland.
“In England they have an ocean to choose from yet we only have a pond. We have to find a mix, but eventually it has to be a blueprint.
Celtic’s Sam Wardrop, Jack Breslin, Joe Thomson, Aidan Nesbitt and Calvin Miller all started the last match against Switzerland with Steven Boyd and Aidan McIlduff on the bench.
Scotland’s match with Holland is live on Eurosport tonight with a 7.45 kick-off. Earlier today at 2pm Celtic face Ayr United at Somerset Park in the final of the SPFL League Cup with the squad drawn from the u-16 and u-17 squads with only Luke Donnelly not in that category.