Vogts happy to invest in youth

SCOTLAND manager Berti Vogts is hoping that the money generated from a full house Hampden Park in the Euro 2004 play-offs will be ploughed into youth development.

The Scots will discover today which nation will try to bar their way to the finals in Portugal next summer, with Wales, Spain and Dick Advocaat's Holland all possible opponents for the November double-header

Not an empty seat could be found at the national stadium on Saturday when a frustrating Lithuania side were eventually despatched 1-0 to give Vogts' side the three points they needed to overhaul Iceland, who had to win in Germany but were well beaten.

Vogts expects a similar sell-out when the play-offs come to Glasgow and has made it clear he wants a slice of that gate money to help bring through young talent.

He said: "The atmosphere at Hampden was great, better I think than the game with Germany. Now we are waiting for another big sell-out match in the play-offs and I hope to take a little bit of money from that for my youth development programme.

"The U-17s qualified in the first round of their competition and now we have to send them on a winter camp, which is normal in Scotland. Now the door is open for a little bit more money for the development programme, especially for the international teams U-16s, U-17s and U-19."

It was difficult to argue against Vogts' desire to bring through young talent as quickly as possible as the Scots had to rely on a goal from the youngest player on the pitch to take them through.

Substitute Darren Fletcher, the 19-year-old Manchester United midfielder, had been on the pitch five minutes before he drilled home a half-cleared lay-back from Gary Naysmith. It was only his second appearance for the senior side, with his debut having been the last half an hour of a goalless draw in Norway in August.

That could not have been made in a more contrasting venue than a packed Hampden as it came in front of just a thousand souls at the windswept Kaplakriki Stadium in the town of Hafnarfjordur when Fletcher was handed the final 21 minutes of the U-21s' 2-0 win over Iceland.

The aim at the time had simply been to make sure the player, whose mother is Irish, could not play for the Republic of Ireland as Old Trafford team-mate Roy Keane had been pressing him to do.