Craig Mulholland on Sebastien Pocognoli's Appointment and Youth Development in Scottish Football

London, United Kingdom Aug 23, 2026 ALN: Had he been searching for riches alone – and likely, a quieter life – Craig Mulholland could have stayed in the gilded world of the Premier League. But the chance to leave a legacy in his homeland and to ‘smash some plates’, in his words, was worth more to him. And simply too tempting.

Had he known just how bulging an inbox was awaiting him during the first weeks of his tenure as the Scottish FA’s new chief football officer, it would be understandable if the prospect wasn’t quite so appealing. As well as having to fill the void created by the departure of Steve Clarke as Scotland head coach after seven years, there was a vacancy in the under-21s dugout too as Scot Gemmill took his leave.

On top of that, off the back of a disappointing showing at the World Cup, Scottish football is currently having another of its frequent existential crises over the way the country develops players, and the game’s many stakeholders are looking to Mulholland to provide the answers to a quandary that has confounded men in his position for decades.

Nothing like being thrown in at the deep end.

"It probably wasn't the start I thought I would have,” Mulholland said wryly.

“But do you know, you would rather start a job with energy and really get at it, the way we have had to here.

“I had met Steve two or three times before I took the job to see what his ideas were and could we work together. I was excited about working with Steve. So, when I got the call after the Brazil game to say we are now looking at a new manager, that changed things. I had a joke with Ian Maxwell at the time saying, 'Well the good thing is that at Forest last year we had four managers so it’s not exactly new, this.”

In all seriousness, though, Mulholland’s experience working under the famously trigger-happy Nottingham Forest Evangelos Marinakis meant that he was the right man at the right time for the SFA, having honed an ability to deal with flux, and to harness data in search of the best possible managerial candidates. A process that ultimately led to the appointment of Sebastien Pocognoli as Clarke’s successor.

“All joking aside, that did help,” he said.

“Because when you now look at the Premier League and the way data is used to go and track managers, where we want to get to at the Scottish FA is actually where we have a live league table of managers on the go all the time. So, if a manager does leave, you immediately know who your top three or four candidates are you can go to.

“We’ve not got that yet. It’s something we can develop here over time. Therefore, what you then do is you get to that sort of data search then after that get to the human bit. So, that’s been good. We’ve also been trying to realign the national youth team coach piece as well. Then you’ll know we have a conference at St Andrews on September 4th.

“Listen, I had a good opportunity to stay at Forest, I had a good opportunity at another Premier League club as well. You know in your career sometimes you can work at clubs and enjoy it.

“The Premier League was brilliant, I loved it. But there’s actually a chance to leave a bit of a legacy and change something here. I spoke to Ian and Mike (Mulraney). Mike’s words were that for the first time in 20 years the SFA are more open to change than perhaps what they had ever been.

“That excited me. Certainly, I could’ve earned a hell of a lot more money if I had stayed in England, let me tell you.

“But that’s not what this is about. It’s about saying once in your career, can you leave a bit of a legacy? I accept that we might well fail because if the country doesn’t want to change with certain bits that’s also okay.

“But let’s give it a go and see if we can do something a bit different, a bit special.”

What was in that data though that convinced him that the 39-year-old Belgian, Pocognoli, was the man to pluck from left-field and take the national team to new levels?

Before even landing on his name, however, Mulholland had to be open to allowing the statistics to challenge some of his own preconceptions.

“Before we got to the coach bit, we looked at what made a winning Scotland,” he said.

“That was nothing to do with the coach search, because in my head I thought: ‘How can you go and pick a coach to do certain things if you’re not 100 per cent certain what those certain things are?’

“So, when I started the search, one of the things I always thought was that you needed an experienced manager who’s been an international manager before. That was in my head. Then you look at the data, people doing an international job for the first time are more successful than those doing it for the second time. Which actually is probably logical because you only get the second job if you do well in the first one.

“Then I thought was about this age thing. There is no correlation between being over 50 or under 50 in terms of success in the job. Then, what about nationality? I’m thinking that might be a thing. There’s no correlation between being from that country or not being from that country. Look at the World Cup, 60 per cent of the coaches were from a different country. If we’re going to be this modern football nation we want to become, we need to accept that’s pretty normal now.

“Then, what do we need to do to actually win as a Scotland team, to get out of a group stage or something like that? We found out that the games against Brazil are less relevant. We did a study of 10 different countries, the same size of Scotland - wealth, population base, size, similar football history. They’ve continually got out of group stages, that’s where we want to be. What are they doing that we’re not doing?

“It’s about winning your winnable games. So, it’s about finding a coach that wins the games you’re expected to win. We’ve done that brilliantly in qualifiers throughout history. At tournaments, we probably haven’t.

“We did get unlucky because we got Morocco and Brazil. But the game against Brazil doesn’t really matter in some ways. Win the games you’re expected to win; that gets you out the group stage.

“Then you look at the data of the coach, okay, we’re not looking for the guy who wins big games all that often. We’re looking for the guy who wins the games we’re expected to win.”

A significant tick in the pro column for Pocognoli in Mulholland's view was his willingness to trust younger players in his previous positions with Union Saint-Gilloise and AS Monaco, something his predecessor was widely viewed as being reluctant to do.

“The other interesting bit was refreshing the floor of the squad; the younger players in the group,” he said.

“So, you keep your core group, and Steve was brilliant at that. Actually, we need to refresh the younger part of our group a bit more as well now. We have learned that.”