Well Done Portugal, But What A Cheer-Leading Job CR7 Did

HANDS up everyone who saw that one coming – I refer to the Ronaldo injury, and Portugal going on to win Euro 2016. As I thought, not many; demonstrating once again, football's infinite capacity to jump up and boot you in knackers of pre-match expectations.

I had actually backed Portugal to win on Sunday night, although my reasoning was that, finally, CR7 would take the game by the scruff of the neck and put the ball in the net on the only three occasions all night that Portugal got close to the French goal. Why, I even fancied, after 43 or so failures, he would put one away from a free-kick. I certainly didn't ever see him being carried off and forced to urge his side home from the technical area.

I have always thought, once he hangs up his boots, CR7 will be done with football, after last night, I am not so sure, he just might make a great manager – why, at one point towards the end of extra time, he was reprising the Alex Ferguson watch tap.

Now, John Terry, if you were watching – that is how to star in a game you didn't play in. At least, Ronaldo deserved the right to collect the trophy.

And well done the other Portugese. You were supposed to crumble when the largest ego in the solar system left the field, instead, you buckled down and won it. And, by the way: Pepe, when he concentrates on his job – what a defender.

France – Merde!

 Pepe - stuck to his job on Sunday night, brilliantly

 

WELL, that's the Euros over, now we can look forward to the start of the World Cup qualifying campaign. Let's hope WGS makes a better fist of opposing England than the Labour Party is making of opposing the Tories.

Just as the Tory Party is a wee bit distracted by internal wrangling, as it seeks a new leader, so, the FA and the England team has a distraction – the succession to Roy Hodgson. Can we Scots, just once, take advantag of English disarray and give ourselves a great start to the qualifying campaign?

We begin in Malta, then entertain Lithuania, before going to Slovakia – we MUST be looking at a minimum of seven points from these three games, to give us maximum confidence for the trip to Wembley in November. England might have a new boss by then, but, he will still be finding-out about his new squad. England's campaign start is: Slovakia away, Malta at home and Slovenia away. We might well go to Wembley above them in the group table. Time, in fact, way past time, for a rare Wembley win.

Gordon Strachan - we are overdue a Wembley win wee man

 

ONE of the leading Scottish football “churnalists”, in his weekly column today, bemoaned the ever-lengthening fixture list, and its effect on players, leading to burn-out.

FFS laddie, we've been talking about burn-out for generations. I can recall this first came up as an excuse for the failure of so-many of our gilded youth from the 1989 Junior World Cup to train-on and become full internationalists.

Avoiding burn-out is all about having a strong enough squad and proper squad rotation. Hell, Glasgow Warriors had 21 players away on World Cup duty during last season and still got to the Pro12 play-off final, because Gregor Townsend and his coaches know how to manage resources and rotate the squad properly. I reckon Brendan Rodgers, for one, could field his “reserve” team most weeks in the Premiership and still win. Believe me, football has a long, long way to go in properly managing and rotating squads. Mind you, over-playing due to big tournaments has not been a Scottish problem this century, so our managers can hardly cite over-playing and tiredness for the fact, Scottish fitba is crap. Burn-out is not an issue in Scottish fitba, lack of ability is.

To cite another protocol from rugby; the English RFU, has a deal with the top clubs, whereby they have to field 70% “England-qualified” players in each match-day squad, but, players who are in the England team are limited to a certain number of games in a season – to prevent burn-out.

Now, I accept, rugby is a more-physically-demanding game, but, if the RFU and the English Rugby Premiership can come up with such a deal, why cannot the SFA and the Scottish Football Premiership?

Well, we know why, Certain two clubs, who have barely a Scot in either first-team squad, would not like it, so, it will not happen; and never mind if Scotland suffers.