The Glory Is In Winning

INTERNATIONAL football is an Olympic sport, but yet again it isn't, because at international level the glory is all about winning rather than taking part.

Football is arguably the world's oldest team sport - they probably had a cave league in Neanderthal times, kicking around an animal skin stuffed with moss or something.

It is also just about the simplest, no handling, kick the ball between two posts, or jackets, or bricks and you score a goal; score more than your opponents and you win. There are no marks for technical difficulty, or content of performance: dribbling round eight opponents then nutmegging the goalkeeper to score doesn't carry a higher scoring tariff than a mis-hit trundler hitting the centre half's ankle and, with the keeper wrong-footed, going into the net.

So, why all the wailing and gnashing of teeth because we struggled to beat Liechtenstein last night. FFS, this is Scotland we're talking about - when your Dad first takes you to Hampden as a Tartan Army Cadet, he really ought to explain to you: "Son, we're in this for the long haul - you are about to learn the true meaning of suffering, mental torture, squashed expectations, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but, noli illegetimi carborundum and all that; it's character-forming and part of your Scottish heritage.

I also don't hold with this being "Scotland's worst-ever result", because we won and as I said at the start, international football is all about winning.

What about 0-0 with Luxembourg in Esch in December 1987? The Scotland team that night was: Jim Leighton; Maurice Malpas, Derek Whyte/Gary Mackay (62), Roy Aitken, Alex McLeish, Willie Miller, Pat Nevin/Eric Black (62), Paul McStay, Graeme Sharp, Ian Wilson, Mo Johnston.

If you were asked to pick a team from that squad, plus last night's against Liechtenstein - I'd bet the 1987 side would have more in it, but they couldn't beat another of Europe's minnows.

Then there was the Iran game; aye, the Iran game in 1978 - try as I might to essuage it, the pain of that one will never go away. OK our guys were still in shock from the Willie Johnston drugs case, but - we went into that World Cup ranked number three in Europe and one of the favourites for the quarter-finals. We had: Alan Rough; Sandy Jardine, Martin Buchan/Tam Forsyth, Kenny Burns, Willie Donachie; Archie Gemmill, Lou Macari, Asa Hartford, John Robertson, Joe Jordan and Kenny Dalglish/Joe Harper, yet we needed an own goal to get a draw.

This team: Adam Blacklaw; Alex Hamilton, Davie Holt, Dave Mackay/Frank McLintock, Ian Ure, Jim Baxter, Willie Henderson, Davie Gibson, Ian St John, Denis Law and Davie Wilson managed to lose 3-4 in Norway in 1963. Norway were then rated about where Liechtenstein are today, eight of our team had played and won at Wembley in April - yet we lost.

Embarrassing the big boys, then embarrassing ourselves against the wee boys has long been the way for Scotland. So why was it so bad on Tuesday night?

It's not as if we had Law, Baxter, Mackay, Gemmill, Robertson, Jardine, Dalglish, Miller and McLeish and Co in our side the other night - we had Stephen McManus, Lee McCulloch, Scott Brown, Kris Boyd. Aye, we've fallen a long way, but we haven't bottomed-out.

Of course, our game is a lunatic asylum and the inmates are in charge; the system is slewed against talent and skill - it will not change quickly.

So why don't we keep the heid, accept our limitations, but, instead of moaning - do something about it.