Things Can Only Get Better - Maybes Aye, Maybes Naw

BEATEN in Brussels, bottom of the group, bang goes Brazil - can it get any worse for Scotland? I wish I could say no, however, we must recognise, we may not - however much we might hope for improvement - yet have reached rock bottom in the fall of football in the country which first gave it shape.

 

Watching last night's game, I realised, long before half time, that our luck couldn't possibly last and at some point during the 90 minutes, we would concede a goal. Once we lost one, we were always more likely to lose two, or more, than to get back on terms - the difference in quality between the two sets of players was simply too great.

 

We didn't have a single player, with the exception of Darren Fletcher, who would have got near the Belgian starting XI. Quite simply, we've stopped producing players who can trap the ball, make anything more difficult than a basic pass or who look remotely comfortable with the ball at their feet.

 

Certainly, the players gave their all; they scrambled, they battled, but, their basic lack of skill when compared with their opponents, was all too-obvious. We got off lightly.

 

So, as expected, the press and the Tartan Army have reverted to their default position - Sack the Manager. Believe me, it would not help - whether the man at the top is Craig Levein, Gordon Strachan or anyone else, they will only be able to piss with the pricks they've got and right now, our pricks (players), simply are not up to the job.

 

The first requirement of international players is that they keep the ball once they get it; the Belgians could and did do this - our guys couldn't. The frenetic 100 mph world of the SPL, or battling for survival at the foot of the English Premiership or the top of the Championship, the places where the bulk of our squad operate, are not places where players learn to be comfortable on the ball.

 

Our whole football landscape needs to be altered - is the will there, within the Hampden corridors of power, for the changes to make this happen being put in place? I don't think so.

 

Belgium had a couple of bad qualifying campaigns, so sat down and worked on it, to produce their current Golden Generation. Our own Golden Generations were much earlier than that - but the will to sort things out has never existed within Hampden and until it does, we are going nowhere.

 

It'snot Craig Levein who needs to go: it is Campbell Ogilvie, Stewart Regan and the other "blazers". We need a bonfire of the vanities before we can think again of World Cup or European Championship qualification.

 

 

 

NEVER mind, IF UEFA and FIFA do what they ought to, we will not have to worry about Serbia coming between us and Brazil 2014. Following the disgraceful scenes in their Under-21 match with England last night, Serbia should be immediately banned from all international football - until their fans learn how to behave.

 

Again, as with the SFA, however, I am not holding my breath. The movers and shakers in Switzerland pay lip service to anti-racvism, without actually doing too-much about it. Far easier to hand out token fines and bans to Celtic and Rangers fans who step out of line than to do something about in-bred European racism.

 

We Scots are, after all, a small, marginal and far-away nation, of which the Eurocrats in the cantons know little. Better to beat them up than to sort out the real bigots. There are times when I sympathise with the little Englanders who wish to take back control of the games they invented during Victoria's long reign.

 

 

 

SO, Craig Whyte has broken cover to speak to BBC Scotland - just before BDO takes over as Rangers' liquidators from administrtators Duff & Phelps. As I have long suspected might happen - things are about to get really interesting. The truth is out there, but, how long must we wait before we learn what that truth is?