WHERE do we go from Here? Probably not to France next summer. That's my take on last night's loss to the Germans.
This was one game which Gordon Strachan had almost certainly written-off. I certainly felt the best we could hope for was a draw, except, the Germans didn't have the bad night at the office which we needed them to have, for this to happen. But, we are still not out of things, given how the remaining matches fall.
Mind you, having a long memory, I remember how, the main reason we failed to make the World Cup Finals in 1966, wasn't that injuries forced us to field Ron Yeats at centre forward in the final game in Naples. No, it was because, from 1-o up, with five minutes to play, we managed to lose to Poland, at Hampden, in the ante-penultimate match of that campaign.
It was two points for a win back then. We took all four from our games with Finland, two of the four against Italy, but, only one out of four against the Poles. That's the principal reason why, I am not counting my chickens for our meeting with them next month.
Of course, we are already banking the three points we will win against Gibraltar in Faro in our final qualifier. OK, the Gibraltarians are by far the weakest internaitonal side in Europe, but, this is Scotland we are discussing.
In a final, chips-are-down, must-win situation, my admittedly jaundiced view of Scotland's prospects isn't so-much "Murphy's Law" - If it can go wrong, it will; it is more "O'Reilly's Corollary" to Murphy's Law - That Murphy always was an optimist.
Even then, IF we scrape into the play-offs, this being Scotland, I expect us to draw one of the big boys, who has had a horrendous qualifying campaign - the Dutch, I understand might fit the bill here. They suddenly find their form, we get thrashed and can take our normal position come the finals - noses pressed longingly to the outside of the windows.
IF we don't qualify, it will mark a sea-change in the Tartan Army's relationship with Wee Gordon Strachan. At the moment the ginger one remains a TA icon. We like him, we appreciate what a good player he was with Scotland, he came in at a difficult time, he liftd our spirits, but - remember, 24 nations in the finals represents roughly 45% of the countries in membership of UEFA.
If Scotland cannot be in the top 45% of international countries, then we have failed. We are clearly not as good as we think we are. We have failed to match our own expectations. At the start of the new season, we were ranked 30th in Europe, nowhere near good enough for own sense of where we should be, but, if we do fail to qualify - that ranking will be a reality check.
Mind you, there have been a few reality checks over the years, but, reality never seems to intrude on Hampden's corridors of power.
I make the following forecast now, on Tuesday, 8 Septembr, 2015:
We may still qualify automatically, but this is now unlikely
Our best hope of qualifying is via the play-offs
If we get there, we will most-likely meet a "better" team, who will beat us
If we do qualify, we will, again, be "home before the post cards"
Qualification alone will be seen as vindicating the status quo in Scotland
Nothing will change - and we will continue to struggle and under-perform
SCOTTISH FOOTBALL REQUIRES ROOT AND BRANCH REFORM - FROM THE PREMIERSHIP RIGHT DOWN TO SCHOOLS AND YOUTH FOOTBALL. UNTIL THE WILL IS THERE FOR A TRULY WIDE-RANGING AND COMPREHENSIVE REFORM OF OUR STRUCTURES AND ATTITUDE - SCOTLAND WILL CONTINUE TO HAVE A GLORIOUS FOOTBALL PAST AND A TERRIBLE FUTURE.
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