OK – We are coming home, another tournament, another early exit, another “Best Supporters” battle honour for the Tartan Army. We've been here before, and, unless there is a sysmic change within Scottish fitba's corridors of power, we will be here again – perhaps in two years, maybe in four, maybe further down the line. It seems to be some sort of Caledonian Curse, guaranteed to continually gie ye the boak.
So, we're back to our normal position around the big football shows: outside looking in, assuaging our hurt by enjoying the fun as the English Media turns on their under-performing team, while we mutter “ABE – Anyone But England” and waiting for the moment when football does not come home.
Before we go any further, let's kick the elephant out of the room – the “Stonewall Penalty” we didn't get, late in the day. That Argentinian referee had never heard of Scotland's 100% support for “The Hand of God”. My view, we don't often gtet those sorts of decisions. To me, it was a penalty, but, the referee decided, both players were wrestling so let it go – we live with it.
This was yet another example of the Jock Stein dictum: “you don't give referees a chance to make a decision which can hurt you.” Maybe, if Stuart Armstrong hadn't had a grab at the Hungarian defender's shirt, we might have got it. But, that said, when you have as much possession as we had in the first half, and don't force the opposition goalkeeper into a save – you don't deserve to progress.
In any case, just as the Diddy Teams seldom if ever, even with VAR, get penalties at Castle Greyskull or the Estadio del Giro, Scotland doesn't get many refereeing breaks on the big stage. When we do: Peru 1978, England 1996 for instance, we find scoring from the spot a bit of a problem.
What happens next? Stevie Clarke might, or might not, resign/be sacked, leaving someone else – David Moyes perhaps – to carry forward the poisoned chalice of trying to match Scottish expectations with the reality of a football system which has been broken for years and which the game's high heid yins show absolutely no inclination to fix.
The BBC ran a graphic in their build-up to the game, in which they showed the number of Scottish players in the first season of the English Pfremier League, compared with this season. It was a decline from something like 40 players, playing a total of nearly 70,000 minutes over the season to some 15 players playing fewer than 20,000 minutes today.
Wullie Shankly used to say the secret to winning in England was to have”Enough Scottish players to make a difference, but not so-many that they start fighting with each other.” Back in Shankly's day, they could hold Scotland v England training games within the squad. These days, Scottish players in the Premiership are like rocking horse shite.
Our development of young players is now terrible. I remember the Chairman of one of our bigger Diddy Teams, attempting to sell-on a young “star” to an English Premiership club and trying to use the fact the teenager was already a Scotland Undeer-21 cap, to elevate the transfer fee, being told by the representative of the purchasing club: “You get a Scotland Under-21 cap for knowing we play with a round ball”. That representative was a 30-times-capped Scotland player.
That kid, by the way, never played a first-team game for his English club. The manager who signed him was let-go and his successor, another Scot, didn't fancy the youngster and never picked him.
A friend of mine, sadly no longer with us, had played for an English club in the old First Division, before it became the Premiership. He went down for a team reunion, to be asked by one of the older backroom coaches at his old club: “What are you teaching young players up in Scotland now. It used to be, you Jocks came down here, demanding the ball and able to dominate games, the kids we are bringing south today can barely trap the ball”?
So where do we go from here? Has Stevie Clarke reached his sell-by date? Do we sack him, or has he perhaps earned the right to say: “I've taken this squad as far as I can, it's time to give somebody else a shot”?
In which case – who? Some of the television-watching corps of the Tartan Army felt Davie Moyes has been auditioning for the role over the course of the campaign, but, big Davie apart, who else has the combination of experience and the background for the job?
Top-flight Scottish managers used to be ten a penny, today, they are an endangered species and, after Berti Vogts are we ready for another non-Scot, assuming somebody would want to take a job which is a bit like missionary work in a third world country, given the structure of our game?
Before posting this entry, I took a long hard look at our record over the 34 World Cup or European Championship campaigns we have mounted. It does not make encouraging reading:
In 34 qualifying campaigns over 74 years, we've played 266 games, winning 133 (50%), drawing 58 and losing 75.
We have qualified for the finals 12 times (38%)
Our average finishing position in those finals is 15th out of 20 teams
We have only topped our qualifying group 5 times in 12 successful campaigns
In only 6 of the 12 successful qualifying campaigns have we had a winning record (winning more than half of the games)
So qualifying has always been a struggle, but, that's the easy part, it's when we actually get to the big show that Scotland's troubles really show.
In 12 Finals tournaments since 1954 (70 years), we've played 35 games, winning just 6 (17%), drawing 10 and losing 19.
These 12 tournaments have covered 8 World Cups and 4 Euros.
Our average finiishing position is 16th of 20 teams
In World Cup Final tournaments we've played 23 games, winning 4 (17%), drawing 7 and losing 12
Our average finishing position is 16th of 21 teams
Our best World Cup finish was 9th of 16 in 1974
Our worst World Cup finish was 15th of 16 teams in 1954
In our 4 European Championship Finals appearance we've played 12 games, winning 2 (17%), drawing 3 and losing 7
Our average finishing position is 21 of 24 teams
Our best Euros finish was 5th of 8 teams in 1992 - our first finals
We are on-course for our worst performance when this season's group games are concluded, since we are looking likely to finish 23rd or 24th of the 24 teams participating
Such consistently poor performances have consequences, we keep changing Managers after each and every one of them fails to match Scottish expectations with performances. The job has been given to some of the most-celebrated of Scottish managers, it appears to make little difference.
I have long held, it is our system that is wrong. Our game and the way we organise it, manage it and promote it is badly broken and, until we get people onto that sixth floor corridor at Hampden, where apparently all the big decisions are taken, capable of not only saying: “These repeated failures are unacceptable”, but forcing through the necessary changes which will make the national team capable of at least getting out of the groups and competing at the sharp end of the international game, then we might as well stay at home and do impressions of John Laurie in his role as Private Frazer.
Because we appear doomed to further years of anguish and bitter disappointment.
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