These European GAmes - We can Win

REMEMBER how we used to laugh at Europe's diddy nations, forced into European action before the big summer festivals of the Euros or the World Cup had concluded. Now, of course, we are a diddy nation, so our guys, instead of spending the Glasgow Fair at Saltcoats, are heading off to obscure European destinations in search of European qualification.

 

The qualifying fixtures were announced this morning, and, in all honesty, our European hopefuls can be, well hopeful, of extending their European seasons into our own domestic one.

 

I would be surprised if KR Rejkavik can disrupt the new Viking/Scottish management team's start at Celtic. Once upon a time drawing an Icelandic team was a chance for Scottish strikers to boost their goals-for tally; no more, this one could well be tight, but, Celtic to win.

 

I also fancy St Johnstone, against Luzern, Motherwell, against either Icelandic or Welsh opponents and Aberdeern, against the Latvians from Riga, to at least get over their first hurdles. How far they go, thereafter, is a moot point, however.

 

Of course, now we are down among the lower orders, Scottish football will have to, at long last, address our place int he world and our view of ourselves.

 

I see Campbell Ogilvie has addressed this, just this week, with his suggestion that the season's boundaries be re-drawn. Of course, this being Scotland, the ranks of the "Aye Beeners" will surely dig-in and offer up copious false reasons why this will never happen.

 

But, until we start playing football in better weather, and on better conditions, Scotland will never5 climb to the high plains where we want to be, but have only ever kidded ourselves on we were at.

 

Summer fitba - you know it makes sense.

England Are Out - Let The Witch Hunt Commence

IT has started, it being the English media's post-World Cup expulsion witch hunt. Predictably, the first target for the ire of the paper tigers is Roy Hodgson, a fine man, a good, experienced manager, asked, by the silly system of English football, to try to make bricks without straw.

 

Thankfully, Greg Dyke, the FA Honcho, has been quick to back his manager, in a statement which was emphatic and by no means the usual "chairman's 100% backing", which normally sets-off negotiations around a settlement package to lever the manager out.

 

Hodgson will be staying, which is good news for England. He has done a great job in tempering the usual: "Here we go, here we go, here we go", bullish English approach to major championships with long-overdue realism.

 

It is his misfortune to have an England squad which is composed of a few great players - on the downward slope: Gerrard, Lampard and Rooney, plus some promising kids: Sturridge, Sterling, Oxlade-Chamberlain, but lacking genuine World Class, top of their game talent.

 

I know some will insist that Rooney is World Class. I disagree. He threatened to become thus when he burst on the scene, but, he has not trained-on to become anything more than a player who operates well in the biff, bang, bosh, relatively unsophisticated world of the FA Premiership, but has repeatedly proved himself incapable of that step-up to become a genuine threat on football's biggest stage.

 

Received knowledge in team-building is - you build a strong spine: goalkeeper, central defensive and midfield organisers and a prolific striker, then you fill-in around these four key men. When England won the World Cup (what do you mean when? - Haven't you heard? They beat West Germany in 1966, but, being English, they never mention it), they had in Gordon Banks and Bobby Moore the best goalkeeper and central defence organiser in the world; Bobby Charlton was one of the three best midfielders, and Jimmy Greaves one of the three best strikers.

 

They filled-in around there brilliantly, Ray Wilson was arguably the world's best left-back, George Cohen only slightly less a defender; Jackie Charlton was a top-flight "stopper" centre-half, Nobby Stiles was probably the best manmarker around at the time, while Alan Ball and Martin Peters offered width, energy and skill, while Roger Hunt did the unselfish running and supporting for Greaves - and Hurst, who had the dream final of dream finals.

 

No wonder, with home advantage, England won - that team, under an astute manager, was always going to be in at the sharp end of 1966.

 

If you had been picking a Best of the First Division XI in 1966, Banks, Wilson, Moore, Charlton and Greaves were shoo-ins, along with George Best and four Scots from about 15. If you were picking a Best of the English Premiership XI today, not a single Englishman would make the final XI.

 

That collapse in the face of the buy-foreign policy of the Premiership clubs, is the biggest hurdle Hodgson has to fight against.

 

Until the FA follows the RFU's line and makes it mandatory for their top-flight clubs to have a high percentage of England-qualified players in their squads, then England will qualify. And, don't give me the old: "EU laws mean we cannot insist on English players being prioritised - it's hogwash.

 

If Rugby's Aviva Premiership, the top-flight in England, can insist on 75% of each club's squad being "England-qualified", with the result that England is today, albeit in a smaller field, the leading country in Europe, then why cannot the FA Premiership make a similar demand of their member clubs?

 

This same question, by the way, can and should be asked about Scotland.

 

Until British football starts pushing British footballers and giving them a platform on which to improve, then England - who through sheer volume of numbers, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, will see their status in world football deminish.

 

Meanwhile, the World Cup goes on, and, once we get down to the knock-out phase, I will start to make-up my mind about which country I fancy to win it. As yet, it's too-early to say, other than, I fear the pressure of ex[ectation being heaped on them, may cause Brazil to implode dramatically.

They're Coming Home, They're Coming Home - England's Coming Home

IF - and, because we are Scots, it is a huge if, Scotland voters YES on 18 September, we can rise and be a nation again. One positive about this might, and hopefully will be, that we finally have a grown-up relationship with our English neighbours.

 

Having lived and worked down there, I know, on a personal level, they are no different from us. I met a lot of lovely English people and made firm friends during my spell in the south. I also met one or two right nyaffs whom I would not give house room - but, there are Scots up here of whom I could say the same.

 

Truly, we are all "Jock Tamson's bairns", even if big Jock might better have kept it zipped away some nights!

 

However, there is an element within the English-based media whom I cannot wait to see the back of - particularly at World Cup time. The on-going football fiesta in Brazil is the 17th World Cup which has had a British dimension. Sadly, after 16 previous goes, neither ITV, who broadcast last night's England v Uruguay matcvh, nor the BRITISH Broadcasting Corporation, has ever got round the relatively simple task of differentiating between Britain and England.

 

Their assumption is that everyone in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is supporting England; they see themselves as official cheerleaders for Engerlund, Engerlund, Engerlund, as they fervently wish for a repeat of the glorious deeds of 1966 and all that.

 

I suppose I am typical of most Scottish football fans: I wish no ill-will on England. I'd rather we were there too, but, in the absence of Scotland, England would appear to be the team we ought to support.

 

I want England to do well, but, after many years of exposure to the English media, and again with a nod to 1966 and all that - I don't want them to do too-well. Because, there is no happy medium with the English media.

 

It must be terrible being an English footballer, going from a world-beater to a turnip on the basis of one bad result; hyped to the heavens pre-match, then name-called on the basis on#f one error, made in the heat of a game; stumbling from "A Golden Generation" to dross with a few touches on a sub-editor's computer keyboard.

 

In the continuing absence of a Scottish team with global ambitions, relishing the English angst which follows another stumble out of the World Cup before the sharp end is as good as it gets for we Scottish football fans. And, in case any English readers have stumbled on this, don't think it is a one-way street - I had to suffer a lot of verbal stings on the back of our failure in 1978, when I was living and working in England.

 

The England squad in Brazil is a middling international side, but, it is a work in progress. That progress will be faltering and doomed to failure, however, for as long as the men at the top in the English Premiership clubs prefer to recruit and use foreign players and coaches and ignore bringing through English boys, whom they grtow into English men.

 

ITV and BBC, and Sky and BT Sport all hype-up the English Premiership as "The Greatest League In The World", forgetting, its "greatness" is under-pinned by big-money clubs trawling the globe for mainly foreign imports, a rocess which leaves poor Roy Hodgson as the latest England manager forced to cobble together, with the minimum of assistance from the clubs, an England team of players who are, by and large, not the main men with their clubs.

 

The best hope for a second World Cup win for England lies in a melt-down of the English Premiership, the loss of most of its money and a return to the top-flight in that country being a league in which the best players are British - mainly English. Such a calamity would also benefit Scotland.

 

Mind you, the fact that we are now, after the excesses of the Souness Revolution, reverting to being a Scottish League, in which the majority of the players are Scottish, has helped us regain some international credibility - there is a lesson there for the English, although I doubt if they will take it.

 

 

 

FINALLY, my mischievious side got a huge lift from the TV panning shot around the crowd in the aftermath of the Uruguayan winner.

 

There, slap bang in the middle of a block of delirious Uruguayans was a solitary Tartan Army foot soldier, resplendent in our new, quite terrible, "away" strip, waving a saltire and going just as berserk as the South Americans all round him.

 

Gaun yersel pal - we know where you are coming from. Clearly not a Better Together supporter I feel. 

No Scotland - Not Much To Get Excited About

I HAVEN'T truly got into the 2014 World Cup - maybe it's not having Scotland to worry about, with each passing Jock-less World Cup, the feeling doesn't go away; I cannot enjoy it without Scotland to worry about.

Sure, Holland doing Spain was great; otherwise, by passing on the live broadcasts and watching the morning highlights package on BBC, you don't miss all that much. Of course, the over-egging of the Engerlund, Engerlund, Engerlund pudding by the EBC, and perhaps even more so by ETC, has again began to grate.

Still, wearing my ABE t-shirt, I will be rooting for Uruguay tonight!!!

Not that I am anti-English, I simply relish the wailing and gnashing of teeth, from the English media,  which will follow their inevitable early exit. Well, when you are as poor as Scotland, you have to get your kicks somewhere.

Mind you, I am not entirely confident about Uruguay's chances of beating England tonight. This one has  draw written all over it.



BRAZIL have disappointed thus far, but, their squad is really under almost intolerable pressure to win the thing, and, I think this is getting to the players. Pressure to win did for Brazil in 1950 - might history repeat itself this year?



HIGHLIGHTS, thus far, have come from the pundits. I laughed at Neil Lennon's wee aside about big Amrbose and his inability to cross the ball. Away from the Glasgow madhouse, the ginger one has emerged as a cogent and thr#oughtful voice, and, hopefully, in the process done his hopes of a good gig in the English Premiership no hard.

I laughed even more when Gordon Strachan caught himself saying "We" in the context of England's hopes, then wanted to be thrown into the sea quickly, to cool off. Nicwe wee side-step from Daily Record criticism there Wee Man.



HOWEVER, for Scots, the big football story at the moment continues to be the soap opera Edmiston Drive. Charlie Green coming back, why not also Grant Mitchell, to bump him off and do us all a favour?

It will all end in more tears.

A Wee Bit Messi - But, They Won

LIONEL Messi has had a tough season. Barcelona are apparently on the wane, all the kickings he has endured over the years are beginning to take their toll, and he missed a chunk of last season through injury.

 

He needs, therefore, a good World Cup; he has to inspire Argentina in a manner which no player has managed since the implosion of Diego Maradona. Messi, like El Diego, is a very-special player, but, it might be argued, he is not surrounded with the quality of lesser player who supported Maradona.

 

Certainly, the likes of Aguero and Macherano are still fine players, but, particularly at the back, Argentina are not what they were and Messi is being asked to operate from a place of relative weakness, when compared to the hand with which Maradon had to play.

 

So, given the pressure he was under, the wee magician, I feel, put on a good show last night. OK, as ever, his performance was a wee bit over-rated by the TV critics; he was well-handled by the Bosnians, but, in a genuine show of class, he scored with the best, maybe the only, chance he got, and, having previously weighed-in with an assist for the opener, his was a good captain's performance.

 

But, the rest of the men in blue and white stripes, will have to get closer to their skipper's standards, if they are to figure at the sharp end of the tournament.

 

 

 

THE other big talking-point from Sunday's games was the French goal, the first in World Cup history, to be awarded by the new goal-line technology. Maybe, if FIFA had explained pre-tournament, how the technology would work when it came to public consumption, the kerfuffle between the referee getting the "goal" signal and awarding the strike, might have been averted. Hopefully, they will get it more-correct the next time.

 

A mention too, for the Brazilian referee in the France v Honduras match. I refer to his great good sense in booking Pogba and his Honduran sparring partner after their coming together in the first half.

 

A lot of referees would, perhaps, have booked the Honduran, then sent-off the Frenchman for his retaliation, but, Senor Ricci used his common sense to book both and calm things down. Sadly, the Honduran defender didn't learn, had another go at the big Juventus man, conceded a penalty and copped a second yellow and then a red card - silly boy.

 

I hoped, in vain, that wee Neil Lennon would chip in when it came to discussing Izzy's yellow card. After all, had he commited that foul in a Celtic strip, in a SPFL game, he would, had he been unlucky, sustained, at worse, a stern talking-to.

 

 

 

MIND you, the refereeing decision of the night was the sadvantage which the referee allowed for Switzerland to score that late, late, winner. Very good officiating indeed. 

Let's- This Once - Not Laugh At England

I AM not going to get carried away, but, just maybe, after their loss to the Italians last night, some of our neighbours South of the Solway, will, grudgingly, concede that, when we of the Tartan Army tell them: "You're shite, but you don't know you are", we are singing from a wish to alleviate pain and suffering, not being twisted, jealous "Sweaties", merely offering significant insight.

After all, is not the Tartan Army, through years of exposure to the stuff, the font of all knowledge when it comes to identifying shite football teams?

Those arbiters of good football sense, the English media, will, as ever, attempt to "spin" last night's defeat as, yet another, case of: "Our brave lads giving their all and coming up just short".

Pre-match, I was convinced Italy would win; this morning, I am again wishing I had the strength of my convictions and had wagered some of my hard-earned on Mario Balotelli scoring the winning goal. This outcome was, considering the torrid time the Italian centre forward endured at the hands of the Saxon "Fans with lap tops", always likely.

Similarly, given the two countries now face a "Must Win" match, in Sao Paolo, on Thursday night; regardless of the fact the odds on this evenbtually will be slashed by the bookies - I feel a small wager on Luis Suarez getting Uruguy's winner might pay dividends.

However, less any English visitor, and whoever you are, sir or madam, welcome; this particular Sweatie wishes our neighbours no ill-will. There were moments of hope amidst the disappointment of last night.

Some of the younger men in white offer hope for the future, Stevie Gerrard remains a class act, Roy Hodgson is a good manager - his team is not out of things yet.

Sure, the Uruguay game is, as I said earlier, a "Must Win" game. Furthermore, even some of the red top tabloid hacks have ratcheted back their normal "Engerlund Expects" rhetoric as a new sense of realism has struck home. But, last night's loss was not the end of the world.

Oh how I wish it had been us.

LET us now consider the other big game of last night, the Scotland women's team's loss to Sweden, at Motherwell.

Sure, it was a disappointing set back for the girls, but, as I listened to the BBC Scotland radio commentary, I was struck by how many chances we made - and missed. On another night.....

The Swedish girls are an outstanding outfit, but, we ran them close. The Swedes were always favourites, they will now probably, as expected, win the group, but, the play-off place is still up for grabs and, we can still get to Canada next year.

Scotland back at a World Cup, what an example that would set for our men. Gaun yersel hen!!

FINALLY, Costa Rica beating Uruguay last night should make us feel better. They can beat good teams too, and maybe we should give them more credit for beating us back at Italia '90.

Then, we should maybe ask - did we learn from that?

No.

Did we learn from losing to Paraguay in 1958, not scoring enough goals against Zaire in 1974, Peru and Iran in 1978, failing to beat ten-man Uruguay in 1986, not beating Norway, then losing to Morocco in 1998?

Maybe, instead of blaming Tommy Younger in 1958; Willie Ormond, Peter Lorimer, Denis Law and Joe Jordan in 1974, Ally MacLeod, Willie Johnston and Don Masson in 1978; Willie Miller and Alan Hansen in 1982; Alex Ferguson and Stevie Nicol in 1986; Andy Roxburgh and Jim Leighton in 1990; Craig Brown and Craig Burley in 1998, we ought to be blaming the men who have really held Scotland back these past 50-years or so - the Hampden blazers.

I fear, until we have a bonfire of the blazers, we will be condemned to be on the outside, looking in, on the big occasions.

The Future's Bright - The Future's Oranje - Or Is It?

WELL. Did anyone see that one coming? I refer to Holland's demolition of Spain in the outstanding game - thus far - of the World Cup. Four years ago, in South Africa, I hoped The Oranje would re-discover the flair and elan of past masters and have a go at the Spanish. Instead, they settled for a square-go, and, in every way but via goals, lost heavily.

 

Last night was retribution, in spades. Of course, the Dutch being quite simply, Scotland with skill, will probably self-destruct somewhere between now and the end of the tournament, but, Robbin and Van Persie have already left us with memories which will keep us going until 2018.

 

It was sad to see Cassillas have such a bad night. But, like poor Frank Haffey all those years ago, he seems fated to carry the can for failings in front of him.

 

Chile v Australia was another cracking game. I am enjoying this World Cup already.

 

 

 

FORTY applicants to replace Big Tel at Easter Road - just goes to show the continuing appeal of football management, as Old Big 'Ead himself - Brian Clough - said, the only occupation in which the only guarantee is the sack, eventually.

 

Leeanne Dempster will be busy sifting through the wannabees, but, it was interesting this week to see the announcement of a grassroots development agreement between Hibs and Spartans. This might not do much for whoever Ms Dempster eventually appoints, but, could have significant implications for his successor, or successor plus one.

 

 

 

MY SECOND daughter is a chartered librarian, who seems determined to augment my small knowledge of football. For Father's Day, as well as a nice bottle of something fruity and red, she presented me with 'The Numbers Game', sub-titled: "Why everything you know about football is wrong".

 

This book, by Chris Anderson and David Sally is, according to the plugs on the cover: "A must read" - 'Moneyball's' Billy Beane; "The book that could change football for ever" - 'The Times'; and, "Makes the beautiful game even more beautiful" - Malcolm Gladwell.

 

It is a smashing read, thus far, and I still have a long way to go, since it isn't "holiday" reading, but requires time and thought. However, already, it is clear, that luck and happenstance has arguably more relevance in the game than skill and tactics. Fascinating stuff.

EARLIER this week, self and some other coffin dodgers were on a night-out with the gentleman's club to which I belong. As we came away from the sports centre we had been at, an Under-10s boys team was in training.

 

Their coaches, looked to be stereotypical of their breed - they had the kids working hard on running, with narry a ball in sight.

 

One of our group, a man with many years' experience of the old pre-Top Ten, Scottish First Division, looked on, then pontificated.

 

"There' the future of Scottish Fitba for you - they'll be able to run all day, but unable to trap a bag of cement".

 

Ah, the wisdom of the ages.