You know, it could all have been so different.
When I wrote the tweet, you know, the one about how I think Scotland will score, I genuinely felt we would. Holland where not great, even the Dutch newspapers today said so. Scotland where not much better, but they where playing with the sort of passion and commitment that’s been sadly lacking in their earlier displays.
They ran after every ball, and made sure the Dutch had as little time on the ball as possible to ensure that their normally crisp passing and movement did not have a chance to take over the game. The Dutch certainly had the better of the opening exchanges, with Dirk Kuijt hitting the post from long range, but the harassing style of Scotland’s play unsettled the Group 9 winners.
Scotland had a few chances to score – Scott Brown somehow managed to get himself on the end of a Naismith cross only to see the ball go inches past the wrong side of the post. Miller hit the crossbar, but by the far the best chance of the game came when Naismith fired in a low shot that took Dutch rookie keeper Vorm by surprise: the FC Utrecht keeper, making his debut for Holland, managed to tip Naismith’s cross onto the post. The rebound fell kindly for Kenny Miller, but his shot was fired right at the keeper who had done well to recover.
After all those chances, and with the Hampden crowd getting behind Burley’s men, it seemed almost a given that Scotland would score. But the game slowly turned as the Scots, tiring of the search for that elusive goal, started making mistakes. And it was a mistake by veteran defender David Weir that resulted in Holland scoring. His clumsy attempt at a clearance following a long ball out of the Dutch defence allowed Eljero Elia, the 22 year-old SV Hamburg striker to collect the ball and work his way neatly past Marshal.
So, that’s it. Another World Cup we’ll not be attending.
The finger pointing will start soon. It’s in our human nature to find a cause for the lack of success in this campaign. Some have called for the heads of SFA President and SFA Chief Executive, George Peat and Gordon Smith. There’s certainly a case to be made.
As the men in charge of the maintenance and development of the Scottish game, there’s not been much evidence of their ability to steady the ship and steer us in the right direction. Falling attendances, clubs, sponsors and TV companies have gone bust, accusations of cash for votes and board members with dual (financial) interests in clubs (all of which against the rules of their own organisation by the way), not to mention a Chief Executive that is quite willing to lay the blame of a poor World Cup campaign at the manager and an obscure, and often injured Wolves striker, point to a Football Association that has no idea what it’s doing, other than keeping the status quo.
What about George Burley? We’ve never been a fan of his over at Inside Left. He just never seemed to radiate the sort of authority and respect that I’d like to see in a manager. I suspect that feeling is also felt amongst the squad. You just can’t imagine Boyd walking out on Stein or McGregor and Ferguson going on a bender with Walter Smith still in charge.
What about the game itself? Our football is shocking. Technically inept and lacking any imagination, our football is of the ‘lump it up and see’ variety. Our attempts at a passing game is laughable to say the least, and it’s a strange world indeed when the best thing the world can say about our team is how good our goalie is. When he plays.
Years ago, Scotland strikers where feared, while our goalies where the butt of endless jokes. Nowadays, it seems to be the other way around. It would have been easier for Miller to score from Naismith’s rebound than to miss – a painful reminder, if one where needed, of Chris Uwelumo’s miss against Norway.
The answer to our problems probably lies in all three. We can sack the SFA Board, but you’d only be replacing it with more cronies. You can sack the managers, but he can only do as much as he can with the material he’s given with – a pig in a dress, after all, is still a pig. And you can improve the quality of the football only by the way in which kids are coached and the way in which coaches are coached.
We’ve a few more years to think about how to get Scottish football back on the rails.
The great hope is that we’ll have sorted something out by then to make sure we don’t struggle against the Iceland’s, Norway’s and Macedonia’s of this world. Judging by our clubs performances in Europe however, the fear of another struggling campaign are very real.
The draw for the UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying round will take place in Poland on 7 February next year. Where we end up depends on our League coefficient, the ranking of our league based on the performances of our club sides in Europe over the past 5 years. Scotland currently lie in 13th place, and with only Celtic and Rangers able to have any influence on that ranking between now and the draw, the chances are that we’ll be lumped in with the same teams we played for this World Cup Qualifying campaign.
And we all know how that one ended.
