Sorry Scotland in terminal decline
THE operation could yet turn out to be a complete success. Trouble is, what if the patient is already dead? Where do we go if not even Steve Clarke’s expert scalpel can restore some sort of life into a national team which feels as if it has already slipped away into another world? Because if it does transpire that Clarke knows precisely what surgery is required – even if his are entirely the right pair of hands for this job – it is starting to feel as if this entire set-up has exhausted its usefulness as well as its own will to live. If Clarke really was Scotland’s last hope then why are we all sitting around again picking through the bones of yet another post-mortem after
seeing his side being butchered by Belgium on Monday night, three days after it was ravaged by the Russians?
Scotland’s plight feels so pointless. So lifeless. So utterly devoid of soul.
This is no longer a functioning football team, it’s an empty shell. And, more and more often, a source of excruciating national embarrassment.
That just over 20,000 of the Tartan Army bothered to turn up to back their team against the No.1-ranked side on the planet tells a sorry story of a potentially terminal decline.
Five years ago, near the start of Gordon Strachan’s era, Scotland pulled in a crowd of over 59,000 for a European qualifier against the Republic of Ireland at Celtic Park. Six months later more than 34,000 were at Hampden to watch a match against Gibraltar.
And when Strachan set off on a blind-side run at qualification for the 2018 World Cup, almost 47,0000 were packed on to the slopes of the National Stadium to see his team defeat Slovakia.
Although that campaign ended in another agonising near miss it saw Scotland soar up the FIFA rankings from 67th position to 29th. It felt as if we might be alive and kicking all over again.
So there were some of us who railed against Stewart Regan’s dim-witted decision to remove Strachan while warning supporters to be careful what they wished for. Two years on,
Clarke finds himself answering the emergency. Scrubs splattered in Scotland’s blood.
Having accepted – as he has been forced to do – that Group I is already a goner, Clarke will continue to dig around into the guts of the issues facing his side before attempting to patch it all up again in time for March, when Scotland will have one final chance of resuscitation and maybe even redemption through the Euro 2020 play-offs.
Of course, by the time this Hail Mary comes around we will sit up again and pay attention but right now observing Scotland’s demise is no more than a ghoulish exercise in rubber-necking.
Clarke may not have been at the wheel when the damage was done but no matter. He is in charge of this car crash now so he has to take the responsibility for it from here on in.
He has to accept too that, so far, his methods have made no material impact on the performance level.
Yes, there were spells on Monday when Scotland moved the ball with more accuracy and purpose than they managed against Russia and the manager was still clinging to those phases of play when he fronted up his media duties in the immediate aftermath.
He was right to look for some sort of solace – any sort for that matter – because if Clarke loses belief in his own ability to make a difference then there really will be no point in carrying on.
But then again, the problem does not lie with him. Rather, it’s the rest of the country which has lost all faith and it is the toxic apathy this has created which is suffocating Scotland at every turn. Clarke probably didn’t help his own credibility levels after the Russian debacle when he insisted the situation was not necessarily as dire as it appeared to almost everyone else.
He remained adamant that it could all be turned around against Belgium which sounded rather desperate at the time but which made him look dangerously close to delusional as the goals started flying in past David Marshall during Monday night’s first half.
Of course, Clarke was merely saying what he felt he had to say but if Scotland’s problems are ever to be fixed then there has to be a more realistic acceptance and appraisal of the state we have got ourselves into.
There was not a chance in hell that this team would bounce straight back against the best side on the planet and to suggest anything otherwise was an insult to the nation’s intelligence.
Fans will turn away in their droves now for what is left of this funeral procession. Of the four remaining games Clarke could rattle off wins at home to San Marino and Kazakhstan and away to Cyprus but it won’t make a blind bit of difference to the national mood – especially if his team is turned over again next time out in Moscow as seems more than likely.
Even if the patient is hanging on by its fingertips, all patience has now left the building.
In the meantime, Clarke can do no more than get on about the work he was rushed in to do even though he may be deafened by the sound of flatlining over these next few weeks and months.
It’s not too late. There may still be life after the death of this latest campaign. But right now Clarke might be the only man alive who can be bothered trying to find it.