Trigger-happy Tartan Army must trust in Clarke ethos
MENTION The Hampden Roar and brace yourself for the sniggering at the back.
Long before Covid restrictions ensured there were weeds and cobwebs surrounding the Mount Florida entrances, the ‘roar’ had been reduced to little other than a desperate cry for help. For the last two decades there just hasn’t been much to shout about.
It was difficult to see last night’s UEFA Nations League opening game at Hampden against Israel as anything to get too excited about. It was never going to hold the same weight as the Euro
2020 play-off semi-final next month against the same side given that it is the precarious lifeline that has the potential to end the exile from major international tournaments.
To that end, at least last night reacquainted players with one another as they prepare to conquer the great frontier in taking Scotland back to a tournament.
The big hopes of this team – Kieran Tierney and Andy Robertson – were still in infancy the last time Scotland were rubbing shoulders with the great and the good of elite football. Robertson has won a Champions League and an English Premier League title, while Tierney has done more than just win admirers since cementing his place in Mikael Arteta’s Arsenal side. Tipped as a future captain for the North London club, the 23-year-old has replicated the influence he exhibited at Celtic at Arsenal now that the injury issues he arrived at the club with are behind him.
The £25million that the Premier League side paid for him looks like quite the steal.
It is only, right, then that Scotland manager Steve
Clarke should look to build his team around the duo. The careers that both have had might look straightforward from the outside but the duo have had to fight to get to where they are now. If the comparisons between the two feel tedious to them, it is a weary argument too in terms of who should play for their country. Scotland simply don’t have the option of not deploying players who can genuinely hold their own at the highest level.
Robertson bristles, rightly, when his career is described as a fairytale that took him from working part-time in Marks and Spencer for Christmas cash and playing for Queen’s Park to lifting silverware with Liverpool because it belies the tenacity, sacrifice and hard work that went into the journey.
Tierney was the second last player in a youth team at Celtic to be offered a professional contract. By the time Ronny Deila arrived at the Parkhead side, he was the second-choice left-back for the club’s under-19 team.
That it hasn’t been given to them on a plate might explain some of the characteristics that mark their attitude and temperament and right now Scotland need every bit of help they can get. Any advances that Scotland make tend to feel fragile with the weight of the last 20 years whispering at its back. There needs to be success by making it through the qualification stages to tournaments.
Getting to next summer’s delayed competition still seems like a fairly steep ask given the complexities of the play-off games which await. But if it proves to be another close call that ends in disappointment, then it isn’t the time to be calling for heads and demanding change but rather to properly assess if progress is being made.
THE soap opera between Lionel Messi and Barcelona took a fresh turn last night as the Argentine decided he’d be staying at the Nou Camp after all.
It is not his love affair with the Catalan club that is the root of his change of heart but rather the complexities of what would be a messy and public divorce through the courts.
What comes next will be interesting. Messi and his father, Jorge, have not been too shy at making their feelings knows towards club president Josep Maria Bartomeu. If the next twist to the drama is that Bartomeu suddenly finds himself out of a job, it will not reflect well on Messi. Not that he would lose too much sleep.
The optics, though, wouldn’t look good.
And one can only wonder about a dressing room where one player holds so much power – and can use it to fairly devastating effect.
The season that comes promises to hold our interest as Messi plays under a head coach he didn’t want and a president he doesn’t get on with.
It is an uneasy truce as Messi stays to avoid either paying out the €700million clause in his contract or dragging the fight through court.
The lawyers aren’t involved yet but the likelihood is that there is further aggro to come.