Why are we so willing to fill role of losers?
HOW dispiriting it is that the footballing black spot of Gibraltar, once so far off the radar that not even the Hubble Telescope could pick up coverage of their matches, should now be the prism through which we can see exactly how far we have fallen.
This is not just a matter of tumbling co-efficients and ranking positions, though. It is about the everreducing expectations we appear to have of ourselves and the creeping acceptance that there exists no real right to demand much more.
We have become a country of compliant losers, conditioned by a chronic lack of achievement and a mismanaged national sport, and we are all, of course, to blame.
This particular malady has been evident for some time, but it has taken two recent journeys into the absolute hinterland of the game to leave little doubt over just how far down the rabbit hole we are.
Nine months ago, a Euro 2016 campaign that had unravelled with the slow certainty of a glacial shift took the national team to the Algarve to meet dear old Gib.
The hosts didn’t have a stadium at home worthy of the name, but could, at least, boast their first international goal from an outing at Hampden against a Scotland side which employed the discipline and tactics you would expect from a group of six-year-olds spotting a bouncing ball at the other end of the playground.
The encounter, a 6-0 procession in the end, promised all the bleak cheerlessness of a fence-painting competition in post-industrial Fife.
Instead, 12,000 Scotland supporters turned it into the most grotesque celebration of our inadequacy. The players staged a lap of honour, no less. Gordon Strachan described it as one of the most memorable evenings of his career, an evening, remember, in which his team’s inability to finish third in a six-team group ensured a ninth consecutive major finals would be taking place without us.
Do those involved have any grasp of how this absurd scene must have looked to outsiders?
The Tartan Army, for the record, was not always thus. I recall, having experienced some complications with the inner compass and ended up in the wrong end of the Estadio da Luz, witnessing Andy Roxburgh being targeted by discarded scarves and plastic tumblers after a five-goal defeat to the Portuguese in 1993. Nowadays, the chances are such a result would simply be regarded, much like recent humblings, as one of those things.
Our last appearance in the finals of a tournament offered ominous portents, mind you. Having capitulated against Morocco in the closing game of France 98, the night air reverberated to the sound of tubby accountants in kilts and embroidered polo shirts performing a conga around the perimeter at time-up and demanding the team come back out of the tunnel.
Mercifully, at that relatively early stage in our descent, they knew better.
Nowadays, one cannot be so sure. When supporters shy away from turning a harsh spotlight on those who run and represent their teams — whether through a misplaced sense of loyalty or a belief it will offer ammunition to rivals — it affords them a certain wiggle room to change the narrative. In Rangers’ case, it resulted in much more.
What happened with Scotland in Faro was embarrassing. Alan McRae, the SFA president, had already stated Strachan would be receiving a new contract no matter what happened in the group and has since felt emboldened by the lack of any genuine outcry over our failings to suggest the manager should stay on until 2020.
Likewise, Celtic’s Champions League defeat to Lincoln Red Imps was beyond ignominious. The conduct of their manager, Brendan Rodgers, meanwhile, nothing short of incredible.
Pre-match, he claimed he was treating this collection of coppers and labourers like Barcelona. His insistence afterwards that there was no need to feel embarrassed was staggering. Are ‘football people’ so insulated from reality that they think this claptrap has started to wash?
Circling the wagons and playing down expectation seems to be a common approach here now, though, to the extent that Aberdeen beating Ventspils at home engenders outbreaks of joy akin to finding a winning lottery ticket.
Across the country, managers are already talking of financial shortages, the gap between here and England. It sounds terribly like preparing to fail.
Derek McInnes, the Aberdeen boss, demanded ‘respect’ for his Latvian opposition in the Europa League. The same noises came from the Hearts camp in Malta. Whilst par for the course, it is tempting to think all this caution must get into the players’ heads, too.
Celtic are where they are because Ronny Deila was permitted to limp on post-Molde last term. Many stayed away and there were protests, but brainless cheerleading for Deila and ‘Five In-A-Row’ ignored abysmal displays and an unfathomable transfer policy.
We all need to ask more of players, managers and directors. We all need to demand higher standards.
When the head coach of our domestic champions can state publicly, whether he believes it or not, that losing to a club from Gibraltar is easily brushed aside, we really are on the brink of crossing the Rubicon.