Our World has ended... give youth a chance to shine now
WE are not going to the World Cup. Whatever piffle may come out of the Scotland squad hotel in the coming days, there is about as much chance of the national team being in Russia next June as Donald Trump sharing his summer holidays with Angela Merkel.
It is Euro 2020 and beyond that really should now become the primary concern for the Scots.
This is where the arrival of Stuart Armstrong and Ryan Fraser on the scene — too late, no doubt, to rescue this car crash of a campaign — offer some hope in bleak times.
Given recent form, the pair should make their full international debuts in the next week.
It is to be hoped both will be involved in Sunday’s qualifying visit of Slovenia. Aged 24 and 23 respectively and now performing at good levels, they are precisely the generation we should be looking to build a team around as we seek a more long-term focus.
We are, surely, reaching the dying days of Gordon Strachan’s time as head coach, a reign which started with such exhilarating promise, but ground to a halt at home to Lithuania and away to Slovakia last October.
It’s quite something that he is still in charge but, at least, he has brought in some fresh blood for this upcoming double-header, starting with Wednesday’s friendly against Canada at Easter Road.
Indeed, he can still play a part in executing some kind of functional handover to whoever takes up the reins when he has moved on at the end of his contract.
In many ways, failing to beat the Slovenians and bringing even the most optimistic Scotland fan to their senses might not be such a bad thing.
It would bring a merciful end to the agony and offer the freedom to play out the campaign with younger, fresher individuals and gain some kind of grip on who really might be cut out to succeed at this level when the road to the next European Championship opens in the autumn of 2018.
Armstrong and Fraser have already provided persuasive evidence to suggest they could be considerably more than fleeting visitors to the scene.
Armstrong is blossoming into the player so many of us believed he could be when he first left Dundee United for Celtic, making dangerous runs from his preferred central midfield position, hurting teams and scoring goals. His total of 11 so far this term is excellent.
With Fraser, his progress of late has been similarly impressive. Since coming off the bench, scoring and giving Arsenal right-back Hector Bellerin nightmares in a 3-3 draw in December, he has finally established himself in the Bournemouth team and is earning rave reviews from manager Eddie Howe for his pace, technique, crossing and ability to win a game.
Fraser and Armstrong are only the tip of the iceberg, though. There are a number of players at a good age that we could use to establish the nucleus of a long-term project.
Kieran Tierney, at 19, is a machine at left-back. He will only get better. The real shame is that Andy Robertson, aged 23, plays in the same position, although there has been talk of trying one of them on the other side of the park.
Matt Phillips is 26 and has been injured of late, but is really finding his stride at West Brom. It will be interesting to see if another who is the same age, midfielder Tom Cairney, lives up to the positive scouting reports that have been coming out of Fulham this season.
James Forrest is still just 25. Oliver Burke is raw at 19 and is not starting games at RB Leipzig, but he is tall, fast, strong as an ox and will improve.
John McGinn, 22, is a tenacious central midfielder capable of making plenty of progress in the coming years. Another 22-year-old, Callum Paterson, needs to work on the defensive side of his game, but he is a brave, galloping right-back who possesses a serious goal threat.
At Rangers, Barrie McKay, 22, must add consistency to his excellent technique and turn of pace, while others such as Graeme Shinnie and Kenny McLean at Aberdeen and Jamie Walker at Hearts face the challenge of proving they can break into the reckoning.
Established players such as Robert Snodgrass, now 29, will have to help younger guys bed into the side and some, of course, will have to move aside.
Will Darren Fletcher be available for Euro 2020 aged 36? And the chances are Scott Brown will go back into retirement when this campaign is over.
Of course, there are clear weaknesses in personnel that are not easily solved.
Central defence remains such a difficult issue that it might yet be worth trying three at the back as an experiment sometime soon.
Up front, we lack players getting regular game time far less a prolific top-level goalscorer, although Leigh Griffiths, still only 26, should not be written off.
When this campaign is over, there will no doubt be the same old voices telling us it’s not like the old days, that no one can form a decent team from the players available, that Strachan is not to blame.
But Scotland should be doing better than they are. We would like more established top-level players, but to suggest there is no talent and no hope at all is disingenuous.