We’ve never had itso good
Our game is in golden era after decades of darkness
IT’S almost certainly not supposed to feel like this.
Scottish football has spent so many decades kicking around in the doldrums that it’s difficult to remember a time when it had so much reason to feel good about itself.
It may have been acceptable in the 80s, back when Aberdeen were beating Real Madrid and you weren’t allowed to stage a World Cup without sending an official invite by airmail to the residence of Kenny Dalglish.
But so many generations have come and gone since then that gradually over the years our game has become conditioned into booting lumps out of itself.
This self-loathing developed into an all-consuming inferiority complex as well as a source of endless national shame. Put it this way, you didn’t need to watch Trainspotting to know how it felt to be Scottish.
But it really does feel different now, as if some mysterious switch has been flicked and the gloom has been pierced by a shaft of golden light.
Yes, Scottish football may be blinking furiously as its eyes attempt to adjust to the glare but let’s be in no doubt here, our game hasn’t felt so alive or so vibrant since it began disappearing down a rabbit hole before the end of the last millennium.
Come to think of it, now might be the perfect time to send a search party into the bowels of Hampden to unchain Henry McLeish and release him from Rinus Michel’s old think tank which was meant to bring all this suffering and misery to an end.
It’s over lads. Thanks for nothing. Don’t bang your heads on the way out.
Because on Wednesday night Rangers will attempt to become the first Scottish side to lift European silverware since Alex Ferguson’s miracle men walked on water during the great flood of Gothenburg back in 1983.
And, without wishing to curse it, there is every reason to believe that Giovanni van Bronckhorst and his squad of Europa League specialists are going to seize their moment.
In fact, given the level of the performances which have carried them this far, all the way to Seville, they absolutely deserve to top it all off with a crowning moment against Eintracht Frankfurt – the third best Bundesliga side they’ll have faced along this mindblowing march towards history.
Throughout it all they have not only been a credit to themselves and their club, they have been a credit to a country which has become completely unaccustomed to such dizzying excellence.
Yes, throughout the long descent there have been a couple of fleeting moments of freakish overachievement. When Celtic made it to Seville, for example, in 2003 it felt like a once-in-a-lifetime moment.
So when Walter Smith led Rangers to Manchester five years later it almost defied belief. But both of these glory runs, achieved against all of the odds, were blips which bucked against the general trend of terminal decline.
That’s not the case this week. Far from it.
The truth is, almost everywhere you look these days there’s a good news story going on where the health and wellbeing of Scottish football is concerned.
On Saturday it was Celtic’s turn to celebrate when Ange Postecoglou ended his first
season in charge by lifting the Premiership trophy. Having taken over a car crash just 11 months ago, he has turned his club into a juggernaut, hurtling towards the group stages of next season’s Champions League.
And all of this while his big rebuild is still a work in progress.
With another transfer window about to swing open, Postecoglou has the time and funds required to take his high-intensity template to another level by adding a few tweaks and upgrades into his starting line-up. Assuming the big Aussie has learned some important lessons from his first crack at European competition, then there is no reason why he can’t catch one or two of the continent’s A-listers by surprise next season too.
And if Rangers do complete their mission impossible on Wednesday night, then they will go straight into the same elite environment, only as top seeds.
Now that really would represent a staggering turnaround in the fortunes of Scottish football and it could be boom time all round if Hearts and Dundee United can qualify for the group stages of the Europa and Conference Leagues respectively – having only just returned to the top flight from the obscurity of the SPFL’s second tier.
All this at a time when Scotland captain Andy Robertson is hoovering up silverware at Liverpool in a personal homage to the days of Dalglish, Souness and Hansen, while preparing to lead Steve Clarke’s side into the World Cup play-offs.
Real Madrid, meanwhile, are said to be sniffing around Kieran Tierney at Arsenal, Manchester United have been fluttering their eyelids at John McGinn and Billy Gilmour could be back in Chelsea’s midfield in time for the start of the new season, having left his Norwich nightmare long behind.
Throw in the likes of Nathan Patterson and Scott McTominay and it’s no wonder the Tartan Army are already working out travel plans for Qatar.
On Saturday at Tynecastle, while Scotland stalwart Callum McGregor was skippering Celtic’s trophy lift, there was another glimpse of good things to come when van Bronckhorst unleashed a raft of youngsters while wrapping his first picks up in cotton wool.
One or two of these kids look like developing into the real deal and 18-year-old Alex Lowry might be there already given the apparent early ease with which he has begun his transition into the top team. It’s early days of course but this kid could become something quite special so long as he is properly nurtured and given ample opportunity to blossom.
Wednesday night might come too soon as more experienced, cool heads will be required among the stifling madness of history in the making.
Let’s hope for a celebration of everything that’s good and exciting about this bold new era for the Scottish game. With so many thousands of Ibrox fans making the pilgrimage, and alcohol consumption heightening the potential for stupidity to take hold, there is an inherent danger that things could spiral out of control.
Rangers have done all of Scotland proud just by getting there. The last thing our game needs now is to be forced back into a period of extended navelgazing at a time when there is so much to enjoy.
It feels like a switch has been pulled and the gloom pierced by a shaft of golden light