Doctors ’n’ curses
McLEISH: MEDICS RULE ROOST!
MANAGERS and coaches used to pick football teams – these days it is doctors, physios and sports scientists.
And Alex McLeish admits bosses are being hampered by the power shift.
The Scotland manager has been denied players who could have made a difference in a disastrous start to the nation’s Euro 2020 campaign.
He is not looking for excuses – but as he sat yesterday in their luxury Riccione base on the Adriatic before climbing the hill into San Marino this afternoon, he admitted lamenting the passing of an age where players knew the difference between injuries and pain, and that it can now be medical as much as tactical that a game is won or lost.
McLeish reckons if sports scientists had been around 35 years ago, he would have missed out on a European winners’ medal – the biggest night of his life.
“It’s definitely something that’s worth debating,” said McLeish.
“But we are guided by the medical people. If they say to us a player is out I can’t ask to talk to him to try and persuade him. He’s out and that’s it.
“It’s a firm decision and it’s not one that’s up for debate.
“I’ve got to abide by what they say. They’ve become more powerful since my last spell in the job, in terms of the clubs and the medical rules they would give to international teams. That has definitely changed.
“So when you say it doesn’t make my job easier, tell me about it!”
The days of players turning out despite being short of 100 per cent are long gone. But Aberdeen and Scotland legend McLeish was one who would power through.
And never more than when the Dons faced Real Madrid in Gothenburg in 1983 on the night they made history, winning the European Cup Winners’ Cup. He said: “A couple of weeks before the final we were having work done in the back garden in Aberdeen, and I bought paving stones.
“I carried them around the back instead of rolling them.
“I felt my back go and the guy who dropped them off was like, ‘You’re meant to roll them, ya mug’. Anyway, for the next 10 days I needed intense treatment.
“I had to tell Alex Ferguson what I’d done and of course the response wasn’t too favourable. But I worked really hard to get fit – there was no way I was going to miss the final.
“For the two nights before the game on the Wednesday I actually slept with the mattress on the floor.
“But had we had a sports scientist I wouldn’t have played – I’d have been ruled out. I wouldn’t have got that medal.”
Perhaps the sorest miss for McLeish on this double-header was the withdrawal of striker Steven Fletcher from the squad, despite not missing a game for Sheffield Wednesday since his stand-out shows against Albania and
Israel last time out for Scotland.
Despite that, though, McLeish insists he will not take a hard line with him and leave him out of future squads.
He said: “If I can make Scotland better with these guys, I’m not going to cut my nose off to spite my face. I spoke to Fletcher personally, and then I asked James McFadden to give him a ring but Fletch was adamant that he needed to get a bit of recuperation during the international break.
“Of course that’s frustrating. You saw what he contributed when he came, with his experience. But there’s nothing we can do about that in these games so we have to get on with it.”
At least he has the arrival of captain Andy Robertson, fresh from dental surgery, and Ryan Fraser and Callum Paterson to boost a squad badly in need of a lift after Thursday’s nightmare defeat Kazakhstan.
McLeish admits that while he will make changes in San Marino, he will not be experimenting.
He said: “I was always going to make changes for the second game.”
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