Sbragia’s boys left needing a miracle

THE storms that shook New St Mirren Park were entirely in keeping with the maelstrom enveloping Scottish football. For a watching Gordon Strachan, it was fresh proof of the need to send a potent wind of change sweeping through our national game. At the end of a week in which he announced a personal crusade to put things right, he was in Paisley as part of Ricky Sbragia’s backroom team to identify players who might accompany him towards a brighter future. Yet the young Scots made heavy weather of this dismal draw with a Ukraine team that was without a goal, let alone a point, from their opening four matches. A miracle is now required for Sbragia’s boys to reach the Euro finals in Poland in 2017. Toiling at Under-21 level is nothing new, however. Last time a Scotland team reached the finals was 1996 when Tommy Craig’s kids reached the semis in Barcelona, along with Italy, France and Spain. A look at the company they kept shows how far we’ve fallen. Then, Fabio Cannavaro was joined in the Azzurri line-up by Alessandro Nesta, Gianluigi Buffon and Francesco Totti. The French included Patrick Vieira, Robert Pires and Sylvain Wiltord, while Spain had Raul, Fernando Morientes and Gaizka Mendieta. The Scotland team that lost narrowly 2-1 to Spain included Jackie McNamara, Christian Dailly, Steven Pressley and Charlie Miller. McNamara and Dailly would play under Craig Brown at the 1998 World Cup in France ... but we haven’t reached a major finals since. A likely 21-year exile from the Under-21 Euro finals merely adds to the litany of failures prompting Strachan’s revolution. A stark UEFA report last month showed only Latvia had seen a sharper decline in the standing of its club football over the last decade. Our senior national team, meanwhile, have just failed for a ninth successive time to reach a major tournament. Strachan and SFA performance director Brian McClair will next month unveil their blueprint for change but a long road lies ahead. Injury and suspension denied Strachan the chance to see three of Scotland’s best talents last night, Ryans Christie, Gauld and