Who needs a superstar?
Strachan’s theory falls flat in face of Iceland’s team spirit
RENOWNED as an insightful and witty pundit, Gordon Strachan was not short of offers to watch Euro 2016 from the comfort of a French TV studio.
Keen not to be seen to be personally profiting by working at a tournament for which his Scotland team had failed to qualify, however, his decision to watch matches in person and away from the glare of the cameras was judicious.
Yet, you would have forgiven the national manager for taking the TV executive’s shilling on Tuesday night if it had allowed us to hear his views on Iceland’s display in their heroic 1-1 draw with Portugal.
Despite the sour grapes of Cristiano Ronaldo, the men from the smallest nation ever to compete in a major finals were richly deserving of the point which puts them in with a great chance of qualification for the last 16.
If the unstinting effort of the side managed jointly by Lars Lagerback and Heimir Hallgrimsson provided one of the upsets of the competition to date, their reward also put into sharp focus Strachan’s assertion that having a world-class talent was mandatory in order to succeed at international level.
‘Sweden have proved that if you have one brilliant player like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, it gets you to the European Championships,’ he stated earlier this month.
‘Wales have two in Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey. It’s not 10. So it’s not about teams, we have to produce the individual players.’
While no one in their right mind would dispute that a talent such as Ibrahimovic or Bale is an enviable weapon to have at your disposal, the argument that a national team cannot prosper without one is rather ludicrous.
With Eidur Gudjohnsen now approaching 38 years of age, Iceland’s star turn these days is Gylfi Sigurdsson — a fine midfield player with Swansea but hardly one to be classed in the superstar bracket.
Few of rest of the side which started against the Portuguese set the pulse racing, either; Birkir Saevarsson of Hammarby in Sweden, Kari Arnason, once of Aberdeen and Rotherham and now of Malmo, plus Birkir Bjarnason, the man who wrote his name deep into history by volleying the equaliser, of Swiss side Basle.
Good, yes, but hardly great players. But whatever their shortcomings, they are — as Ronaldo couldn’t have failed to notice — undeniably a team.
Only by out-running, outmuscling and showing more determination and organisation than Portugal did they stand any chance of succeeding. They did all of that. Accordingly, the whole was far greater than the sum of the parts.
And they are by no means the only side we have seen in these Euros to have trashed the notion that only those possessing the X-factor can triumph.
Of the 23 players Hungary manager Bernd Storck selected for the finals, the majority are still home-based at sides like Videoton, Debrecen, MTK Budapest and Ferencvaros.
If the lack of star names is glaring, the team spirit which took them to a 2-0 win over a much-fancied Austrian side was palpable. Gabor Kiraly, the jogging-bottom-wearing, 40-year-old goalkeeper, rather epitomised their efforts.
Might they yet cross paths with the Republic of Ireland — another side not short of brawn?
Despite still being able to call on 35-year-old Robbie Keane when they find themselves in a deep hole, Martin O’Neill’s squad is largely rooted in the English Championship: Ipswich, Derby and Blackburn. The same constituency as Scotland, in other words.
For all the envy the Tartan Army felt at seeing the Republic advance to the finals as we failed, you could only admire the way they went about their business against Zlatan and chums in the Stade de France on Monday to pick up a richly deserved point.
Northern Ireland, who play their second game against Ukraine this evening, may have frozen as they took to the stage against the Poles, but their very presence in France is testament to the collective will of Michael O’Neill’s players.
As each and every player in the Northern Ireland squad will be acutely aware, the honour bestowed upon them this summer is one that never came the way of their greatest-ever talent, George Best.
Fellow all-time greats such as Liberia’s George Weah and Wales’ Ryan Giggs, who, like Best, never played in a major international tournament, might also question Strachan’s theory that a superstar is the panacea to every ill.
When the players around you are mere mortals — as is Ronaldo’s current lot — one man rarely makes a team.
Even a tournament that has been illuminated by the midfield artistry of Andres Iniesta, Toni Kroos and Luka Modric has had its stage stolen by the collective.
While it may seem somewhat incongruous to talk of the nation that has produced Roberto Baggio and Gianfranco Zola as an impressive unit, Italy’s display in their 2-0 victory over Belgium was exactly that.
With Serie A on its knees and Italian clubs conspicuous by their absence from the latter stages of both the Champions and Europa League these days, the expectations on Antonio Conte’s men going into this event were as low as they have ever been.
Yet, shorn of Andrea Pirlo for the first time in a generation, the Azzurri handed the star-studded Belgians a lesson in the power of the team ethic. The individual brilliance of Kevin de Bruyne and Eden Hazard was nullified.
‘It proves that nothing is already written in football, and it is on the field where you have to make your point,’ Conte said afterwards. Which can be roughly translated as meaning that he would take industry and belief ahead of a team of highly talented yet disjointed individuals all day long.
You would have thought that Strachan — the man who has continually stressed the virtue of ‘being a good team-mate’ while at Celtic — would concur with Conte’s sentiments, but his comments after the defeat to the Italians in Malta two weeks ago sent out a mixed message.
‘What we do is play scared football when we come up against big teams,’ said Strachan.
‘We’ll play four or five passes but we’re not sure if they’re going to get there. We just flick it away, hope for the best.
‘But if you watch David Silva and all the best players in the world, they don’t pass with hope — they are 90-per-cent sure what they’re doing is going to work.’
Strachan may have a point, but pining for players such as Silva, Ibrahimovic or Bale does not make them magically appear in a Scotland strip.
In three months’ time, he will take his side back to Malta when the World Cup qualifiers begin.
It is regrettable that we don’t possess a superstar to perhaps give us the edge over our rivals on the road to Russia. But, as many nations have recently demonstrated, that is no barrier to success.