MacPhee snub says a lot about allure of SFA role
AUSTIN MacPHEE looks like the kind of fellow with whom you could fish out the druid’s outfit, take some bongo drums into the forest and uncover great truths through rhythm and chanting. From listening to him speak, though, it is clear his everyday perception of reality is perfectly well-tuned as it is.
In bending over backwards to claim, most diplomatically, that he had not snubbed the Scottish FA in any way whatsoever, he still made a point of stating that he was ‘absolutely convinced’ he had made the right choice in becoming the Hearts No2 and, erm, snubbing the offer of the national association’s performance director role.
Of course he made the right choice. He has chosen a functional place of work over one threatening to become rather dysfunctional again.
Time will tell whether Ian Cathro’s already-legendary laptop possesses the algorithms and analytics to make his brave new world of limitless possibility a reality at Tynecastle.
One thing is for sure, though. The computer containing the processing power required to solve the myriad issues that have crippled Scottish football over the past 20 years or so has not been invented.
Even NASA lacks the technological wherewithal to solve a puzzle more perplexing than establishing the identity of dark matter. They are wise in focusing on the altogether more achievable objective of finding life on Mars.
They have also set themselves the target of capturing a near-Earth asteroid and redirecting it into orbit around the Moon in the 2020s.
Scotland’s national football team, meanwhile, hopes to have made it to a major finals by then. It is hard to decide which of those projects is the least fantastical.
MacPhee’s decision to swerve all that and stay in frontline coaching with Cathro — leaving open the option of making further big tournaments in his side role with Northern Ireland — puts the SFA in a little bit of a spot, of course.
In making the most crucial appointment in Scottish football since the war, according to Henry McLeish, they are now reduced to working their way down a batting order lacking a certain pizzazz.
Much was made of their use of a London-based headhunting firm to identify talent. Headhunting, I thought, was rooted in the concept of targeting strong performers in other companies and enticing them to jump ship?
Yet, four of the five other guys on the shortlist that was drawn up are currently out of work. They are all Scottish. The hit-list did have the look of something an average fan could have cobbled together with 20 spare minutes, access to a perch at the bar and a fag packet to doodle on.
Out-of-work Malky Mackay is now favourite. Naturally, he comes with issues. Those alleged text messages — you know the ones — will have to be spoken about again. Makes you wonder if the SFA might be better putting in a call to Shane Sutton to see if he fancies swapping cycling for an environment in which the wheels came off some time ago.
To those who have dealt with Mackay down the years, that texting scandal did seem incredibly out-of-character and he did do a fine job as manager of Cardiff City before relations broke down.
Perhaps more of an issue is what his background in highperformance sport strategy is. What, specifically, does he bring to this particular position?
During the four-and-a-half months it has been lying empty since Brian McClair evaporated into the ether, a working group has drawn up ‘Project Brave’, the blueprint for revitalising youth development.
It contains good ideas. The problem is that the SFA lit a fire under it by proposing eight elite academies in a trimmed-down system and leaving senior clubs locked out of that working group gearing up for battle.
There is talk of civil war should SFA chief executive Stewart Regan try to force changes through without a vote.
Vested interest, that seemingly-incurable malady, has a long history of stymieing change within the Scottish game. There is already a sense of doom in some quarters surrounding what is still a work in progress.
The new performance director will, by the looks of it, have to implement ideas drawn up by other people in the face of bitter opposition. Hardly an ideal scenario, considering the two guys who held the job previously ran into trouble selling their own concepts to resistant clubs.
A delicious irony is that leading the dissenting voices is the man the SFA employ as the assistant manager of the national team. The same man they have just banned from the touchline for being aggressive towards one of their match officials.
Mark McGhee has a point, though. His club Motherwell won the Youth Cup last season and have some of those players in their first team, but the financial implications of missing out on elite status terrify them.
Perhaps compromises will be made. Perhaps belief in the greater good will win through. It will be the first time in a long time.
More likely is that whoever takes over as performance director will have to find some means of convincing himself he can overcome all barriers and make magic happen.
Perhaps those bongo drums and a spot of transcendental meditation might be an idea.