4-6-0? I had no qualms setting us up that way. We’ve not done much better since, have we?
CRAIG LEVEIN DARES TO REFLECT ON THAT NIGHT IN PRAGUE 10 YEARS AGO
WHEN Craig Levein bumped into Steve Clarke at the Oriam last season, they shared a few of the irritations of life as manager of Scotland. Call-offs, juggling acts to appease clubs, time restrictions on coaching and long absences from competitive action.
‘You think when those players arrive on your doorstep they are fit and ready to train,’ recalls Levein.
‘But nine times out of 10 they’ve played a game the day before. And the second day after a game is supposed to be the day you do the least amount of training.
‘So you’ve lost two days before you even get going. So, like Stevie, if you’re a new manager trying to drill your team in the way you want to play, that’s going to take a lot longer than you get. He was really frustrated.’
With a trip to Olomouc imminent, Scotland fans will hope that any return visit by the ex-Hearts boss saw him impart only empathy to Clarke and not an old game plan.
Ten years on from fielding the most controversial formation in Scottish football history, however, Levein firmly believes the best way for Clarke to cop a big result tomorrow is with a version of his vision.
The bit where Scotland are, if Clarke has found the time, rigidly structured and drilled to be desperately hard to beat, in the hope of scoring on the counter.
That organisation was a given for many a Clarke team, of course, as showcased by the Kilmarnock sides Levein and Hearts confronted a couple of years ago.
When Scotland boss in October 2010, Levein just went that bit too far.
He started Kenny Miller on the bench on the occasion of his 50th cap and parked Steven Fletcher, then a Premier League striker at Wolves, in the stand.
He sent a Scotland team out with a 4-6-0 formation in an away tie against a team 10 places above them in the FIFA rankings, all in the hope of sneaking a 0-0 draw against the Czech Republic in the third game of Euro 2012 qualifying.
Levein sighs: ‘Well, it’s always a good talking point... it’s better being known for something than nothing, I suppose.’
The zero in the nation’s eyes was the manager. He faced an uphill battle for his reputation at international level from that night until his dismissal two years later.
The calculation more flawed than the precise details of the tactical set-up, then, was that of ‘risk to reward’ weighed up by Levein as he plotted.
The Czechs did only breach the smothering lines of Scots and Allan McGregor once, in the 69th minute, from a corner and a Roman Hubnik header. But once was enough to sentence Levein to the most damaging defeat of his career.
It all seemed so pragmatically shrewd when, after watching footage of Rubin Kazan stunning Barcelona 2-1 in the Nou Camp a year earlier, he decided to mimic the Russians’ striker-less approach.
With the imperious Spanish certainties to progress as group winners, Levein understandably aimed for the runners-up berth.
He concluded, after scraping a 0-0 draw in Lithuania and a 97th-minute winner over Liechtenstein in the opening double-header, that the players at his disposal were not suited to going toe-to-toe with the Czechs.
‘When you think about the teams we had in the past, the group of players available were poor,’ insists Levein. ‘I had no qualms about setting the team up like that, to go away and get a point.
‘Maybe that’s me looking at my group (of players) and thinking: “Phew, it’s not the best squad we ever had”. And wondering where we were going to get a goal from.
‘I didn’t have a great deal of faith, I must admit, in who I was going to play up front. We didn’t really have anyone who was going to change the match for us.
‘I started Jamie Mackie, a great lad who worked hard, and Steven Naismith was really good, to be fair, but he didn’t always play every week for Rangers as a striker.
‘So I thought: “I’m going to shut up shop and hopefully hit on the counter-attack”.
‘Did it send a negative message to players? Players are fairly resilient. My message in these situations is: I’ve made a decision of how we’re going to play. This is what we’re going to do, let’s work on it.
‘And, if we lose, then it will be my responsibility. Which it is. But I went into the game reasonably confident that we could do what we needed to do and that, if we came away with 0-0, it would be worth the hassle and effort.’
It all started to unravel days before the fateful night after Levein revealed in training how Scotland were going to play.
Then-Rangers striker Miller, with 11 goals already that season, was the conduit for newspaper publication of his shock axing from the line-up.
Miller later admitted he had considered quitting the Scotland set-up. Fletcher did a few months later, via text message, after watching the painful 1-0 defeat in his SFA tracksuit.
‘We were good at defending set-pieces so, when we lost the goal, I was genuinely surprised,’ stresses Levein. ‘Other than that, what we tried to do worked fairly well.
‘We just weren’t as much of a threat as I’d hoped on the counter and didn’t retain the ball as well as I’d hoped when we won it back to allow Naismith and Mackie to get further forward.
‘You know when you’ve a group you can send out with absolute trust. I’ve had that at Hearts, Dundee United, even at Cowdenbeath. Part of the problem with the national team is you’re borrowing players.
‘The most difficult thing I found was getting close to them, getting to know them. And you must be careful, you can’t lose the plot at them as they will run back to their clubs and complain to their manager.
‘I suspected there would be stick if we didn’t get a result in Prague. But I genuinely didn’t know there would be such a hoo-ha.
‘Looking back, it was probably a brave thing to do. We lost, I looked at it and thought: There was nothing in it. We’ve had worse performances than that, haven’t we?’
Although Levein didn’t get one for the Group I total that evening, he does have a point.
Scotland have since crashed 3-0 away to Slovakia and Kazakhstan under Gordon Strachan (right) and Alex McLeish (far right). In the latter’s first spell in charge, there was defeat in Georgia — a crime that was repeated by a Strachan team in 2015.
In both Tbilisi cases, the losses were costly when close to at least achieving a play-off berth.
Since Craig Brown exited in October 2001 following a fine eight-year reign, Berti Vogts, Walter Smith, McLeish twice, George Burley, Levein and Strachan have permanently held the post.
Only Levein will forever be damned by one formation selection yet all came up short in seeing through a successful major tournament qualifying campaign before Clarke’s appointment.
Levein adds: ‘I’m not being funny but we weren’t a good team. I’m being deadly serious.
‘George was in before me, Gordon
after me. We’re all just the same, aren’t we?
‘After or before me, no one has done all that much better, have they? It can’t all be about the managers, can it?
‘That’s been proven already, I would have thought. I think 99 per cent of people would have said at the time: “That’s a reasonable appointment”, about all of us.
‘Then, one or one-and-a-half campaigns later, you’re not the guy. It always falls back on the manager. Every time.
‘Not long before I got the bullet, we played Wales and should have beaten them but Gareth Bale destroyed us himself. We didn’t have a talisman striker. Or a creative winger. Or a really exciting central midfielder.
‘We had good, hard-working players. And it’s the same now. We don’t have someone at the top end of the pitch who can change a match. And I can’t remember when we did.
‘Is it going to be Billy Gilmour? I don’t know. He looks like a very promising player. To get in that Chelsea team is great, so for him to be out injured really is a great shame.’
Scotland possess no such attacking riches in the conventional positions but boast two left-backs in Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney who stroll into Liverpool and Arsenal’s line-ups.
Michael O’Neill took Northern Ireland to Euro 2016 and significant results against major nations without any recruits from those elite clubs.
But Levein notes they were a compact, organised and tough-to-beat unit — and believes Clarke can emulate that success. He adds: ‘We’re not a top nation and need to do what Michael did with Northern Ireland. What they had was Kyle Lafferty. He’s not a world beater. But he’s quick, can finish, is big — and is a big-game performer.
‘Also, look at Northern Ireland’s conversion rate of chances to goals. It’s very high. For example, four in a game and they score two. Goals from set-pieces.
‘And here’s a significant factor — the heart of their defence was playing Premier League in England week in, week out, with Jonny Evans and Gareth McAuley. That was strong. ‘That would pave the way for Scotland to qualify. In Steve Clarke, I think we have that figure.’ Interestingly, O’Neill’s Northern Ireland were runners-up behind Germany in a 2018 World Cup qualifying section by doing what Levein targeted but couldn’t achieve.
They drew 0-0 in Prague and beat the Czechs at home to finish four points above them and reach the play-offs. If Clarke can conjure those outcomes in the next six weeks, there’s a serious chance of Scotland topping another Nations League group.
It can’t all be about the managers. We just don’t have someone who can change a match. And I can’t remember when we did
I didn’t have a great deal of faith, I must admit, in who I was going to play up front