‘There is an anger’: where did it all go wrong for Scotland?
The latest depressing snapshot – for the greater good see alien concept – preceded the conclusion to a Scotland Euro 2020 section that will be met equally with sighs of relief and shrugs. The Scottish Professional Football League is resisting a call to postpone matches immediately before Steve Clarke guides his team into the March play-offs. Twenty-one years have passed since Scotland played in a finals; with attitudes like this, no wonder.
Kazakhstan’s visit to Hampden Park on Tuesday may just draw more than the official (and questionable) attendance of 20,699 who watched the recent dismissal of San Marino. This campaign frittered out long ago but has the curious subplot of Scotland being two wins away from clawing their way
back towards relevance courtesy of the Nations League.
Hampden itself is a problem. Attitudes towards those in Scottish football’s high office likewise. The elongated decline of the international team means they have lost identity. Excuses outnumber victories. It has lost personnel too, with Clarke’s tenure typified by withdrawals and the refusal of umpteen English-based players to make themselves available. Playing for – or managing – Scotland has long since come with a health warning.
They headed into Saturday’s grim fixture in Cyprus with a record of seven victories, one draw and 12 defeats from their last 20 matches. The stat that 25 goals were scored in those games – 35 conceded – needs the asterisk of 14 coming against San Marino and Albania. A Fifa ranking of 53 compares favourably with 86 in 2004 but apathy must be of concern. If Scotland do not reach Euro 2020, featuring 24 teams and with matches to be staged in Glasgow, it would be the most severe blow yet. It may be a fatal one.
Craig Brown, who took Scotland to the 1998 World Cup, their last tournament, believes there is a “latent Tartan Army waiting to burst into life” should better times emerge. Brown is adamant his country fell behind when not investing in facilities many years ago. “There also don’t seem to be enough kids enthusiastic about football,” Brown says.
Michael O’Neill could have taken charge of Scotland, with his decision to remain with Northern Ireland wholly justified by his recent hiring by Stoke. A longtime Edinburgh resident, O’Neill insists this scene need not be eternally negative.
“I’ve a lot of confidence Steve will get it right because I know how he works,” O’Neill says. “It can change, it can change with the play-offs. People on the outside don’t understand the complexities of preparing a team at international level. It’s incredibly difficult. That’s why you need everybody pulling in the same direction. I certainly don’t think people don’t care. I think there is an element of anger about it.”
Pressed on precisely where it all went wrong, O’Neill believes it is impossible to pinpoint one element. “I think the biggest problem is that at the minute it seems difficult for players to play for the national team regardless of where they are coming from club-wise. Replicating what they do at their clubs seems to be difficult.
“A key to international football is getting points on the board early in a campaign, then you have total focus and a highly motivated squad which believes it will qualify. As soon as you lose that, you run into problems at the back end of a campaign.
“I could name you five Scottish midfielders who are all very good, some of them are in the Premier League. If you add all their caps, it will be less than [Northern Ireland and Blackburn midfielder] Corry Evans. Sometimes when you have more options you dilute the experience and experience is invaluable.”
Speaking under condition of anonymity, one Scotland player of multiple campaigns and more than 50 caps painted a more profound picture. “There hasn’t been enough put into the setup,” he says. “It doesn’t feel like the best of the best and that’s really what you need to incentivise international players. A lot of things have felt second rate whereas they should be elite. For a while, that galvanised us but not now. There has been no real collective desire to make anything happen and that’s incredibly frustrating.
“At times it felt like we were heading in the right direction but not always. Other countries seem to have a tighter relationship, England recently have looked like they have a real togetherness. In Scotland, people are quick to tear strips off you.”
How we reached this point has felt like a circular debate for a long time. Celtic and Rangers have the pick of the emerging talent but precious few – especially at Ibrox under Steven Gerrard – feature in first teams. Celtic had seven Scots in their last matchday squad of 18; Scott Brown has retired from Scotland duty, while Craig Gordon, at 36, is down the pecking order. Rangers’ contingent for their win at Livingston included four Scots, with two available for selection by Clarke. That young players hit glass ceilings when not afforded first-team games in the best sides is obvious.
Kris Boyd, a former Scotland striker, invited ridicule when suggesting the “middle class” nature of the country’s football was a negative factor. Yet evidence, provided by the Observatory for Sport in Scotland, backs up Boyd’s view. A decline in participation across all sport in Scotland from age 11 onwards is especially stark in less affluent areas.
It is also fascinating to note that those who had a degree qualification in 2017 had a participation rate in sport of 68% compared with a rate of 49% for those who left school with some qualification and 26% for those who left school with nothing. Football specifically has a significant dropout rate between the ages of 16 and 24. There is growing pressure on government to address this problem; sporting success, and in Scotland especially football success, improves wellbeing and the national mood.
Hearts’ community wing launched a Play The Game project, targeting 30,000 players, parents and volunteers. The concept is simple; to deliver more game time to those aged between six and 16 by creating an informal, street football environment that used to yield terrific footballers.
Brendan Rodgers’s experience, before and after managing Celtic, made him a valid judge when highlighting three plastic pitches in Scotland’s 12team top flight. “We are trying to promote a level and a standard,” Rodgers said. “Whether we like it or not, that doesn’t make your flagship league here in Scotland the best standard.”
There is also a belief the Scottish FA’s coach education, once lauded, has been overtaken. There is just one Scottish manager (Preston’s Alex Neil) in the top two divisions in England – that would have been unthinkable not long ago.
George Burley and Craig Levein quickly grew exasperated at the attitudes of some players towards international duty. Brown remains a firm advocate of Fifa’s five day rule being imposed for those who refuse call-ups. “I can’t put my finger on why Scotland don’t use it,” he says. Brown famously battled with title-chasing Leeds over the availability of Gary McAllister, and won.
By March, Clarke will have greater resources to call on with the return of leading players but only three days to prepare for Scotland’s biggest matches in two decades, against sides who will fancy their own chances. It may be folly to believe things have bottomed out.