Going Forwards
After the Swiss game I was hassled for saying the euphoria was misplaced, that we hadn’t played THAT well and that the defence was still terrifying. Well, I was right.
Steve Clarke has been carried forward by a back-catalogue of success that has masked a tired, uber-cautious and stilted approach that can be read and countered far too easily by our opponents. His qualities have shrouded his many failings: tactically and psychologically that have costs us dearly in two tournaments. And yes he can be both at the same time the guy who got us to tournaments and the guy who lost us in those tournaments.
We have been humiliated again, and it’s not good enough, and no I don’t believe we ‘just don’t have the players’ and no I don’t believe it would have been different if it had been a ‘European referee’ and all the other embarrassing excuses our manager came out with.
Apart from the selection issues, which we’ll get to in a moment, his man-management is dreadful. How is it possible to turn up at the opening game of the Euros looking half asleep? How much did he botch the last twenty minutes of the game against Finland?
The media coverage has been dire. On the one hand you have the entire Euros as seen through the prism of England, as Johnny on Twitter wrote: “Gabby Logan should stop fucking referring to Scotland as ‘they’. I’m watching Scotland on BBC Scotland in Scotland and I don’t fucking want to be othered in my own living room.”
At the same time we have the gushing Scottish coverage, buying into the whole “This was Steve Clarke’s plan all along” story and re-gurgitating the cringey “No Scotland No Party” vibe. If the English press are like vultures waiting to descend on their poor manager, the Scottish press are pliant and unquestioning of a manager who has failed so badly and given chance after chance after chance.
To be clear, it’s not that ‘No Scotland No Party’ isn’t all good, and we have the best fans in the world, but it becomes embarrassing the distance between fanbase and team performance and we get stuck in the story of how great it is for people to go away for a (short) holiday. Demand more, demand better. This isn’t good enough.
Inevitably this complete lack of aspiration has a mirror in the political world. The Unionist mindset of apologising for even being here, making do with what and where we are, and of constantly assuming that anything from down south is better, is cultural cringe writ large, and its something Clarke is guilty of. This can be seen in the baffling decision to take James Forrest and Lawrence Shankland and then not play them.
As Craig Gallagher has put it: “No manager has ever played his way out of the good graces of a fanbase faster than Steve Clarke, surely? From tactical genius last summer to the man whose scared, timid brand of football was an utterly joyless affront to this tournament.”
What’s the point at turning up at a tournament and not taking a chance, not even having a shot on target?
A few of the stories we are being told about what we just watched don’t add up. Possession can mask a lot and the idea that we were ‘controlling the game’ against Hungary is laughable. They were controlling the game by letting us pass the ball across the field among our defenders and then back to our goalkeeper. Easy.
Billy Gilmour did well but the plaudits for him are completely overboard. It’s not his fault that he didn’t have runners from his own midfield or attack but the fact that he can hold onto the ball for more than two seconds doesn’t make him a coming Messi.
We have done well to get two consecutive tournaments but we need a root and branch reform of Scottish football. We need to do what most small countries do – invest in our young people, in decent appropriate facilities for winter, completely change our league structures to create a vibrant competition, and have a long-term plan that’s about high expectation, grassroots community football with access to high quality training and create a positive but critical culture that demands more (much more).
Alongside this we need to give up the nostalgia that’s wrapped around our entire game, the Ancestor Worship for a supposed Golden Era of Dalglish, Jordan, Gemmill, Law etc etc needs to get in the bin and be replaced by young people talking about how football is played today.
The only mitigating factors for Steve Clarke are the injuries to Hickey and Tierney but his excuses about the referee and the penalty are deeply embarrassing. We lost because of bad man-management, poor tactics, and being desperately, relentlessly negative. As a national team we need to match the aspirations of the support and the nation, and for this we will need a new manager but also much more than that.
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It should be borne in mind that Scotland teams including some genuinely world class players also failed to qualify for the finals of competitions and, when they reached the final stages, failed to get beyond the group stage. There were occasions when teams acquitted themselves well, such as in Germany in 1974 and there were some outstanding matches, such as v Netherlands in 1978, albeit after two previous dire matches.
The problem in the past week has been the timidity of approach to matches. The match against Hungary was the nadir of feartness. Yet, they might have won, for Hungary, for much of the tournament have been poor themselves and were for much of the match. The serious injury to Varga seemed to liberate the players and to show they actually have talented players. Hungary, remember, also suffer from a ‘glorious football history of the 2954 ‘Magyars’.
A fair number of Scottish players are with successful clubs and have played in major leagues. Scotland is as capable of producing players of a high calibre as other countries. What we need is a management structure which releases their creativity.
As someone whose team has played in the Championship for a number of seasons, I see regular creative football from sides with adventurous tactics allied with disciplined defence.
Roll on the next World Cup!!
The Hungarian team had two world-class strikers, the Scottish team played a necessarily solid and boring midfield against a pretty poor Hungarian midfield but had world-class nothing (they would do if the players existed). Given that situation we can see what would happen if the Scottish players took chances by looking at the final score. And an SPL basically comprising of two teams isn’t healthy for anything much, and it shows. Personally, I neary started giggling when a 1-1 draw against Switzerland was portrayed as a mighty victory. But at least they look like they can beat Iceland nowadays – that’s a major advance,and now they are back to as good as they ever got ie. getting kicked-out of the first round of international tournament finals. So what’s the problem?
Stevie Clarke’s strengths are creating a club environment and defensive organisation and these have helped to get us to two European finals.
These strengths have over time turned into being too conservative in his approach and too loyal to some players which have led to him being inflexible in his approach. This was unfortunately too clearly demonstrated last night in a game we had to win when after a sterile 45 minutes he waited until the 20 minutes from time to make any changes. This gave the substitutes little enough time to make any impact. This was compounded further when he was the forced into further changes when two of the team’s mainstays McGinn and Robertson had to come off. There was no organisation or structure at all after that and it down to pure luck if anyone would score.
Yes we are short of quality players but I don’t think we even made the best of the rather limited resources we had.
Lastly I agree completely with your comments about the coverage: how can a BBC panel comment knowledgeably about Scotland when none of the panelist’s have any knowledge of domestic Scottish football? It just appeared patronising to me – why not have Willie Miller on their panel who has played at highest level and a working knowledge of domestic game and international team.
I don’t know if Moyes is the answer but Clarke being grateful for what he’s done has had this malaise for about a year.
I think there’s too many players he’s been loyal to that added nothing… *Cough* McGregor *cough*. Whose favourite move last night was a Henderson like hospital pass to his defenders and how Ralston is the best right back in three games where McCrorie wasn’t given a chance is a laugh, only there because of the hoops.
Goalkeeper – Gunn is the best we have, I’m glad we got him onside but he’s unconvincing at times.
Defenders – McKenna and Hanley are not international standard players, Porteous had one of his brain fart moments that he’s been getting out of his game but I can see that being the end of his career as certain sections won’t let him forget it. We are too reliant on forcing Robbo and Tierney together that when they’re not available we are shoving donkeys into square holes.
Midfielders – Gilmour is generational but he needs the support of his team mates. Too many players who are just about good enough on their day but that day is not often considering this is the area too strong to accommodate a Gauld…
Strikers – Adams is a good player but he’s not the man for the system Clarke is trying to play.
Captaincy – I love Robbo but the fear in his eyes before the Germany game had me worried, he’s played and won at the top level but that game scared him. Let him concentrate on his game and find a new leader, maybe a McTominay or Gilmour.
League System – that ain’t changing no matter how much we need it to, our game is run for the benefit of two clubs which is an embarrassment, we need 4 OF games but how we get them is to give them an overwhelming advantage by making it impossible for the others to get a result against them. Maybe we bite the bullet and finally punish them for their constant demands to leave a la the PL and the Super League clubs.
Football Ecosystem – more pitches open to play on, goals not taken down in summer (let’s also maybe play at the best time of year rather than have umpteen postponements). Get the games on during the week early during the summer holidays when our kids are off, help them love the game.
Governance – get any person who supports either of the uglys away from the boardrooms, they don’t care about the game here they’re just there to benefit them. They think they’re above the national team so let’s show them they’re not.
What “constant demands” are these?
I have been saying much the same thing for a long time. Steve Clarke’s Scotland had a lucky qualifying campaign, and their best performances seem to have come from nowhere and surprised the manager. I suspect Clarke has a poor grasp of sports psychology, or he wouldn’t have pursued his ‘fluid midfield’ ideas in the face of so much evidence that expecting attack-minded midfielders (CDM) to plug into the central defensive midfield role was doomed from the start (see the disastrous match against Croatia, where other teams simply marked Modric).
The presence of Rachel Corsie (captain of the SWNT team, Once a central defender with playmaking skills moved to CDM) on the BBC panel might have been a hint. With a CDM protecting the defence, more attacking midfielders can be released, instead of funnelling back at every opponent attack and reduced to playing back passes. But Scotland defended poorly on the flanks too, especially against Germany.
As I commented elsewhere, I’d rather be knocked out playing like Georgia (or a few of the lower-ranked teams who have shown why football is considered a spectator sport by many), than progress from the group playing like this Scotland team. Where are the highlights? What are the memories (from the pitch, I don’t care what was celebrated in the stands and pubs)? What have we learnt? What boundaries were pushed? What career highs achieved?
There’s always the women’s team, with a qualification pedigree, but the same signs of rot are there, creeping playacting (one vector comes from especially cynical Anglo-USA sources — see Claire Emslie’s shocking dive — but cynicism and cheating can be homegrown too), ‘game management’ (a vile, cowardly antipattern that threw away a 3–0 lead against Argentina), ‘star’ systems and commercialism among them.
I suspect there is a political dimension of delusion as the article suggests. One potential psychological hypothesis is that believers in a ‘just world’ view saw Scottish qualification as deserved or providential (the ‘miracle’ in Norway) and are unable to reconcile this with ending up at the bottom of the group (cognitive dissonance). This is not healthy, or particularly mature. I could say I saw this coming, but even I was surprised by how little threat the Scotland team mounted.
Great players make for great managers.
If Guardiola was in charge of Peterhead do you think he’d guide them to the SPL title?
Great managers get the maximum out of the group of players that they have eg Stein, Ferguson, McLean, Clough etc.
Stevie Clarke had managed that in previous years but not in this Euro’s.
He was the right choice and had done a good job but having observed the last 9 months he has become a bit staid, too loyal and inflexible as can happen in any line of work. In addition, due to the timid way Scotland performed (least shots on & off target) he had lost a lot of support and good will.
I think it is time for a new face with a fresh pair of eyes. Clarke can walk away with his head held high and get another good job. It would benefit all parties concerned.
I wrote to Andy Roxburgh when he was Scotland manager, and my son played in 3 different lads teams, about the situation with boys clubs, as I saw a lot of terrible coaching going on and lots of keen young lads leaving the game as soon as they got to High School and other things took teen boys attentions.
I was calling for an end to boys leagues, playing for points at 10 years old seemed crazy, far too competitive and the fun gone. I confess I don’t know now if anything has changed or what the set up is now. I know that the UKGov has given millions to the English FA for facilities for quality youth coaching, (consequntials for us?)
Mr Roxburgh did reply I remember telling me all about excellent coaching around Scotland and thanking me for my interest in Scottish football. While the patronising attitude felt typical of the time to women’s opinions about the game & was vexing, I doubt if anything fans say is taken seriously by the ‘suits’. They know best. Well, no they don’t. Perhaps they should listen when we say our Scottish game could be so much better. We don’t have to accept a status as ‘not as good as England’. Denmark Ireland Nederlands seem to organise their game much better than we do.
I’ve loved the game since my first which was televised in glorious black and white, Eintracht Frankfurt v Real Madrid at Hampden in 1963 I think it was. I have watched thousands of matches since. Fans have a great knowledge of the game we love. We should be listened to.
It isn’t humiliating unless you feel humiliated. Do you really feel so? Is the nation humiliated?
This comes across like self-hatred.
Scotland are team with:
1)lowest number of shots on target
2)total number of shots
and (though this could change)
3)most goals conceded.
From a football point of view that is pretty humiliating.
@John, plus the only team with a player to have been awarded a red card (so far).
https://www.uefa.com/euro2024/statistics/teams/disciplinary/?sortBy=red_cards&order=desc
I was trying to find a breakdown, but I imagine that Scotland’s puny tournament xG (expected goals) value was largely made up by two attempts by central defender Grant Hanley (header against post versus Switzerland, curling shot against Hungary).
If nothing else, it was a moral crime against spectator sport. And I though it was the USAmericans with the dastardly plan to kill off ‘soccer’.
Poland have no points though. None!
That One Point should be cherished, polished and put on display somewhere; Holyrood perhaps.
Not so fast – Poland have only played two games so far.
As for your snide remark about a trophy I would say that some recognition by Holyrood for the Scotland fans who have been universally welcomed and praised for their friendly and sociable behaviour would not be out of place. They have done more to disprove the national stereotype of Scot’s being mean and dour than any other group of people I can think.
They have also shown a high degree of loyalty in the face of adversity.
I did not mean to be snide. I was merely poking fun at the idea this matters so much as to feel humiliated and to make all these extrapolations to the state of the humiliated nation and all that.
There will be structural reasons behind the sporting failure but really how far can you take nationalist politics in explaining it? England also underperform, and have done pretty much for decades.
The fans have been great but for the most part they generally have a good rep in Europe anyway.
I don’t think it’s so much explaining it with nationalist politics as it is recognising how wider issues in Scottish society play out in a particular facet of public life, fitba in this instance.
I don’t think many would agree the status quo in terms of football and our attitudes towards ourselves play out. Things need to change. Some people might believe that the constitutional question plays a part in that, others may not, but that’s for them to articulate the answers.
Saying this is the best we can do isn’t good enough. Failing with the attitude we have is failing utterly. Failing while striving to be better at least aspires to something.
We finished with equal lowest points and worst goal difference.
So it’s official we were the worst team at the tournament.
What is more impressive is the fact that Georgia who came 3rd in our qualifying group and only got to Germany via playoffs have made it through to last 16.
“We”? I didn’t know you played. You’re a man of many talents.
As long as I can remember Scotlands footballers have underperformed expectations. The footballer’s could learn a lot from Glasgow Warriors who’s moto “privileged to play” and winning mindset has just delivered one of the greatest trophy victories in the history of Scottish team sports – away in the league final against ruthless opposition in South Africa. Glasgow Warriors amazing victory, was eventually mentioned on the BBC news – only after 3 revisits to Germany to wash up and reinforce the dismal heroic failures nation narrative of self hating BBC Scotland.
“Inevitably this complete lack of aspiration has a mirror in the political world. The Unionist mindset of apologising for even being here, making do with what and where we are, and of constantly assuming that anything from down south is better, is cultural cringe writ large”,
I’d like to ‘second’ this point in particular. I cannot see Scotland advancing beyond its current problematic ‘plateaux’ until it advances as an independent country. Look at the amount of independent countries that regularly do much better than Scotland in the tournament. This ‘doing well’ and ‘being well’ seems to come naturally for them. I don’t see Scotland achieving such success for at least a generation after achieving independence. Imagine a Scotland team made up of folks who had grown up in an independent Scotland. That’s something to aspire to right now.
Hi Mike, we’ve disagreed appropos the national team on a few occassions over various platforms, but I have to say, we’ve arrived at precisely the same conclusions from very different angles. Without going out on too much of a personal tangent, I feel very alienated by the national team, but largely because of much of what you describe. That feels alien to me. It certainly all feels like a version of Scotland, but not one I identify with, and not one that I can reconcile with myself. I see it very much in the same terms, the national team is a symptom of something far more deep rooted. Wholesale cultural change is needed in Scottish football, but likewise, the SFA are a symptom of that wider malaise. There is a deep seeded belief that Scotland, in many respects, can never, and will never amount to anything. Contrast that with my own sense of Irishness where there is a belief that one day, on our day, we can be anything. It’s often a hopeless sense of hope, but it’s hope nonetheless. It’s something I’ve struggled to reconcile with my sense of Scottishness, because its so often absent from any facet of national life. We’ve adopted mounring in a dour pesimism as some kind of national trait along with kilts and bagpipes, but it needn’t be the case.
Again, the problems are more deep seeded, but we’ve wallowed in the shadow of ’78 for too long. That was 8 years before I was born, but it stillweighs heavy. It’s been like drinking away the pains of a long lost love, we need to move past that and resdiscover a sense of hope and optimism. The difference being, who gives a flying fuck if we fail? We’re failing any way.
There’s a tendecy to frame out every facet of Scottish life in the most rational and pragmatic terms possible, in doing so, sucking out all the joy there is to be had. Much like the football of Stevie Clarke.
I want the national team to be a reflection of the Scotland that I believe we all deserve, in attitude and nothing more. Until we learn to do that, it cannot and will not be a force for positive change in Scotland, but it could be. People just have to start believing and tell themselves that we are more than this.
‘a manager who has failed so badly and given chance after chance after chance.’
Stevie Clarke’s record is considerably better than you give him credit for. He took the team the the Euros in 2020/1 and 2024. It is worth recalling that Scotland has qualified for 4 Euro tournaments and failed to qualify for 11; 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016.
His success with Kilmarnock was remarkable and suggests that his man-management is a real strength. The simple truth is that Scotland is short of international class players and has been for decades. Anthony Ralston is a reserve at a team whose impact in European club competitions is mediocre, yet he is first (available) choice in all three games.
It is reasonable to calmly assess whether Stevie Clarke should continue as manager. However, as Hibs fans must know better than most, getting rid of a manager is the easy bit; getting a better replacement is the hard bit.
Florian
I agree with much of what you have said about Stevie Clarke but his defensive approach and loyalty to players were exposed as inflexibility in this tournament. We needed to win the Hungary game and he hung off making meaningful changes far too long.
I am not a Jambo but it seemed obvious to me that Shankland is the best finisher we have and we needed goals. Thirty goals for a non OldFirm team is a rare achievement. He should have introduced him at halftime and certainly no later than 60 minutes to give him a real chance to make impact. Similarly Forrest has been in great form and could have helped create more chances than Armstrong did. As it turned out neither substitutes had much of a chance as a couple of forced substitutes of experienced players meant there was no team structure for most of the time they were on.
There was no guarantee that these earlier substitutions would have been successful but they would have asked questions of Hungary, who looked very comfortable, and energised a support which would have in turn encouraged the team.
I think David Moyes and Derek McInnes would be similarly suitable replacements as both can achieve with limited resources. In addition they would bring a fresh pair of eyes, unclouded by loyalty, to selection and tactics.
I think Clarke overall is a good manager and has done an excellent but when it appears more difficult to be dropped from team than be selected I think it is time for a change.
@John, and that change could be towards anarchy:
“Deciding on positions and strategies without a coach”
https://www.anarchistfederation.net/football-and-anarchy/
On this showing, what have we got to lose?
Sleeping Dog – after Robertson and McGinn had to be substituted (obviously forced not planned) from what I could see it was anarchy and it was not pretty!
@John, please don’t fall into the error of confusing chaos or confusion with anarchy. Anyway, there’s literature on the subject. I recommend Gabriel Kuhn’s Soccer vs the State: Tackling Football and Radical Politics.
How on earth would Gabby Logan refer to Scotland if not ‘they’? She’s Welsh (though obviously her husband and son were in the crowd supporting Scotland).