Why Scottish players are much better than their ranking suggests By Thom Watt 14 August 2013 16:12 BST Scottish players showed what they are capable of in beating Croatia in May.SNS Group ”Why is Scotland worse than Ireland”, asked my American friend, verbally sweeping my feet from beneath me. “It’s not”, was all I could elicit in response, surprised that my verbatim summary of life in Scotland had suddenly and unexpectedly been held up to curious scrutiny. “So why do you guys always make out that it is”? It was a fair point. This particular introduction between Irishman, Scotsman and American hadn’t yielded any japes or visits to public houses, but had revealed a rather enlightening introduction into the psyche of each. When asked about his homeland, my Irish colleague had talked of the scenery, the stories, the camaraderie and the music. Despite being no less patriotic, all I could say of Scotland was “it’s alright. It’s quite pretty, but rains a lot”. Gone was the opportunity to introduce someone new to the work of Burns, or Mogwai, or David Hume. I could have been elucidating the work of the New Glasgow Boys, or explaining that the American constitution was based in part on the Declaration of Arbroath. I’d summarised it as “alright”. The Scottish psyche has very little time for the thrill of possibility. Perhaps it is that we have been stung so often by the memories of 1967, 1978 or those few days in November 2003, when we got a bit ahead of ourselves and believed we were right up there? Whatever the reason, Scottish attitudes, especially in football, seem to fit neatly into “shite” or “alright”. This week’s build-up to the match with England has been yet another example of our downtrodden scepticism. Scotland haven’t been very good at winning football matches for some time now, and so a level of wariness is to be expected, but the way in which we seem to accept the fallacy that our players aren’t any good is embarrassing. It’s perhaps inevitable that before the first match between England and Scotland in 14 years we look back at squads of days gone by and compare and contrast. It’s a fascinating, if not particularly enlightening, exercise, especially when we cherry-pick who to focus on. It’s certainly true that “back in my day we used to take our pick of players from the best players in the best teams in Europe”, but then again, so did the English. In the 70s we may have been able to take Dalglish, Law and Bremner from Europe’s elite, but England too were able to select from a group of clubs that won every European Cup between 1977 and 1982. The game has changed significantly, and unless you are Spanish, German or Brazilian, the days of selecting entire squads from the very best in the world are over. Despite the concentration of clubs winning European accolades, the make-up of these squads are more varied than ever. Successful national teams are forged from creating a unity from disparate individuals. Ahead of the 2013 clash there have been various in-depth discussions around how much better the team of 1999 was to the squad of now, without anyone thinking to remove the rose-tinted glasses of hindsight. The team in 1999 were categorically written-off. It wasn’t a side drawn from teams at the top end of continental competition; it was taken from good players at clubs of varying quality, moulded into a good side. Neil Sullivan was at a Wimbledon team which finished 16th, David Weir and Don Hutchison were at an Everton team which finished just one point better off. Calum Davidson and Christian Dailly had been relegated with Blackburn, while Colin Hendry made two appearances for Rangers that season. Billy Dodds was at the SPL’s third-best side, Dundee United. It’s easy to forget that Barry Ferguson was 21 and had scored two career goals. Arguably only Neil McCann was, theoretically at least, at the peak of his powers in an especially good side. England, by comparison, called on Paul Scholes, David Beckham and Phil Neville from the Manchester United treble-winning side. Sol Campbell, David Seaman, Ray Parlour and Tony Adams had pushed them within a point of the league title at Arsenal. The only starter from a club outside the top ten in the Premiership? Alan Shearer. Certainly we live in more sparse times, but the level at which the current squad plays is hardly lowly. Charlie Mulgrew, James Forrest and Scott Brown were part of a Celtic side that made the last 16 of the Champions League last season, and they might do well to ask some of their esteemed opponents how well they fared in the same competition. Steven Naismith made 31 appearances last season for an Everton side that finished sixth in the Premiership. James Morrison’s West Brom were eighth. Shaun Maloney and James McArthur may or may not stick around in the Championship, but they’ll have FA Cup winners’ medals wherever they end up. We can’t fall into the trap of assuming the Premiership is the be-all and end-all, but in this particular fixture we can actually compare like for like. None of this is to suggest we have a great team, nor are we on the brink of doing something special, or even that we’ll definitely match up to an England side which looks as strong on paper as it has for some years. It is simply to say that we’ve got good players, playing at a high standard, and we need to stop the inferiority complex. We take our players from a similar standard of club to the Irish, and while they have a realistic expectation of upsetting some of the biggest nations in Europe, we hope to get a better seeding. Yet most of our squad play regularly against some of the best in the world, and beat them. They upset the odds in Europe. They win things. We’re better than “alright”.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 16:02:56 +0000
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