Delivering the Knockout (Stage) Blow - Croatia v Scotland

[Lang Spoon]

Scotland are out? After all the celebrations last Friday I assumed they'd already won it!

Fuck me, are we doing Bantz now? I'm sure the 365 forum will be busy tonight if that's your idea of fun.

[jwdd27]

Ooh, that was a lovely goal by Modrić.

[The Red Max]

Twas ever thus, the inevitable denouement for Scotland - all or nothing on the last game. So will it be:
A) Glory
B) Failure
C) Glorious Failure

Onwards to eventual triumph, or home before the postcards?

It was B, it was always going to be fkn B.
G'night all.

[KingsburySaint]

Waiting on the train at Central, with the fucking quster past cancelled, probably isn't the best location for measured comment. However, as fucking pish as that performance was I would like to dwell on the positives.

My 6 year old enjoyed our participation and i don't think that can be underestimated - we were at a fucking tournament. When I was 6 the Uruguayans were kicking us off the park and we underperformed another 4 times before I was 18.

My daughter loved Scotland being there and so did every poor sod born post 1992, if my conversations with my nephew and his pals counted for anything. And if it annoys the Ayrshire loyal stewing in their seats in front of me all the fucking better.

[Ray de Galles]

Good to hear KS and I concur. When you've not qualified for a tournament for over twenty years/your entire lifetime then just being there is a huge buzz.

I just hope that Scotland can build on the experience. Will Clarke stay in the job?

[Satchmo Distel]

I think he'd want to see out the WCQ, where Top 2 is definitely realistic. They'd be mad to fire him.

The England game will deserve to be fondly remembered after the Hampden defeats are forgotten. They lost tonight to a team containing one of the greatest players of all-time, who took over the game in the 2nd half like he did in the 2018 SF, and of course the first game had the goal of the tournament. With a different group draw (most obviously Spain's), who knows?

[Patrick Thistle]

At times Scotland played some lovely passing football. They put excellent balls into the box. They needed to be more aware in defence and they're lacking a top quality striker. There's nothing in their performances to suggest the problem is the manager.

[imp]

I was spewing out profane negativity within the confines of a small WhatsApp chat group last night, but I'm over it now. In the brighter light of morning, I very much like Kingsbury Saint's post.

[blameless]

Aye, KS's post was excellent. Glad your wee one had a great time.

As for the outcome of the three games, not an enormous surprise that a team that hadn't been at a tournament for a generation isn't much cop at tournaments. If we somehow get to Qatar or Euro 24 and are still pish, that'll be the time to complain about lack of progress.

[The Red Max]

Yeah, I'm much better after a nights sleep too. I've been watching Scotland at tournament finals for 47 years, but for almost exactly half of that time we've been totally absent from the stage, so it's great to reclaim our usual, nay rightful, place as international tournament also-rans. We're back, and some people even noticed.

I don't think there's any prospect of Steve Clarke leaving the job before qualification for WC2024 is completed, I think he'd like to stay on in the job, the SFA are behind him 100 percent, as are the fans. He'll leave for a big job in club management eventually, but hopefully not any time soon.

And to echo Kingsbury Saints post above, my 2 sons (27 & 24 years old) were on social media last night saying how much they had enjoyed watching the national team at a tournament, and being part of that shared experience of the highs and lows as Scotland fans. Having been over that course so many times myself it's easy to forget how it must feel for those experiencing it for the first time.

[Patrick Thistle]

I can see why some Scotland fans would be disappointed because of the parallels with Wales at the Euros 5 years ago. Same group as England. 2 Eastern European teams. But Wales didn't have to play England at Wembley and Czechia and Croatia are better sides than Slovakia and Russia in 2016. Perhaps if the group games had been entirely at neutral venues then there would have been less pressure or a different feel to the games. It would have felt more like a tournament.

[AMMS]

There's no chance of Clarke being fired, but he could be the Celtic manager by Christmas if their gamble on Postecoglou unravels.

I understand the sentiment around young Scots enjoying the tournament experience for the first time. I still recall, as a 7 year old, how much I enjoyed the 78 World Cup despite Scotland's performances, that world cup consummated a burgeoning love affair with football that's sustained right through my adult life. International football has an ability to capture children in a way club football can't I think.

So, that's a positive, but for me it's really one of very few positives and, in my opinion, if we allow that to be our focus then it'll be another couple of decades before we get to 'enjoy' the tournament experience again. I don't have much of a problem with Steve Clarke. He can only pick the players available and while there are a few players you could argue might have made the squad (Griffiths, Shankland, Gould) it's not like he left out a 30 goals a season top flight finisher. We created enough chances to take points from all 3 games we played, that Scotland hasn't been able to produce a striker of any note for over a generation now is a damning reality, but it's not Steve Clarke's fault. We can debate whether Clarke got the team selection right for the Czech match, whether his substitutions were correct both in timing and players changed, or whether he's adventurous enough as a coach, but I don't think the country's first team coach is the problem.

The problem is Scotland stopped producing high quality football players some 40 years ago and no one has addressed it or looks likely to. I've never met any Scot who thinks Scotland should be winning international football tournaments, but fuck me we should be producing better players than we do. I know comparisons are misleading but in the time that Wales have had Mark Hughes, Gary Speed, Ryan Giggs, John Hartson, Aaron Ramsay and of course Bale, Scotland haven't produced anyone comparable.

This isn't just about population, as both Croatia and Uruguay have demonstrated. Football remains an obsession in Scotland, it dominates the media and national discourse at times, its popularity remains considerable.

Until the SFA address why we don't have better players and more of them, we'll continue stumbling on. Until supporters stop accepting mediocrity and the 'just here for a party' mentality alters then I've no confidence anything will force change.To win only one point and score only one goal when all our matches were played at home or in England is a definite failure. Tournament failure should be a catalyst for change, but we've become so inured to abject failure some people seem to be looking at this as some sort of partial success. Our league structure needs radical change, the allocation of finances needs changed, perhaps rules need to be placed on clubs and the percentage of home grown players in their squads, whatever change looks like it needs to happen and happen soon.

[About Average Motherwell]

Would definitely agree with KingsburySaint up the way - I was a primary schoolkid last time we went to a tournament. It's great to be here again. I am old enough to remember '96 and '98 in painful detail, and young enough that that's my only experience of Scotland at tournaments. It's been fucking amazing to cheer MacGregor lashing one in, at a tournament, to level the scores against the World Cup finalists (and to bemoan dropping two points against England, etc). That really should be separated out from "are we any good", I think, and be noted as a thing that this team and management have achieved.

So, are we any good? Well, fuck knows. I have yer standard what-ifs and refereeing complaints, of course - cf the first Croatia goal, though we were definitely well beaten - but ultimately, I think Stevie Clarke did a solid job with an improving bunch of players, and we were largely (not entirely!) as lucky as we were unlucky. If we had a striker with any feet apart from Adams, who evidently forgot his, who knows?

We're a small country etc, and that's not nothing, but as noted above, plenty of other small countries have been doing better. Nonetheless, I think Clarke's got to stay if we can keep him - the structural problems of Scottish football that AMMS points out are, I think, in large part what happens when a small country can't sustain hypercapitalist football, and that's deeply entangled with why the SFA is useless. (I think we agree on this, AMMS, though maybe not on how we feel about this tournament!)

In conclusion, could certainly have done better, but for god's sake let's not all be Ewan Murray about this.

(Also. hello OTF! Long-time listener, etc)

[Duncan Gardner]

Welcome About Average Motherwell. You remind of my last visit to Fir Park. We were enjoying a pint after the game when two glamorous blondes came in and invited us to dinner at their hotel. The NI centre backs who'd just lost 2-0 to the hosts

[Patrick Thistle]

Welcome to the board About Average Motherwell

[blameless]

Welcome from me also, and that's a helluva good post to kick off with.

[About Average Motherwell]

Many thanks, folks!

Duncan Gardner This can't be true. You expect anyone to believe there's a hotel in Motherwell?

[Duncan Gardner]

Heh. I could have added they even threw in a lift in the team coach (the hotel was in Glasgow centre near the Armadillo)

ps I was reminded of the trip (also included an Accies game and visit to Blantyre) reading a story about David Livingstone Centre in the Graun the other day. My globetrotting childhood included a year in the East African namesake

[About Average Motherwell]

Hamilton was always described to me as being the posh version of Motherwell, and so for years I had the impression that Hamilton Academicals (which is admittedly one of my favourite club names) was made up of, like, louche Oxbridge chaps playing football in long trousers.