Who is to blame for disastrous World Cup Qualification Campaign?

[Super_Ally 0]

This rant was formulating in my mind on Wednesday night, but I didn't have the opportunity to write/post it then.

 

Whilst mathematically it is still a possibility that George Burley might lead his Scotland team out at the 2010 World Cup Finals in South Africa, after the humiliating 4-0 loss to Norway it is looking increasingly unlikely. Holland had the automatic qualification sewn up in double-quick time. The rest of the group have been scrapping for second position and a possible play-off spot. However, only 8 of the 9 runners up qualify for the play offs and with the teams in our group all taking points off each other, it may very well the second placed team from group 9 misses out.

 

Some may argue it is too early for a post-mortem. We have 2 games still to play, with 2 wins securing second place. A home tie with Macedonia is most certainly winnable. But the Dutch visit to Hampden, a team with a 100% record thus far, makes the required victories decidedly unlikely.

 

Norway hosted Burley�s team with just 3 points from their opening 5 fixtures and not a win to their name. A Scotland victory would leave us competing with just Macedonia for second place. This week�s disastrous capitulation puts the Norwegians right back in the hunt.

 

So why do we look unlikely to be gracing yet another senior international tournament? Admittedly this is a trend that neither Walter Smith nor Alex McLeish could arrest. However, in Smith�s opening campaign he took over the reins from the Bungling Berti Vogts who had already handicapped our qualifying campaign for the 2006 World Cup. Smith catapulted the nation 70 places back up the rankings, greatly enhancing our prospects of qualification. McLeish took over the mantle after an encouraging beginning to a group containing World Cup Winners and Runners Up Italy and France. Qualification from the group of death was nigh on impossible, but we only missed out after a final match defeat to Italy.

 

With the knowledge that second in the current group at least gave us a chance at a play-off match, even with Holland to contend with, confidence was high ahead of the campaign kick-off. So what has gone wrong?

 

I would suggest there are two major culprits contributing to a dismal qualifying campaign. First and foremost the manager, George Burley. The pick of the bunch when the candidates to announce McLeish as he left for Birmingham. In hindsight he has been a poor choice. Secondly, the parochial, childish and mischievous media of this country.

 

From my point of view, the warning sirens were blinking early after an opening round loss away in Macedonia. A narrow win in Iceland arrested those fears, but a home draw to Norway had the writing on the wall. It should also be noted that the Iceland victory came thanks to a player that Burley described before the match as having ââ?¬Å?limited abilityââ?¬Â.

 

Burley has shown a number of deficiencies since taking control of the national team. His poor man-management skills and inability to manage big name players from big name clubs are atop the list. Would his predecessors, Smith and McLeish, have addressed an inexperienced player making is international bow with such a damning description to the ravenous Scottish press? Fortunately for Burley, Kirk put the media frenzy behind him and scored the goal that bought his manager time. Burley is deeply indebted to the young defender.

 

In addition to an ability to manage his stars, Burley demonstrated a naivety in dealing with the media. However, worse was to follow. Last October we welcomed Norway to Glasgow, a game in which victory would leave us clinging tightly onto Dutch coat tails. With the game delicately poised at 0-0, George turned to his bench for inspiration and a match winning goal. He had a number of options and chose to ignore the prolific Boyd (7 goals in just 15 games for his country) in favour of Wolves� Chris Iwelumo and Hibs� Steven Fletcher.

 

The reason for ignoring the most prolific Scottish striker since Ally McCoist? Apparently Boyd was not featuring regularly enough for his club stating Boyd needed to establish himself in the Rangers team. The stats on cursory inspection do not back up Burley�s claim. Of further confusion is the fact that Iwelumo had not played in a number of weeks for his club due to suspension and the fact that Fletcher was in woeful form in front of goal. It cannot be argued that Boyd was infinitely more established and experienced at club and international level. To further compound Burley�s error, Iwelumo missed a howler of a sitter in front of goal and the kind of chance that Kris Boyd buries 99 times out of 100.

 

A 3-0 defeat in Amsterdam was no disgrace. Holland strengthened their grip on top spot, but it was the rest of the group we needed to finish ahead of and 3 points dropped away to the run-away winners would not prevent that. The fallout after the game further highlighted the problems in the Burley�s camp, but also brought to the fore-front the contribution of our media to our downfall.

 

Many of the senior players drowned their sorrows on their return from Amsterdam. Among them National captain Barry Ferguson and club team-mate, goalkeeper Allan McGregor. The drinking session lasted all night and led to disciplinary action being taken against the Rangers pair. It is commonly accepted that amongst their drinking buddies, Scott Brown headed to bed just an hour earlier yet escaped any sanction.

 

As Ferguson and McGregor were hung out to dry by a kangaroo court and our impartial media, Burley and the SFA demonstrated their inability to deal with player disobedience. A witch-hunt began against the players� which culminated with their idiotic gestures from the bench to the media that persecuted them. The gestures were at the media, not the fans, but that did not stop our press from twisting things.

 

That is not to excuse the players� behaviour. But does anyone honestly believe the English press would stitch up their star man like Gerrard and Lampard? Of course they wouldn�t. They would deride their behaviour, mock their immaturity and stupidity, demand apologies and then ultimately welcome them back into the fold. I think this week�s game made it evident we cannot afford to chase any talent from our limited player pool?

 

So why did our media seek to run the Rangers pair out of the national reckoning? I would suggest they believed that the removal of the awesome influence of the former Rangers captain would allow their new media darling to shine. With no Barry Ferguson to compete with for a position it may have been believe Scott Brown could assert himself on the national squad and become the new lynch-pin of the midfield. We all know they have been pressing the agenda of the young pretender to the throne for years; however Ferguson blew that myth out the water with a match against the then Hibs pairing of Scott Brown and Kevin Thomson and took them both to school.

 

With the experience and qualities of Darren Fletcher beside him, Brown should be producing more at international level. However, much like the young Man Utd star, he has not produced in the dark blue of Scotland. Watching that game on Wednesday night, as we were down to ten men and struggling to regain a grip on the game it was apparent to me how dearly we needed a calming influence in the middle of the park. A man to take hold of the ball, keep possession and recycle it. Keeping the ball and limiting Norwegian chances could have kept the score at 1-0 going into the break and given Burley a chance to rally the troops.

 

So what happened? Fletcher, as so often happens, went missing. Unlike on club duty, when playing for Scotland Fletcher is looked upon as one of the main men. He does not deliver. And media-darling Brown. What did he do? The usual snarling, growling ill-disciplined display the media fawn over. At one nil he careered across the pressure and snapped into a tackle giving Norway another free-kick on the corner of our box, not long after Riise had opened the scoring with a trademark free kick. The last thing we wanted from one of our supposed star men. I don�t believe Ferguson would have let us down in such a manner. You can say what you want about his final year at Rangers, but we have the quality to replace him with Edu, Mendes, Thomson and Davis. As proven by our double-winners title run-in. Unfortunately the National manager does not have the same quality to choose from.

 

There was justification to remove Burley after the first Norway debacle. There is still an outside chance of World Cup qualification, but results, tactics, formations and off-field issues have demonstrated that George Burley is not the man to take us there. Again, we may be quick to question Walter Smith, but against Norway it looked like Burley had got bored with proceedings on the field and decided to see how many right backs he could get on the field before the game finished or somebody stopped him.

 

There are numerous other concerning issues I could address under Burley�s tenure. The appointment of Butcher and Pressley as his coaching team would be a good place to start. But the point of writing this has been to draw attention to the real culprits for likely failure and seek debate for future opportunities.

[Gers4Life 0]

How about the bloody SFA management !!!! Donkeys the lot of them!

[Super_Ally 0]

How about the bloody SFA management !!!! Donkeys the lot of them!

 

Don't disagree mate. Should maybe have touched on that when mentioning bevvygate.

 

Problem is there is so much to fault Burley the SFA and our media for that it's hard to decide what to comment on. Woudl be here all day if I tried to cover it all.

[Zappa 0]

Blame? Definitely George Burley. Scotland are now just as likely to finish bottom of our group as we are to finish second. Even if we do pull off wins against Macedonia & Holland to finish 2nd in the group, our points tally & goal difference will more than likely not be enough to see us into the play-offs. You just need to study the tables - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/tables/default.stm

[Zappa 0]

Losing in Macedonia & only getting a draw with Norway at Hampden have all but killed our chances & that was before we went out to Norway on Wednesday for our thrashing.

[Super_Ally 0]

Losing in Macedonia & only getting a draw with Norway at Hampden have all but killed our chances & that was before we went out to Norway on Wednesday for our thrashing.

 

Said as much 3 games or so ago mate.

 

Much like PLG you don't need to wait for the apocalypse before making a change. To use a football analogy Mourinho would happily make changes in the first half of a game rather than do a Walter etc and wait til the 80th minute when the game is lost before doing something about it.