So Scotland rather predictably lost out to Spain last night while simultaneously the Czech Republic
booked their playoff place with a fortuitous 4-1 win. Had Lithuania been given a penalty just
before the Czech’s scored their third, things might have been different. At the end, Scotland came up short in another
group that they should have escaped from.
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| David Silva Scores the goal that ended Scotland's hopes |
As predicted from the outset, Scotland
were vying with the Czechs for that second place, and it was those two ties
where the playoff place was decided. For
many Scottish fans, the tie in Prague
was all about Levein’s 4-6 formation, imagine the lack of ambition in not
playing a striker. In reality, this was
a close game not helped by the Scottish defence’s tendency to hoof the ball
forward to the Czech defence. If it was
the inability to hold on to possession that was Scotland’s only failing on the night,
that might have been forgivable. The
bigger crime was Scotland’s
awful defending at the goal as the defender Hubnik was given the freedom of Prague to do whatever he
wanted… which was to put the ball in the back of the net.
That game was
Levein’s early problems in a microcosm. Struggling
to get his team to gel while still trying to figure out his best formation,
Levein’s Scotland
struggled to retain possession and to do anything useful with it. It is symptomatic of the period that in the
next game, against Spain,
Levein played 4-2-3-1. It wasn’t until the
Carling Cup matches and the early season friendly with Hungary that
the 4-5-1 formation, with a midfielder dropping into a defensive position,
developed. Then, the return match with
the Czechs was upon us.
In truth, Scotland did
not perform. Yet found themselves 1-0 and
2-1 up. Had they not sat back, then
maybe the Czechs would have left Hampden with nothing. But as soon as Scotland
went ahead, the Czechs seemed to pin Scotland back with relative ease. The Czechs still showed better technique than
Scotland,
but there is no way that this side are as good as some of the Czech sides of
the past. An opportunity lost then.
While Levein is an
almost certainty to be at the helm of the Scotland national team come the first
World Cup qualifier, there is a growing backlash. 4-6 and those early sluggish performances
have sparked criticisms, with callers to “Your Call” on Tuesday night calling
for Levein’s head. So far those calls
are in the minority. There is however
three things to bear in mind. The first
is that at the moment there isn’t really an obvious successor to Levein.
Callers named
Souness as someone they would like to see at the helm. The thing is, Souness hasn’t really been a successful
manager since leaving Rangers in April 1991.
He won the English Cup with Liverpool
in ’92, and memorably won the Turkish Cup with Galatasaray in 1996 and… well that’s
it really. Secondly, Scotland is still very much a work
in progress. Lastly there is a record of
Scottish Managers failing to get the country to the European Championships but succeeding
with qualifying for the World Cup. Stein
and Roxburgh failed to qualify for any of the European Championships in the
1980’s. Stein then took us to the World
Cup in 1982, and before his untimely death got us almost to the 1986
tournament. Roxburgh failed to get us to
Euro 88, before taking us to Italia 90.
I think that Levein
is still the best person for the job, even if it has taken him a bit of time to
get to grips with the job. But it is
looking more and more as if his whole career rests on what happens during the WorldCup qualifiers. No pressure then.
