Scotland - World Cup 2002 Comments

[dylan_drummond]

Unfortunately I think there are various factors which go against a tremendous 2002 campaign:

1. we have no truly great players at the moment
2. as often noted we don't have a football culture which produces a steady stream of technically good players

when we did have great players - Denis Law, the Lisbon Lion bunch, Archie gemmill, Billy Bremner, King Kenny, Gordon Strachan, Willie Miller, Alan Hansen... - we always cocked it up somehow anyway:

1966 "we're not playing cause we didn't win Home Championships", ok so we cuffed them next year but the rest of the world including England doesn't remember that

1974 - let's miss a winning goal against Brazil from 1 yard out, let's also draw with mighty Zaire

1978 - let's beat Holland they're not that good are they, but get lucky draw with Iran oh and let's take drugs before the drug tests

1982 - Alan Hansen and Willie Miller, two of the world's best defenders - oops.

1986 - ok, unlucky, once again Scotland's group - Germany, Denmark, Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Brazil, was it. but is it unlucky if we can't score a goal against 10 Uruguayan ice-hockey players?

1990 - end of great players era start of eternal "Costa Rica" jibes from our English friends.

1992 - not good enough anymore

1994 - fastest international goal by San Marino against England. Irrelevant to my original point but had to be made.

1996 - remote control football tested successfully by Venables. but we were still mediocre overall. thank god for German penalty taking

1998 - brave but ultimately not good enough, again.

2000 - nearly beat distinctly crap team to qualify, but we would have lost to Portugal and Romania as well.

[McBeaty]

Briliant recap dylan - sums it all up nicely...

The trouble is NOT the crap times, but the blindingly good moments that hint at greatness...

[Thinks> Wee Archie scoring against Holland - best goal ever scored..........Ah well!]

...And yet it ALWAYS ends in tears!

...Naw. I've made my mind up. If we can't beat Craotia and Belgium convincingly (as well as stuffing the also rans) then forget it. I don't want us in the next World Cup...

Full Stop!

[Ginarley]

Originally posted by McBeaty:
...Naw. I've made my mind up. If we can't beat Craotia and Belgium convincingly (as well as stuffing the also rans) then forget it. I don't want us in the next World Cup...
Full Stop![/b]

Fair enough call i guess.
Still, from a kiwi perspective, if our All Whites ever won a game of soccer against a european team at all i would be ecstatic! In fact it would be good to actually play them! All we ever do is trade goals with the soccer-roos from across the ditch.

In my mind a 1-0 victory is still a victory, and the score isn't the only judge of a brilliant performance.

Still, i realise that apart from wynton ruther NZ doesn't have any soccer players so my angle is a little distorted from yours.

Perhaps you scots should send your soccer team on a tour of NZ rather than your rugby!

[McBeaty]

Originally posted by Ginarley:
Perhaps you scots should send your soccer team on a tour of NZ rather than your rugby!

LOL...Excellent1

Yep...What a good idea. Tell you what, if we DON'T beat Belgium and Croatia, as a punishment we will send them on a tour of NZ - but to play the All Blacks!!!

[jambo99_00]

ok that is a fair enough point. but however i will be supportive of craig weird and wonderful tactic upto the point of his contract ending however i do still strongly feel that craig brown should have followed John Collins out of the door of at international level and bring a manager who will invest and take time in scotlands future to feed through youngsters at a young age and get and united and consitent team playing together would surely bring the team capablility and knowledge of each other to a stronger point just like what Brazil do where the players play with each other from a young age and saty together is as not done Brazil any damage they have however won the world cup 4 times in there history.

Ok so the other problem that we have is that scotland in general find it hard to score more than 2 goals per game because there is a serve lack of stikers in general people are still raving on players like King Kenny, Mccoist and so on look at the quality of youngesters coming through or trying to break through at clubs like Celtic and Rangers, top two clubs in scotland again this is happened that hearts and hibs produced good quality younger players Paul Ritchie (hearts) allan Johnstone (hearts Via Sunderland) Hibs with Kenny Miller they all moved to the old firm just for the money and maybe if they are lucky a season and half of playing football at ibrox were they will fade into nothing because they'll just buy european players. So realistically who will take the scotland job after brown considering the lack of players that he has.

[Peter-J-Small]

First of all. On the Euro 2000 subject.
Scotland should not be compared to Engerlund for the following reasons:
England are tactically inept. Scotland are tactically superior to most countries in the world (where our problem lies is that there is a massive talent gulf between ourselves and the rest of the world)
Take Russell Latapy (Hibs). He must be one of he most technically fifted players in Britain yet Trinidad & Tobago never figure in the World Cup. Scotland have shown in the past that one or two world class players don't make a world class team.
Euro 2000 was a tournament which focused on possesion play. England were put out because they found it impossible to hold on to the ball without charging up the pitch like a bunch of primary school kids.
Scotlands whole game plan focuses on possesion play (69% of play aginst England at Hampden and 65% at Wembley). For this reason alone Scotland would have been more successful than England. We certainly wouldn't have lost six goals in three games.
As I write this Scotland have one of the best away records in Europe. Defeating England and Germany in there own back yard and holding Holland and Croatia to draws away.
Scotland play football the way the International scene demands it to be played and with a couple of world class players thrown in Scotland could be one of the dark horses in Japan/Korea.
On the same note. I do not think a european side will win the next world cup. Brazil, Argentina or an African nation. Time will tell.