Another SFA farce

[Part/Time Supporter]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/13059264.stm

Knowing that the FIFA rankings in July will determine the World Cup seedings, whose bright idea was it to play Brazil?

[Frazerbob]

Friendlies are arranged for three reasons:

1. Practice for up coming qualifiers
2. Progress up the rankins which will hopefully help future qualifying
3. Commercial reasons - like it or not, the SFA need to make money

The Brazil game fell into both 1 and 3. We have a game away to Spain coming up so it gave Levein the chance to play a similarly ranked team.

The Carling Cup matches offer a great chance to move up the rankins IF we manage to beat these teams that are around us in the rankins. Those who think this tournament is a waste of time need to see the bigger picture.

The Denmark friendly is obviously with an eye towards the Czech Republic qualifier.

The recent friendly against the Faroes was obviously practise for the Lichtenstein qualifier.

The reason we have slipped down the rankins is that our wins at the start of the Euro 2008 qualifing campaign against the likes of Lithuania, Georgia and France have fallen off the list. Not becuase we lost to Brazil.

Maybe the importance of friendlies these days needs to be instilled in the players who cintinually withdraw from squads. They are not pointless!

[Hibs Class]

Friendlies are arranged for three reasons:

1. Practice for up coming qualifiers
2. Progress up the rankins which will hopefully help future qualifying
3. Commercial reasons - like it or not, the SFA need to make money

The Brazil game fell into both 1 and 3. We have a game away to Spain coming up so it gave Levein the chance to play a similarly ranked team.

The Carling Cup matches offer a great chance to move up the rankins IF we manage to beat these teams that are around us in the rankins. Those who think this tournament is a waste of time need to see the bigger picture.

The Denmark friendly is obviously with an eye towards the Czech Republic qualifier.

The recent friendly against the Faroes was obviously practise for the Lichtenstein qualifier.

The reason we have slipped down the rankins is that our wins at the start of the Euro 2008 qualifing campaign against the likes of Lithuania, Georgia and France have fallen off the list. Not becuase we lost to Brazil.

Maybe the importance of friendlies these days needs to be instilled in the players who cintinually withdraw from squads. They are not pointless!


And maybe the importance also needs to be reinforced to the Scotland Manager so that he may strike a sensible balance between experimentation and putting out a team that may remotely resemble one that he would play in a competitive match.

[Removed]

It's a farce that the SFA allow the Scotland manager to go out looking like a total jakey

[Frazerbob]

And maybe the importance also needs to be reinforced to the Scotland Manager so that he may strike a sensible balance between experimentation and putting out a team that may remotely resemble one that he would play in a competitive match.

:agree:

[Frazerbob]

It's a farce that the SFA allow the Scotland manager to go out looking like a total jakey

:agree:

[ancient hibee]

Friendlies are arranged for three reasons:

1. Practice for up coming qualifiers
2. Progress up the rankins which will hopefully help future qualifying
3. Commercial reasons - like it or not, the SFA need to make money

The Brazil game fell into both 1 and 3. We have a game away to Spain coming up so it gave Levein the chance to play a similarly ranked team.

The Carling Cup matches offer a great chance to move up the rankins IF we manage to beat these teams that are around us in the rankins. Those who think this tournament is a waste of time need to see the bigger picture.

The Denmark friendly is obviously with an eye towards the Czech Republic qualifier.

The recent friendly against the Faroes was obviously practise for the Lichtenstein qualifier.

The reason we have slipped down the rankins is that our wins at the start of the Euro 2008 qualifing campaign against the likes of Lithuania, Georgia and France have fallen off the list. Not becuase we lost to Brazil.

Maybe the importance of friendlies these days needs to be instilled in the players who cintinually withdraw from squads. They are not pointless!
Playing against Brazil was never going to help us in qualifying matches because we have to win games and we were never likely to even have the ball against Brazil.Also they get the lion's share of the money generated.It was a bad decision.

[Frazerbob]

Playing against Brazil was never going to help us in qualifying matches because we have to win games and we were never likely to even have the ball against Brazil.Also they get the lion's share of the money generated.It was a bad decision.

I disagree. The company that organised the game would have received the lions share of the money. Brazil and Scotland would have received a fee each. Similar in the way boxing is promoted, the bigger draw (ie Brazil) would receive more than the challenger (ie Scotland). We would still have been paid a substantial fee though (not sure what it was to be fair). If it wasn't financially beneficial, do you think the SFA would have accepted the game?

However, more importantly it gave us a game against TOP class opposition, which is exactly what Spain are. What better way to prepare for that game?

Incidentally, we don't need to beat Spain in the final game of the campaign as long as we win the other three games against the Czechs, Lithuania and Lichtenstein. If we win those, the Spain game is a dead rubber. Even with our poor (but improving) national side at the moment, that is not out of the question.

It was also a good exercise due to the lack of call offs compared to most friendlies against average teams. Everything I saw about the build up and aftermath of the game was positive.......even the game itself was pretty much what I expected. Some of the young guys playing would have learned so much more from that game that any other recent friendly. As far as I understand the rankings system, losing to teams well above you in the rankings does not have a big effect.