Originally Posted by
G B Young
Yes I accept it sounds cheerless in the wake of the euphoria around qualification, but the fact remains that the only teams we beat to get to the play-off were Israel and Albania. There also seemed to be much over-egging of what a dynamite side Serbia are when in fact they're only ranked 30th in the world - hardly a monumental scalp when you consider Scotland are 45th.
As others have pointed out on another thread, this just doesn't stack up as the success it's being billed as. We failed dismally (as usual) in the qualication group proper and were thrown a lifeline by the Nations League which seems to me to be set up in order to allow teams who weren't otherwise good enough the chance to play at a major tournament. I don't really understand its rationale.
Granted Scotland appear to be developing into a different beast under Clarke, but Covid has given him a lot of unexpected additional time to develop the team and I'll be a lot more impressed when we qualify for a tournament via the group route.
I may just be getting old and cynical, but as somebody who can recall Scotland at the 1974 World Cup and numerous tournaments when our frustration centred around our inability to reach the latter stages rather than 22 years of failure to even qualify I just feel a bit underwhelmed by the way we've reached this one.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks