Do Scotland have any chance of pulling out of their terminal tail spin?

In a recent friendly, the USA beat Scotland by five goals to one. Was anyone surprised by the score line? Scotland’s national team is in a terminal tail spin. Scotland as an international football nation has failed to evolve and now faces the prospect of extinction. The national team reflects the game in Scotland in general terms. There is no national unity in our game and division now runs through our national psyche and drags the nation down.

The Euros 2012 this June will be a spectator sport for Scotland, much like the last World Cup in South Africa and all the recent major tournaments. The Scots will be on the outside looking in. This has become familiar territory for Scotland and is now considered to be the norm. Scotland is now seen as a good draw for teams wanting to get an easy route to a final. Long gone are the days when the Tartan Army could look out their passports, dust down their kilts and feel confident of seeing their heroes in action on the main stage. Scotland is now a bit player in an industry that has moved with the times while Scotland has stood still.

Questions are now being asked of Craig Levein. Has he handled the job well? Certainly his handling of the Steven Fletcher situation left a lot to be desired. It took Levein fifteen months to finally tell Fletcher that Scotland no longer required his services. The ultra-defensive tactics against the Czech Republic with no recognised striker which heard calls for him to be sacked from both the media and the fans has also done lasting damage to his reputation. Results have not been good. Is Craig Levein the right man for the job? Did the job come too early for him? The default position for Scotland is that if you do not come running when your country calls then, you are a traitor, so it was near impossible for Levein to refuse. But did this show a weakness in his character. He clearly misses the day to day management of club football and taking the job now looks like an error.

Scotland clearly has bigger problems, though, than who is in the manager’s seat. The national sport of Scotland is football, yet we seem incapable of playing the sport at a high level. It will be TV, beers and pizza for Scotland fans as they settle into their armchairs and watch the Euro Finals. No travel club. No common cause, no one who can unite the nation. There is no young talent coming through and anyone with a Scottish granny can now pull on the famous dark blue jersey. There is no natural leader either on the park or off it. The internal squabbles between clubs and country and team allegiances have bled through and now Scotland is an association torn by internal squabbling, indifference and a lack of self-confidence. Sadly it now seems that when it comes to football Scotland is now a Prozac nation with no light at the end of the tunnel.

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