HuttonDressedAsLahm

For all Georgia's improvement, Norway missed two absolute sitters last night. They missed a few opportunities against Spain as well. I was worried Georgia had played them off the pitch, but frankly, how Norway didn't win that game is beyond me. Norway creative, but give up chances. A similar approach in Oslo will no doubt be what we do.

Poor when he came on against Cyprus? Feel like we were watching a different game. Christie brought energy and directness that had been lacking. Christie definitely struggled a bit after the highs of Serbia, but the last two performances have been excellent. There aren't many obvious lesser players at all in our 23 and wider squad. We have really strong options everywhere, and it's brilliant that we can make sensible decisions to play on our opponent's weaknesses, rather than having to play the 'strongest' XI in every game.

He wasn't asked to review it because VAR didn't think it was worthy of a red card. It wasn't remotely near the level of force required for violent conduct.

VAR sees everything. The fact it wasn't officially reviewed tells you everything that you need to know. It was ill-advised, but comes absolutely nowhere remotely near violent conduct. Robertson made no contact with the player's face, so brutality/excessive force would need to be shown (face is non-negligible force). I'm quite comfortable that VAR would have got involved if a red was shown. There's zero evidence of VC in any clip or replay shown. Overall, the referee(s) kept good control of the game. Not sure I can remember a team making so many unnecessary fouls in our last third of the game, giving us every opportunity to slow it down. Spain completely lost the head and their game management was woeful - Joselu's first half histrionics perfectly encapsulated their attitude.

What a pleasing performance. Nothing particularly novel to add given the discussions already had. We were as disciplined as I can remember, and it's very clear that Clarke had an effective game plan to deal with Spain. That we were able to reduce Spain to taking the ball out wide and lobbing the ball into the area is both testament to how organised we were, but also their relative decline. It might be a new manager and a new team, but it seems they've not learned anything from their WC exit. Borrowed from above, but if the positions had been reversed, we wouldn't have believed that we could pull that game back. We've seen us do it in Georgia and other similar fixtures. Whilst we were nervous - I wonder how many Spanish fans had any real belief in their ability to recover that game. It's also brilliant to see us have another way of winning a game of football. We gave up a few chances, but it's also true that the four/five best chances of the game all fell to a blue shirt. That is quite incredible. From having no right backs, a serious impending goalkeeper problem, no quality at centre half, and no strikers... we now have high quality options in every position. Not only that, but our players are almost all the right side of 30 (if 30 even really matters as much as it used to), and with our most important players now on 30+, 40+, and 50+ caps. It's entirely conceivable that every player who started last night will make it into the Hall of Fame. We might not end up with Belgium/Spain levels of caps, but we've never had a core team with the experience this team will have - not even remotely close. Nothing has been achieved yet, but last night had a 5-point swing on what could have been. In previous campaigns we lost to the Germans, whilst Ireland got last minute winners in Georgia. We've also submarined ourselves against Macedonia, Lithuania (x3), Moldova etc. Both this week's games are examples of our progress. Spain now cannot let up against anyone. That is hugely helpful.

Could be. At least we have the personnel on the bench to make significant changes if wanted/needed. So often in the past our First XI had a couple of ringers, and now there aren’t any in the squad.

A few points: 1. Screens are a massive problem but clearly budget and funding related. Not sure what can be done, or at what speed. 2. Having the referee's comms over the tanoy/TV is something that IFAB/UEFA/FIFA are looking at and will trial. There are any number of very obvious reasons that this can't work as easily as rugby, but clearly something that fans want and football desires 3. VAR reviews will speed up with referee familiarity and comfort. The VAR operators provided by Hawkeye will also become more familiar and aspects will speed up. What justifies 'clear and obvious' (or other similar policy) will continue to be refined by the SFA, just as Howard Webb is doing in England. It's always a balance as no matter where you try to draw that line, you create edge cases one way or the other and some group of fans/coaches/players/pundits will be unhappy (too little intervention in one direction, too much in the other) 4. That won't occur. We're adding an arbitrary and completely unnecessary pressure, which will only result in mistakes being made. You'd imagine that the match referee is already feeling the pressure, potentially asked to review the monitor in the 90th minute of the game having run 11km and with a heart rate of 170. Adding yet more stress benefits precisely no one. 5. The World Cup/Champions League lines are automated because the technology was available. VAR in Scotland already has substantially fewer cameras than other major leagues, and cannot afford Goal Line Technology. Automatic offside, certainly for the foreseeable future, is an absolute non-starter.

An unacceptable outcome is a VAR system that can see a gross miscarriage of justice but has its hands tied by an arbitrary and unnecessary challenge system. I have no issue with fans being frustrated by VAR, so long as they aren't conflating their issues with VAR with their lack of understanding of the game. Long delays, having the experience affected due to non-celebration, and not knowing what's going on I can have sympathy with. I can also understand those that don't want VAR at all. I predicted exactly where we are (worldwide) when VAR was being planned for in 2017/2018. I'm definitely not alone in that regard, but perhaps in the minority. Many of the other issues so often repeated I have less time for, as they so often stem from ignorance and misdirected frustration.

Isn't this just a situation where "being right is not enough"? Like, so many moral/philosophical positions would be just brilliant if people behaved well/correctly/sensibly/rationally? The reality is that they don't, so we accept that, and we adjust our parameters around not what is theoretically possible, but what is actually plausible. VAR has full scope to see everything because to do otherwise would be to create unacceptable outcomes. If VAR can see a clear red card offence but a coach who hasn't thrown his yellow hankerchief in the air, we just accept that as missed? That's complete unsatisfactory, and a solution devised to limit intervention for the sake of limiting intervention, not to actually make the game better. And back to point one, it's an entirely academic point because it's simply not going to happen, just as we're never going to get rid of subjective decisions, or fans that cannot be objective. If we must have VAR, it is far better to improve how we communicate and educate, and control the controllables. We're allowing the unskilled, unprepared, and unknowledgeable to commentate on VAR and its implementation while being wilfully ignorant of the Laws of the Game, the application of those Laws, and the basic fundamentals. Football is one of the only pastimes where we give air time to people who have built careers on a subject they know very little to nothing about. Would we listen to podcasts on law reviews and judicial decisions by people who had never studied or practiced law?

It's a terrible option, and there's a reason no football competition is using it. We're conflating issues with global-led VAR, and specific issues that Scottish football is working its way through. If you remove the teething issues (slower implementation due to familiarity of the processes by literally everyone involved), Scottish-specific issues (stadiums without screens) then we're left with exactly the same issues that literally every competition has. VAR exists to ensure that Key Match Incidents have the best possible and acceptable chance of being correct. The inescapable problem that VAR has to manage around but cannot ever overcome is the element of subjectivity that is inherent in football. In any given situation, VAR has to decide if a 'clear error' has been made. Fans, coaches, and pundits get into contortions trying to apply their layperson interpretation of what "clear" or "obvious" means to them. Ultimately, even if we are all entirely agreed on what constitutes clear or obvious, we'll still disagree on a decision-by-decision basis. The Guardian article shared yesterday shows that a room full of the highest paid, coached, and capable referees in world football are split approximately 50:50 on whether VAR gets involved in some decisions. You will always have 'edge' cases that are impossible to square. Scottish football needs to find a way of stop being so insular, and bemoaning the aspects of VAR that is seems to think are somehow unique to Scotland. That doesn't do well for column inches or radio time though - much better to wrongly moan about handballs, and suggest we need to pay for full-time referees when some clubs can't pay transfer fees.

There's a Guardian article published today on English officiating, and VAR down south. They have all the money in the world to throw at the problem, and almost everyone is miserable. The problem isn't VAR, and isn't referees, but the way that those involved in football (fans, players, coaches, pundits) are perpetually trying to square circles. There are so few truly objective decisions in football, and yet refereeing decisions are being critically evaluated by people each week, the vast majority of whom are unable to be objective in their own analysis, have absolutely no understanding or familiarity with refereeing in any capacity, and don't know or understand the application of the Laws of the Game. I'm not certain this problem can ever be solved until a level of acceptance is made, that not all decisions can be objectively 100% correct to 100% of people. Officiating is a zero-sum game, and it's always bemused me that everyone around the game can be unhappy. We seem to fixate on the individual handful of errors, and extrapolate that the entire game is broken. Scotland doesn't have the money to pay 30 officials full-time, have 12+ cameras for VAR at every game, and even if it did - what exactly would change? VAR would be more refined, officials would be fitter and probably slightly better, but ultimately, the same decisions that cause massive discontent would still exist. The SFA and UEFA have a communications issue they need to address, as they're still dealing with football in a pre-social media age. Education and communication on how refereeing and the Laws of the Game actually works is long overdue. Getting rid of the objectively wrong moaning on Sportsound would go a long way to slowing the 'death spiral' mirage.

Tbh, finishing third would still be an improvement on some recent campaigns. Youth teams obviously vary hugely, but that looks like a very tough group. We do seem to a young but impressive team for these qualifiers. The hope would be to at least reasonably compete with the Top 2 and not collapse against those beneath us.

First cap was against Denmark in a game won by Matt Ritchie after a howler from Schmeichel. Incidentally, also the match Tierney got his first cap in.

I'd agree with this. He's getting game time at a side like Liverpool, so he's worth having around the squad. We only have a few players who can get onto the pitch and make a big difference (if not starting, Christie, Fraser?), so having some pace and guile is very useful. With 14(?) named subs now, it's also not like it's taking a position away from someone else. We haven't had an 'exciting' youngster in an attacking position since McFadden got his debut. Doak may reach those heights, may go past them, or he may do a Burke. Either way, I have no issue with him being around the squad. Wales seem to do a good job of giving youngsters a chance. If there's one major attribute of SC that I have enjoyed, it's been the trust in youth which has seldom been a Scottish trait. I'd even suggest we've never had so many promising young players getting their inclusions, and their debuts. Some of that may be due to the quality of player available, but we've also had massive hesitancy from coaches in the past preferring to play experienced journeymen, so I'm all for it.

You may well be right, but he’s probably at least 2 years off any real senior football? For the here and now, I’ll take having Stewart scoring goals in the Championship, as after him it’s pretty much Shankland and Nisbet - neither of whom are really good enough to make an impact at international level. After that, we’re still hoping for youth players to make the step up. As good as some of them are, it almost never happens for us… without sourcing Dykes and Adams we’d have been looking at Watt as our source of goals since 2019/2020…

That’s quite some detail there. Thanks for sharing. We must have also had a fair few sent down who never made a debut and came back up.

U21 sides don’t offer the access to national teams that it sometimes seems. The reality is that players 18-21 who are good enough for the national side, usually skip past the u21s, usually with just a handful of caps. Most countries in Europe operate that way. England, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium… their top players for caps and goals typically have unimpressive full international careers. The same is also very true of Scotland. Just look at our top scorers and those most capped, and the the common trait is not making it. It seems obvious once you think about it - after all, Gilmour, Robertson, Tierney, Patterson, Hickey, Ramsay have all skipped past it. Players like Daily are the exception to the rule. It would be nice to have a successful u21 side, but it’s not a marker of much more than how poorly coached they are (we do massively underperform at u21 level in comparison to both the full side, and the u17/u19 levels).

I'd say some of the detail leaves much to be desired. I'd be confident of the match details and stats, as they are all driven by the official source (though the site often gets match officials wrong if there's a change in the last 24 hours before kick off).

Yes. That's it.

Rory Wilson now has 12 goals for the u17s (Soccerway u17 stats). The record keeping is poor at that level, but can't imagine there are many other players with that record.

Norway have the world’s best striker but they’ve still been a bit hot and cold lately. Perhaps, a bit like us. The one ‘positive’ is that Norway are just as capable of dropping points to George/Cyprus as we are. We absolutely need Spain not to drop points.

As above - the best squad we've had in a generation or two, and most of our players are 27 and younger. The only places where experience/depth is necessary is at goalkeeper and striker. We don't need to 'see' more full backs, or centre mids, and probably not centre half either. If there are brilliant prospects, then that's a different question. However, do we need to see Liam Lindsay to know that he's not as good as McKenna, Hendry, Cooper, Souttar, Porteous, Hanley... and he'd presumably still be behind Halkett and Gallagher? Nothing against Lindsay, I'm making a point about our depth of options. Getting a goalkeeper capped, and game time for a fit Stewart and Brown up front would be a priority. If an u21 player can make a cause (perhaps Elliot Anderson), then great, but as far as I can tell our greatest prospects are either not playing senior football or injured (e.g. Lowry) or still too young (e.g. Doak, Wilson). In an ideal world, we'd have the main players available, and an opportunity for game time to the good players that are already peripheral. We have a list of very good players already not getting a game for us. I don't see any good reason to make that list much longer.

Long overdue.

FIFA's document from August 2021 notes the 14th for players involved in the World Cup. It also is missing the dates for this last week's fixtures - perhaps it's available and I just can't find it. Other reports state the 20th, but that's presumably nonsense. I would presume you're right, either by the actual window, or by pragmatism, but flagged all the same - clubs have more influence than we often appreciate. Clubs like Arsenal/Liverpool will have their own views on friendlies in Turkey. Edit: agreeing on your point above - seems a sensible reason to not confirm the friendly yet.

It will be so long as clubs are mandated to release players, and SC wants to have the full team available. We've been fortunate that the squad has had pretty much 100% attendance over the past couple of years - injuries permitting. The priority - if possible - is to have the core of the side there, whilst giving game time to the peripheral players, particularly the strikers, goalkeepers, and a couple of midfielders.