Worst tournament performance since 1954 ?

[BFTD]

The 1954 World Cup, of course, we wrapped up warm in sweltering temperatures because "a'body knows it's cold in Switzerland", did hee-haw in terms of preparation, took a squad of thirteen players, interfered with the coach's decisions to the point that he resigned, and where we were beaten 1-0 and 7-0.

We all know that the SFA is still useless, but that vintage surely win some sort of prize for cluelessness.

[DC92]

10 hours ago, GordonS said:

No, I don't buy any of that. He set up a team to create chances and to limit the opposition's chances and he succeded. He can't kick the ball into the net and he can't stop centre halves from hitting ridiculous shots when there's no cover behind them. We made enough decent chances to beat the Czechs and England, and to at least draw with Croatia.

Adams was shite at his main job. He showed no composure at all in the box and combined bad execution with bad decisions. The team gave him and Dykes enough supply and they squandered it. That's the truth of the games and there's no denying it.

We did create a few chances over the games, but I think the volume and quality of those chances is in danger of being overstated. The Czechs also missed chances and the chance Gvardiol had early in the second half was a better than any of the chances we missed against Croatia. 

I only brought up Adams in response to the idea that Lafferty is a goalscorer who fired Northern Ireland to the second round. The point being that you don't have to have Lewandowski up front or score loads of goals to get out of a group stage. I don't think he had an amazing tournament, but the guy who had a half-chance blocked against England and maybe could have done better trying to reach a cross against Croatia was "shit" while the man in charge for the three games was entirely blameless? I'll have to disagree.

10 hours ago, GordonS said:

The idea that Croatia were anything less than they were because we beat them 11 years ago is irrelevant. They were World Cup runners-up three years ago, they were second seeds in the group, they're ranked 7th in Europe. The game was winnable but they're clearly better than us. When the chips were down Modric pulled out a classic performance befitting a guy who has been the first choice midfielder for a decade in a team that's won 4 Champions Leagues in that time. The idea that a defeat in that game somehow proves there was some defect in the management is risible.

Again, the root of my argument isn't "we didn't win one winnable game", it's that we had two winnable games, won neither, and were beaten by comfortable margins in both.

The reason I included the stats about our record against those teams and our competitive Hampden record over the last 20-odd years is because these results are evidently below-par, even for a period where we qualified for f**k all.

What's risible is the suggestion that the manager who achieved these results did so with flawless tactics, team selection and game management.

10 hours ago, GordonS said:

I don't agree at all that we achieved more with less over the past 20 years. I think the 2006-07 team was obviously much stronger. It was better in defence and it was better in attack. In fact, I think this is the worst choices Scotland have ever had up front and at centre half. Hanley, McKenna, Hendry, Gallagher, Cooper, Considine - none of them are in the same category even as Gary Caldwell, never mind a David Weir, a Colin Hendry, an Alex McLeish or a Willie Miller.

That's a two-year period, I'm talking about games since the turn of the century.

Weir, who missed the Vogts years and was initially dropped by Burley, is clearly better than what we have now in defence, but Pressley, Wilkie, Webster, the Caldwells, McManus, Berra, Martin, Mulgrew, Wilson, or the younger Hanley? Hardly.

Various combinations of those jobbers have made up our central defence over the last couple of decades, and managed to keep Hampden defeats rare and two-goal Hampden defeats exceptionally rare.

10 hours ago, GordonS said:

I'm absolutely certain that if Clarke had picked the team that you say he should have in those games and lost, you'd have been saying he got it wrong. 

That's a weird thing to be "absolutely certain" about, given that i) you don't know me, ii) I had a lot of faith in Clarke before and during the tournament and iii) I still want him in charge.

Our team has looked at its best under Clarke when we've had two midfielders who can take the ball off the defence and pass it, with another midfielder (McGinn) in front. Like most, I wanted Gilmour to start against the Czech Republic but I understood that Clarke would probably go with the more experienced McGregor. To start with neither was a big surprise to me, especially since a midfield three featuring both McGinn and Armstrong changes the shape of the team to one which has never looked as functional. As it turned out, the Czechs sat on McTominay, limiting us to long balls from the back.

Starting McGregor and Gilmour in midfield against England gave us a set-up similar to the Serbia game. We looked more secure at the back and were more able to play through midfield than in the other games, while also having the option of going direct.

Losing Gilmour for the Croatia game, while the probable replacements in Jack and McLean were injured, was a huge blow and I'm not sure exactly what the answer was to that. I did think Armstrong coming back in, meaning our midfield resembled the midfield from the Czech game more than the England game, was an odd choice. Maybe Clarke thought we needed a different approach at home, and I'm not sure what condition Fleck was in after having COVID, but he might have been a less disruptive choice.

In any case, we'd fallen out of the game by the time McGregor equalised and, aside from the McGinn chance, we were well out of things early in the second half. With several players tiring, something needed to change, whether that was bolstering the midfield or just getting fresher legs on. It was up to Clarke to come up with that change. If he'd attempted something earlier and we'd lost anyway I'd be more sympathetic, but he waited until after the game was already gone.

Luck played a part, lack of quality played a part, and tactics and team selection played a part.

[Lurkst]

I don't think anything will ever top Argentina 78 in terms of disappointment and failure to meet expectations. We were literally among the favourites for the tournament. 

 

[Monkey Tennis]

23 hours ago, Lurkst said:

I don't think anything will ever top Argentina 78 in terms of disappointment and failure to meet expectations. We were literally among the favourites for the tournament. 

 

That was clearly the most painful.

I don't think it was the worst though.

[BFTD]

23 hours ago, Lurkst said:

I don't think anything will ever top Argentina 78 in terms of disappointment and failure to meet expectations. We were literally among the favourites for the tournament. 

I've wondered about that. Outside of the British press, were we really considered one of the favourites? I know our manager was bigging us up, but still.

We'd have been wee England in 1978, the same way Eire were in 1994. No wonder the press here would have been talking us up.

[Monkey Tennis]

On 26/06/2021 at 14:00, DC92 said:

We did create a few chances over the games, but I think the volume and quality of those chances is in danger of being overstated. The Czechs also missed chances and the chance Gvardiol had early in the second half was a better than any of the chances we missed against Croatia. 

100% this.

A mythology has developed that would have a casual visitor imagining we must have constantly been rattling woodwork, while being confronted by goalkeepers having the game of their lives.

The reality is that we forced a handful of decent chances.  We missed virtually all of them due to the absence of class evident in our front players.

However, it was only a handful and they generally weren't absolute sitters.  Better forwards would have buried a couple though.

[BFTD]

Other than the number of unforced errors we started with against the Czechs, surely our biggest problem at this tournament was the inability to create clear-cut chances.

But absolutely nobody should have been surprised by that at all, and I'm not sure what can be done about it in the short term.

[Lurkst]

1 hour ago, BFTD said:

I've wondered about that. Outside of the British press, were we really considered one of the favourites? I know our manager was bigging us up, but still.

We'd have been wee England in 1978, the same way Eire were in 1994. No wonder the press here would have been talking us up.

Historical rankings had us as 4th in world at the start of 1978...

https://www.eloratings.net/1978_start

(interesting to note Iran ranked above Peru).

We were also joint 4th favourites with the bookies at 6/1, after West Germany, Brazil and Argentina. 

 

Edited June 27, 2021 by Lurkst

[DC92]

1 hour ago, Monkey Tennis said:

100% this.

A mythology has developed that would have a casual visitor imagining we must have constantly been rattling woodwork, while being confronted by goalkeepers having the game of their lives.

The reality is that we forced a handful of decent chances.  We missed virtually all of them due to the absence of class evident in our front players.

However, it was only a handful and they generally weren't absolute sitters.  Better forwards would have buried a couple though.

 

1 hour ago, BFTD said:

Other than the number of unforced errors we started with against the Czechs, surely our biggest problem at this tournament was the inability to create clear-cut chances.

But absolutely nobody should have been surprised by that at all, and I'm not sure what can be done about it in the short term.

We're very reliant on crosses, especially from the left (for obvious reasons). A lot of those were deep crosses, which I'd imagine don't have a high conversion rate even when they do find their man.

None of them are world-beaters and it might have made no difference anyway, but I'd have liked to have seen a bit more of Turnbull and Fraser, or even Christie and Forrest, just to give us something a bit different. Two up front with McGinn as the most advanced midfielder maybe gives us more scoring options from crosses but there's minimal creativity there.

[BFTD]

1 hour ago, Lurkst said:

Historical rankings had us as 4th in world at the start of 1978...

https://www.eloratings.net/1978_start

(interesting to note Iran ranked above Peru).

We were also joint 4th favourites with the bookies at 6/1, after West Germany, Brazil and Argentina. 

 

Yowzah.

For once without sarcasm - what a time to be alive.

[Monkey Tennis]

29 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Yowzah.

For once without sarcasm - what a time to be alive.

We did have a very strong squad.

It was reasonable to think we'd have a good chance of emerging successfully from our group.  Thereafter, we'd have had a chance of going far.

[RobbieD]

4 hours ago, BFTD said:

I've wondered about that. Outside of the British press, were we really considered one of the favourites? I know our manager was bigging us up, but still.

We'd have been wee England in 1978, the same way Eire were in 1994. No wonder the press here would have been talking us up.

I wondered this a few years ago and tried to do some research on it. Most people outside the U.K. thought we’d be in amongst the favs.  A lot even had us 2nd favs. Mental really.

Edited June 27, 2021 by RobbieD

[BFTD]

3 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

We did have a very strong squad.

It was reasonable to think we'd have a good chance of emerging successfully from our group.  Thereafter, we'd have had a chance of going far.

I'd imagine that, back in 1978, getting out of the group ahead of Peru and Iran would've been considered a given. Now, even if we were really good, I think most folk would be quite nervous if we found ourselves in a group with two rank outsiders  

Am I right that the SFA did f**k all to scout our opponents at that World Cup? And which player was it who admitted a few years back they'd been asked to go, but turned it down because their club manager told them they needed to be fit for the next season? Just mental to imagine someone agreeing to that.

[Monkey Tennis]

11 minutes ago, BFTD said:

I'd imagine that, back in 1978, getting out of the group ahead of Peru and Iran would've been considered a given. Now, even if we were really good, I think most folk would be quite nervous if we found ourselves in a group with two rank outsiders  

Am I right that the SFA did f**k all to scout our opponents at that World Cup? And which player was it who admitted a few years back they'd been asked to go, but turned it down because their club manager told them they needed to be fit for the next season? Just mental to imagine someone agreeing to that.

As has been mentioned, viewing the then South American Champions as outsiders was unwise.  

I think it's true that Ally McLeod was better at creating mood and morale, than he was at the specifics of squaring up to a particular opponent.  I think there was little preparation of that type in terms of opposition or accommodation or medication or bonuses, or anything involved in such a campaign so far from home.

I remember it pretty vividly as a young kid and in self indulgent moments, reflect on it as having partly shaped my current outlook on football and indeed life.

I'm a miserable b*****d, thanks chiefly to Don Masson and Alan Rough.

 

[HibeeJibee]

3 hours ago, BFTD said:

I'd imagine that, back in 1978, getting out of the group ahead of Peru and Iran would've been considered a given. Now, even if we were really good, I think most folk would be quite nervous if we found ourselves in a group with two rank outsiders  

Am I right that the SFA did f**k all to scout our opponents at that World Cup? And which player was it who admitted a few years back they'd been asked to go, but turned it down because their club manager told them they needed to be fit for the next season? Just mental to imagine someone agreeing to that.

3 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

As has been mentioned, viewing the then South American Champions as outsiders was unwise.  

I think it's true that Ally McLeod was better at creating mood and morale, than he was at the specifics of squaring up to a particular opponent.  I think there was little preparation of that type in terms of opposition or accommodation or medication or bonuses, or anything involved in such a campaign so far from home.

Peru... Copa America holders... 2nd seeds.

Scotland... Home Nations runners-up... 3rd seeds.

Our media also went overboard about them being 'aged veterans', over-the-hill, etc.

"Grandfather Cubillas" was 29... only 3 of squad 30+... average age was actually slightly lower than ours.

Knowing little Scottish pressmen assumed/invented their ineptitude as they weren't called "Brazil", "Argentina" or "Uruguay".

Edited June 27, 2021 by HibeeJibee

[Lurkst]

I've got this at my folks' somewhere. 

A reasonable gauge of the pre Argentina mood of the nation...

 

[Monkey Tennis]

10 minutes ago, Lurkst said:

I've got this at my folks' somewhere. 

A reasonable gauge of the pre Argentina mood of the nation...

 

It clearly was over the top, but it only came to look so wildly ridiculous in the face of really poor performances, especially that delivered against Iran.  

There was room for optimism beforehand, but I think the wisdom now says that Scotland side had really peaked a year earlier and was on a downward trajectory by the time of the finals.

There was something to be said for the euphoria stoked in advance though.  Feel good factors do actually feel quite good.  That particular one wasn't as fanciful or deluded at the time, as is often portrayed now.