A New Low - the North Overtake Us

[Soper]

That is true, there were no add ons in Cardiff at the Millenium Stadium.

[gustavo]

Most times ive heard it with add-ons is in pubs with drunken teenage idiots

[Stuttgart88]

Back on topic, being below the North is of no consequence to me whatsoever. What is of consequence is that we're not performing & the leadership / management on & off the pitch is badly lacking. I'm adamant we're capable of achieving far more than we've been delivering, but equally I'm not sure the causes of our under achievement are being identified or will be rectified.

Just to clarify, I'm not saying we should be getting to the WC last 8 again, but at least threatening good results and being in the qualification mix as the group nears completion is a realistic standard to expect.

[fergalr]

The rankings and that fact that we are behind Norn Iron do matter - they are an objective indicator about how we are underperforming given the relative strengths of the two squads.

Would the ranking be different if we swopped managers?

[RogerMilla]

i believe that the rankign would be different if we swapped managers but lawrie sanchez has learned a lot in the NI job and improved himself as a manager , hopefully stan will do the same

[CollegeTillIDie]

The North are above us on merit. In the past eighteen months they have beaten both England and Spain. Republic by contrast have beaten no team of any significant standard since 2001. Case closed!

[Stuttgart88]

When I played tennis as a kid we had a ladder system in the club.

Everyone was ranked in order. Then, on an ongoing basis, any player could challenge another player up to two places above him, subject to a maximum number of challenges. The challenge had to be accepted. If the lower player won, their rankings would change, and over time the real rankings took on a proper shape.

I'd like to see something more along these lines being applied to international matches, both competitive (i.e., if two countries were playing each other anyway, let the result form part of the calculation as well as being for the points) and friendly. It'd add purpose to friendlies.

Obviously there'd be difficulties arranging games between countries in different federations, but something along these principles could be worked out I'd say.

[Stuttgart88]

Interesting extract from an interview with Walter Smith, citing his beliefs on international maangement, Scotlands fall and subsequent rise in fortunes, creating a "club atmosphere" in the international squad, handling the media etc.

I also just read Julian Dicks on bbc website commenting on West Ham's miserable run. He feels that last year everyone fought really hard because of the excitement of playing at a higher level. But because they did quite well they've got complacent and have lost the edge & spirit they had.

I think there are interesting comaprisons to be made with both the Smith & Dicks comments, and Ireland's performance since 2002.

Walter Smith: The quiet man performing an international rescue act

Brian Viner Interviews: At club level with Rangers his record was peerless but moving to Everton was 'right place, wrong time'. Then his country called and Walter Smith is in his element making Scotland brave again
Published: 27 October 2006

Waiting for Walter Smith in the lounge of the Holiday Inn at Glasgow International Airport, I reflect that if Scotland had won in Ukraine earlier this month, having just dispatched France at Hampden Park to top Euro 2008's killer qualifying Group B with nine points out of nine, then I might be waiting in the Walter Smith Lounge at the Holiday Inn, or perhaps in the lounge at the Walter Smith Holiday Inn, or even in the lounge of the Holiday Inn at Walter Smith International Airport. "Aye, we do tend to go a bit over the top when we win," says Smith, with a smile.

We have met before, in the dog days of his three and a half years at Everton, but even then, even with his job hanging by a thread, he struck me as an unusually kind and obliging man. Most football managers wear the pressures on their sleeves. But he did not appear to, and the intervening years have done nothing to diminish that impression. How many international football managers would ask if it might be more convenient for him to come out to the airport to meet you?

Of course, as an international manager, he has more time on his hands, especially with the next qualifiers - against Georgia at home on 24 March - so far away. It is for that reason that he thinks Gordon Strachan, reportedly his keenest rival in the race to succeed the hapless Berti Vogts, is better off in the dug-out at Parkhead. "Gordon's too young for this job," he says. "Even at 58 I feel the frustration of not having enough to do, of not being involved with the players more, and he's 10 years younger. He has plenty of time to experience it."

As for the Vogts era, I invite him to reflect on the widespread belief in Scotland that it was, in the carefully chosen words of one Glaswegian pal of mine, "an unmitigated disaster". After a high of 20-odd in the Fifa rankings under Craig Brown, the Scots plummeted more than 40 places under Vogts, looking up at Burkina Faso. But Smith is too gentlemanly to apply his brogue to the German's reputation.

"It was a very, very difficult time to take the job," he says. "Craig had a very settled Scotland team, but a lot of them were getting older, and those of us involved in football in Scotland knew that there were not a lot of players around to take their place. Coming from another country, maybe Berti didn't realise those difficulties. And there is a different mentality in British football, I think he maybe found that hard to encompass as well.

"The thing is, when Scotland had players like Denis Law, Billy Bremner, Graeme Souness, Kenny Dalglish, the team pretty much picked itself. When you don't have players of that calibre, the mentality of the players you pick comes more into it, and that's difficult for a foreign manager to take on board. It's maybe why you don't see many foreign managers taking over at places like Coventry, Southampton. When they come, they come to top clubs, with top players."

For the beleaguered Scottish Football Association, Smith ticked all the boxes. He had even been involved in international football before, as an assistant to Alex Ferguson at the 1986 World Cup. And after seven glorious years at Rangers, he knew better than almost anyone else the demands peculiar to a top job in Scottish football.

"Media-wise, you need experience," he says. "We have a population of only five million in Scotland, yet we have more newsprint than England, more national dailies than England. So part of handling any situation in Scotland is handling the media. Martin O'Neill did that brilliantly when he was here.

"Now, when I took over, the Scotland players had been threatening a boycott of the media because of the level of criticism they'd been getting. That's not the way to go. As an experienced manager I was able to come in and point that out to them."

The way to go, Smith decided, was to recreate a club environment. In the early 1980s, when he was assistant to Jim McLean at Dundee United, the club had punched massively above its weight. The likes of Paul Sturrock, David Narey, Ralph Milne, Davie Dods, were good players, but by no means great.

Yet they reached a Uefa Cup final, a European Cup semi-final, and briefly even threatened the Old Firm duopoly. That was done through rigid organisation and a strong team spirit, and Smith, recognising that in an international sense he perhaps had similar personnel, resolved to do things the same way.

"Yes, and the reaction from each and every one of them has been fantastic," he says. "We only have them for a short period of time, but we work hard to create a good atmosphere, and the back-room staff are a big part of that. I got Ally McCoist in, because I'd had him as a player, and I know he's one of those lads with a personality that can lift any room, any body of people.

"Everyone is happy to join up with the Scotland squad now, which was maybe not always the case in the past couple of years. There was a lot of despondency. Now, we have a decent level of intensity about training, and I've done away with a few friendly games. Friendly games are the bane of a club manager's life, so that helps in terms of co-operation with the clubs. But more importantly, we now have get-togethers instead, where we talk, play golf, and have a couple of drinks, those who drink. It's worked very well."

The culmination of Smith's new approach, the subsequent defeat by Ukraine notwithstanding, was the extraordinary 1-0 victory over the French. "That was great because it showed what we could do in terms of togetherness. It wasn't my greatest moment in football, but it was up there... France had lost one in 40-odd qualifiers going back to 1994 or something."

I ask Smith to share with me the story of the post-match celebrations, not that he's ever been the sort of man to lead a conga down Sauchiehall Street, but expecting at the very least to hear that alcohol was taken. "Actually, I drove straight to Gleneagles," he says. "The Scottish Premier League managers were having a get-together, and the three main guests were Sir Alex Ferguson, Gérard Houllier and Arsène Wenger. Paul Le Guen was there as well, of course, so there was a French contingent." To tease? To rub Gallic noses in a rare defeat? Smith is far too nice to say, and far too nice to do. But one can only imagine how nice it must have been to lay his head on a plump Gleneagles pillow that night.

Nice, too, must be that feeling of validation he is getting from his progress as Scotland manager. His time at Everton did little to enhance his managerial reputation, and his staggering haul of trophies at Rangers was never quite accorded the credit it deserved. The fat chequebook of chairman David Murray, rather than the sure hand of Walter Smith, was usually cited as the main ingredient in Rangers' success.

I ask him whether he feels aggrieved that his achievements at Ibrox were rather overlooked? After all, when a clutch of decent young Scottish coaches were emerging in the early 1990s, one of Scottish football's most venerable sages was heard to mutter: "They're none of them fit to lace Walter Smith's boots." Smith says: "I probably do when I look back but my personality was a bit to do with that. I don't actively seek headlines. But 13 trophies in seven years... nobody else in modern times has done it."

Following this rare burst of immodesty he pauses for a sip of strong, sugarless tea. "But you know, I didn't take the Scotland job for that reason[to seek validation as a coach]. I was coming up to 57, I'd been involved before at that level, and I was unemployed."

http://sport.independent.co.uk/footb...cle1932672.ece