Levein showed enough to merit second chance to end years of Scottish failure

SITTING in the confines of a Mumbai hotel room watching Scotland on an internet feed that buffered every time Spain came close to Scotland’s 18-yard box (a lot) isn’t the way that I usually suffer a Scotland game.

For years I’ve trekked round Europe to be subjected to a dire defensive mentality consoled only by the camaraderie of the Tartan Army and the knowledge that that experience alone is worth the tribulations of being a Scotland supporter. Craig Brown may have bored his way to numerous tournaments, but he did so with a ruthless efficiency that is the antipathy of what the Tartan Army stand for and what Scottish football should be about. In doing so he masked the problems that have beset later managers, so that it appeared that the only route to success for the national team was through a system routed in dogged defensiveness.

This is where Craig Levein started from and it was self-evident in Scotland’s early displays in both Lithuania and Prague. But since then there has been a gradual shift in Scotland’s posture and it was clear to see from Tuesday night that no matter who we are now playing, we’re confident enough to at least try and give them a game.

That’s progress, but it’s relative progress made possible by the players that Levein has at his disposable. But I’d much rather the ‘learning’ and ‘growing’ approach that he’s taking than the overly pragmatic attitude that seemed embedded in the reigns of Messrs Brown and Smith. The next campaign will be the making of Scotland, because it pits us against teams that good management and a bit of luck will give us a chance of beating. But let’s not get too carried away, because for the strength we’ve amassed in certain areas we will still need a pot of white heather to qualify.

We’re a dominant centre-half and clinical finisher away from being a decent team, but I can’t see anyone on a two-year radar ready to fill those boots. But we have a coach that has shown enough to have earned the right to see if he can figure that out. And if you were to have offered me a choice of where I’d rather spend my hard-earned Rupees, then I’d sacrifice next summer in Kiev for a trip to Rio any day of the week.

Gavin McClement

Mumbai

Scotland’s group opponents were far from formidable

IF SFA chief Stewart Regan believes he can talk up Scotland’s failed effort to qualify for the Euro Nations finals and talk down concern about the failure then he is far too complacent. He shows the same complacency that has featured throughout the Euro qualifying campaign under manager Craig Levein.

The group Scotland was in was as negotiable as any Scotland is likely to be in any forthcoming international competition. To elevate Spain to some invincible status is simply more effort to justify Scotland’s exit. What about Leichtenstein, a relative five-a-side village team, and Lithuania are hardly considered formidable. The Czechs are a shadow of their former teams, particularly when the team was Czechoslovakian. Spain are still tame when put alongside many other teams that Scotland has fared commendably against in past times. The tenour of the game has merely turned around to suiting the Spanish style of football that has changed little over the years – possession, a bit of discreet heel-clipping, histrionic writhing on the ground, long back passes to the keeper, opportune impeding, and ball-bundling in the opposition goal area.

A look at Scotland’s grouping for the next World Cup qualifiers should prove sobering for those drooling into Brazil travel brochures. The negativity that has dogged Scotland in their football team formations and selections is only mirrored by Scotland’s rugby try-shy approach as too disappointingly obvious in their World Cup rugby matches in New Zealand. It isn’t optimism in managers that Scotland needs. It is an optimism much more substantial than this. Awe doesn’t win matches. More self-assuredness has a better chance.

Ian Johnstone

Forman Drive

Peterhead

Manager’s baffling optimism is woefully misplaced

Once again, maybe it is an age thing, I find myself in complete agreement with Glenn Gibbons (15 October). I, too, at first dismissed Craig Levein’s praise for his charges after our latest departure from a major competition as being “Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he”. When it began to sink in that Mr Levein was serious, I felt a grave concern, as should anyone who cares about our game and its image abroad.

Based on on a campaign in which in one game Mr Levein managed to redefine defensive, negative tactics – and still lost – and twice scraped past against virtual pub teams, his praise seems to suggest he is resident on another planet, and it is certainly not Planet Football.

Alexander McKay

New Cut Rigg

Edinburgh

Radical change required to lift entertainment levels

Scottish football is indeed “under threat of extinction” as claimed by Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell – and deservedly so. Our national manager considers the team’s latest blundering performance as “an enormous improvement on a year ago”. The home “competition” is still a Rangers/Celtic duopoly of equally poor standard. The last team to offer quality entertainment was Gretna.

Inability to match players’ salaries in other countries is irrelevant: the magnificent 1967 Celtic European Cup-winning side couldn’t achieve the earnings of top English teams, but comprehensively outclassed them in ability. So forget money: our present players surely earn more than Leichtenstein’s part-timers, yet we struggled to beat them.

Even with the game reduced to passball the standard is appalling, so John Reid’s call for “radical thinking” is fully justified, but our game’s blinkered authorities will never produce it.  Here’s a suggestion, then: scrap the senseless points scheme and promote attacking football by deciding league positions on goals scored. That would properly acknowledge goals scored by losing sides, and all positions would be open until all games had been played; that’s true competition.

Robert Dow

Ormiston Road

Tranent