Dismal display

Wales 2 Scotland 1

Above is the men's national football team's latest result (if you didn't already know!) What baffles me as a sportswoman is certain peoples obsession with continuing to always blame performances on the manager. If my hockey coach changed monthly there would be absolutely no consistency or belief among the squad. Levein is giving it his best but perhaps it is the players who have not performed well enough in these big games? Take one look at the standard of the SPL compared to the PL and there is no comparison. One has worldwide following, lots of money, foreign players whereas the other not so much. Perhaps, our squad is just not good enough? What do we as a nation need to do to successfully produce homegrown talent? Remember our Olympians and Paralympians? We certainly have sporting talent in our small nation and can compete on the world stage. So how can we produce this on the football pitch? How can Scotland get back up the rankings to the good old days? Maybe we need to take a look at our national health statistics and realise more sport has to be played than moaned about.

I admit this is a generalization here and that the country can produce and has produced world class footballers but frankly there are not enough. Look at the women's squad reaching the Euro playoffs against Spain for the second time running this weekend under Anna Signeul who has been in the job since 2005 - that is 7 years in the job showing a managerial post is not an overnight success!

Scotland loose to a team ranked one below them in the FIFA world rankings and again it is an outcry of "sack the manager". Wales are ranked 57 and Scotland 56 and I understand these are only numbers and we were 1-0 up and lost two goals in the final ten minutes but what continuity and confidence will be brought to the squad now if we don't at least give Levein a chance until the end of the campaign? Serbia ranked 33  in the world and we draw 0-0 and so it is "sack the manager". Macedonia 1-1 and it's all the managers fault that we cannot beat a lower ranked team.  

Now, do not get me wrong there was that dodgy tactic with no player up front in Prague but Levein has proven himself as a top class footballer on the pitch and a successful manager winning SPL manager of the month 6 times. 

There is no doubt about it, there is talent out there and it is about recognizing what needs to happen to help youngsters progress successfully through to senior level.

Remember that time we won the World Cup?

"It's not the defeat that get's every Scotland fan, it's the hope beforehand" (Bell, 2012).

I would be really interested to hear people's thoughts on football in Scotland- just comment below!