Picking up the pieces; After a disastrous start in Toftir, Scotland

Sunday Herald, The, Oct 5, 2003 by Michael Grant

SCOTLAND are on the brink of pulling off something beyond even the most accomplished Formula One driver. You don't often see a race car crash at the opening bend only to find its way back on course and into a promising spot in the home straight. But that's how a white knuckle ride of a Euro 2004 campaign has been for Scotland. Quite incredibly, Berti Vogts and his team can see some Portuguese light at the end of the tunnel.

Can it really be more than a year since Toftir? Thirteen months since that farrago in the Faroes, when Scotland were two goals down in the opening 15 minutes of Vogts' first competitive game and few would have cared that night if the players' bus had driven off a clifftop into the north Atlantic?

It was a calamitous start to the Euro 2004 campaign and it is such a vivid and wretched memory that it seems like yesterday. But six competitive games and some slaloming results later Scotland are daring to believe that the finals are within reach.

A Hampden victory over Lithuania on Saturday while Germany take at least a point at home to Iceland, and then a favourable outcome in the draw for the play-offs a week tomorrow, and Scotland could conceivably appear at the finals of a major tournament for the first time since France 98. No wonder Vogts is feeling the excitement, even blethering about James McFadden being a "bigger talent" than Wayne Rooney.

Mercifully, the chaos of the opening 2-2 draw in the Faroes has not been repeated in any of the subsequent games. When Vogts arrived as manager he puffed out his chest and claimed that Scotland "don't play friendlies", meaning that every fixture was undertaken with the same degree of fervour and commitment. Perhaps he meant to say that Scotland do not play IN friendlies. Some of Vogts' results and performances in non-competitive fixtures have been appalling, namely in matches against France, South Korea, Denmark, the Republic of Ireland and Austria.

Where he has been able to disarm his critics, though, is through the performances in the matches which matter most. Toftir aside, Vogts has been able to step over the carnage and shambles of many of the friendlies and generally produce a focused, purposeful team in the qualifiers.

Somehow Scotland have limped, dragged and staggered their way towards their first European Championship finals since 1996. The backbone of the campaign has been the home-and-away victories over Iceland which brought some stability and belief to the squad.

Having been 2-0 down within minutes, Scotland rallied to take four points from six off the Faroes. A highly creditable home draw with Germany in June provided a more substantial boost to the ego, and the subsequent closely-fought 2-1 defeat in Dortmund provided nothing in terms of points but left Scotland with a unifying sense of injustice.

Christian Dailly's swearing and accusations that the Germans were "cheats" - caught on camera because he was walking past Vogts, who was being interviewed - demonstrated the intensity of the players' commitment to the side. That the same level of passion is not always evident in friendlies is something supporters should be able to live with.

Scotland's tentative revival has not gone unnoticed by the fans. Barely 12,000 supporters bothered to turn out at Hampden for the friendly against Austria in April but, 10 days before the match, the Lithuania game was already a 52,000 sell-out. Given the potential rewards on offer for a victory it should be the kind of afternoon when the terraces will have no need for the likes of Caledon, also billed as The Three Tenors, to whip them up before kick-off.

No-one with Scottish blood in their veins need be told that it could all go horribly wrong at Hampden. Scotland's improvement, support and need for three points does not provide a guarantee of victory. Scotland were a little unfortunate to lose 1-0 in Kaunas in April because of a soft penalty award given against Jackie McNamara, but in truth there was not a great deal between the sides.

Lithuania are an unremarkable but stubborn side who, unable to qualify for Euro 2004 themselves, will take to the field at Hampden with a certain freedom. Scotland may have been pleased with themselves for making Germany work for their points in Dortmund, but Lithuania got a 1-1 draw when they played them in Nuremberg in March.

"They played very deep against us in Lithuania," said Vogts. Although Edgaras Jankauskas looked lumbering against Scotland last time Vogts described the Porto forward as "their outstanding player", adding: "He is a very, very good player. They are big boys, very, very quick. They will wait for us to make a mistake.

"We have to give them a lot of pressure. We have to go directly at them for 90 minutes. We have to give them a hard time at Hampden. The Tartan Army is saying 'now the time is right for a clear win against Lithuania'. It's not easy but we have to do that."

Only six of the Scotland team that played that night in Kaunas are likely to start on Saturday: Christian Dailly, Steven Pressley, McNamara, Gary Naysmith, Kenny Miller and Stevie Crawford. Of the others from Kaunas, Paul Lambert and Don Hutchison are injured and Paul Gallacher, Lee Wilkie, Graham Alexander have slipped from favour.