THERE’S a way to bounce back from a nightmare of an international tournament and attempt to win friends and restore momentum. A way to offer an olive branch to supporters who have lost faith in those who let them down so badly.
A benefit in showing that you have spent time reflecting on what went so horribly wrong and offering evidence you are willing to learn and change, that you feel the mood of the country.
Domenico Tedesco made a pretty good fist of it earlier this week. The Belgium manager looked set for the chop after his side’s timid Euro 2024 exit to France in the last-16. They offered little in that game and had been poor in their group – getting out with four points after losing to Slovakia, beating Romania and getting a goalless draw from a game with Ukraine that ended with their own punters booing them off the park.
Steve Clarke addressed the media this week for the first time since Scotland's Euro disaster
Scotland exited at the group stage in Germany after gaining one point from three matches
Steve Clarke has been criticised for Scotland's timid displays at the Euros
Tedesco had blamed local police in Stuttgart for holding up the team bus ahead of that match, but admits now he was wrong. Admits he was wrong on all manner of fronts.
He’s axed Leandro Trossard and Axel Witsel from his squad for the upcoming Nations League games with Israel and the French and brought in a raft of new, young talents as if to show beyond doubt that this is some kind of new beginning, a new approach, after seeing Belgian FA CEO Piet Vandendriessche and operational director Jelle Schelstraete leave their roles with technical director Franky Vercauteren being told his contract is not being extended.
Reflecting on the Ukraine match in which a nation’s patience snapped, Tedesco confessed: ‘I consider myself partly responsible for that. In that match, I made too many one-on-one substitutions.
‘In retrospect, I would have done that differently. Just like my communication: that reproach of the Stuttgart police was wrong of me.
‘We can do better and we learn from that. In the future, I will play more with these players from our own qualities. It has to be more intense again.’
Tedesco probably should have got the bump too, being perfectly honest, but he *has* shown some humility, shown remorse, and attempted to show a still-angry fanbase that he understands why they felt how they felt and has some kind of plan to make amends.
Compare and contrast that with Steve Clarke’s midweek decision to come out of hiding after the Euros and name a squad for Scotland’s meetings with Poland and Portugal later in the month. Bristling. Defensive. Maybe even a little arrogant. Certainly full of more of the same, lame Smart Alec jokes that really began to grate as his Scotland team became a national embarrassment during those awful, awful weeks in Germany.
Clarke had gone into hiding for 65 days since the abysmal 1-0 loss to Hungary that sealed our fate in Euro 2024, a game that ended with a four-minute media briefing from him which focused on a penalty not being given and the referee being Argentinian. After that, he offered nothing. No real, proper post-mortem on the finals. No mea culpa. Nada.
If you were looking for answers on why it went so badly wrong – and why he didn’t resign - Clarke’s great reappearance was the wrong place to be.
There was no talk of major mistakes being made. His rant over referee Facundo Tello’s nationality got a mention, but it didn’t sound like any kind of real apology.
Asked about Scotland fans wondering where he’d been all this time, he replied: ‘I’m here’. And the tumbleweed rolled on down the hall.
Asked by a reporter about unhappiness among fans, he said: ‘How many people did you speak to? Twenty? Ten?’
Is Clarke really this out of touch? Does he not realise the anger that existed – and still exists – over how bad things were in the summer? Why people want a little more meat on the bones as they figure out why he started the Euros demanding ‘swagger’ before sending out a team that looked scared to try and win.
Why they want some evidence that he can inject some life back into a project, a managerial reign, that looked like it died with its boots on back in July rather than ill-considered attempts to humiliate journalists.
It certainly doesn’t look like it. He stated, unashamedly, that he had no sleepless nights after the Hungary game. He’s moved on, you see. Unlike the tens of thousands of punters who spent their life savings travelling round Germany to be served up such tripe.
Belgium boss Domenico Tedesco apologised for his country's performances in Germany
SFA president Mike Mulraney stated that qualifying for tournaments is not enough for Scotland
Helpfully, on a run of one win – against Gibraltar - in 12 games, Clarke thinks he has earned the right to finish his contract after the next World Cup. ‘I’m pretty sure in my own mind that I’ll be coming up to 63 and it will maybe be time to do something else,’ he said.
Lovely. Shame Clarke wasn’t so full of himself during the Euros.
Scotland looked like a side suffocated by fear there. And so did their coach. Even though we should have had a penalty against Hungary at 0-0 when Stuart Armstrong went crashing, it says everything that few focused on that one sliding-doors moment.
That’s not where the fury was directed. Because everyone knows what they sat through for the vast majority of the tournament and no one is in any mood to disguise how bad it was.
We bottled it in that 5-1 opening-game loss against the Germans. In three games, we had three shots on target from 16 attempts. Won seven corners. It was pitiful.
In terms of that all-important Hungary match, why did Clarke stick with five at the back when Kieran Tierney was out? Why did he wait until 76 minutes to shake things up? Why did he take James Forrest? Questions that have now drifted into the ether, never to be raised again.
Clarke, in general, has been a really good Scotland manager. He got us back to major finals after a two-decade drought and deserves eternal thanks for that, but his reference midweek to an expectation that just getting there is no longer good enough doesn’t come from unrealistic fans or an exacting media.
It comes from his own SFA president Mike Mulraney, who stated to a nationwide television audience during the Euros that ‘qualifying *can’t* be enough for Scotland’.
And that’s where the whole discussion over Clarke’s future rests. Euro 2020 unravelled because the side lost the plot by going long-ball against the Czech Republic and stood off Croatia to let Luka Modric run the show.
Euro 2024 was just another planet altogether. It was a disgrace. With no redeeming features. Why, then, has there been no evident examination of the benefits of letting Clarke continue?
He’s had two shots at a major finals and the second one was infinitely worse than the failure of the first. Why would you believe it will be any different next time? If there is a next time.
Did his words midweek convince you? Do you feel re-energised after listening to him? If you do, good luck. As with so many things uttered, the admission he’s looking at running down his contract - and topping up the pension - before chucking it doesn’t really create the backdrop for a bright, exciting future.
Rather, it looks like being a long couple of years. When considering why it feels like there’s little to smile about, Clarke’s wisecracks are just the tip of the iceberg.
Rangers will face Tottenham and Manchester United in the Europa League
New-look Euro leagues are an awful reflection of the greedy, bloated mess football has become
BIG nights against Spurs, Manchester United and Borussia Dortmund aside, doesn’t anyone care about the inherent lack of fairness in UEFA’s new-look club competitions?
We know why the Champions, Europa and Conference Leagues have gone from group stages to a bloated league system – to stave off more talk of breakaway competitions, raise more revenue and keep the big clubs relatively happy.
So be it. But shouldn’t there be greater concern over the sporting integrity, to coin a well-worn phrase, of it all?
Playing a group home and away against three other teams ensures the best ones go through to the knockouts on merit. This hotchpotch of facing eight – or six – different teams drawn at random just goes against everything we have previously believed to be just and right.
Mind you, it’s easy to understand why those of us unenamoured by it all feel a little like old fogeys out of time. In Scotland, we’ve had a crazy league set-up in place for over 20 years in which a 33-game split has had some clubs playing more home games than away games or having to go to certain venues three times in one season.
It’s a joke, but people seem to like it because you get play-offs at the death. Raising no objection to competitions running on an uneven playing field, though, just lets the authorities put punters where they want them – paying out to watch a game happily allowing its basic principles to be chipped away.