Bald men in fierce battle over comb
Sunday November 01 2009
Is there anything sadder than the strange demise of Scottish football? Celtic cut a sorry enough figure at the bottom of their Europa League group, while Rangers' adventures in the Champions League show just how desperate the situation is.
Losing 4-1 at home to Sevilla was bad enough, but what followed against Romanian champions Unirea Urziceni at Ibrox defied belief. A team from a town around the size of Sligo, Unirea came to Glasgow and won by the same margin as Sevilla did.
The SPL now is not much stronger than the League of Ireland. The fervent battle of Glasgow's dynamic duo increasingly resembles the fight of two bald men over a comb.
Their national team is shockingly devoid of quality with only Darren Fletcher even the first cousin of a top-class player. This is especially shocking for anyone who remembers the days when the best teams in English soccer had Scottish players at their heart.
In the 1970s it seemed almost compulsory to have a Scottish general running things in midfield. The Arsenal team which won the double in 1971 had George Graham, the Derby team which won the league the year after had John McGovern, succeeding the legendary Dave Mackay. Leeds United's most important player was Billy Bremner, while Brian Clough built his great Nottingham Forest side around McGovern and Archie Gemmill.
Bruce Rioch pulled the strings for the Derby title-winning side in 1975 and Graeme Souness did likewise for the Liverpool team which dominated the late '70s and most of the '80s. That team's best defender was Alan Hansen, their star attacker Kenny Dalglish.
And there was still enough talent left at home for Celtic to reach a European Cup final and Rangers to win a Cup Winners Cup. Even in the '80s Aberdeen were good enough to win the Cup Winners Cup and Dundee United to make a UEFA Cup final.
Scotland is now the sick man of European football. It's 1998 since a Scotsman even made the PFA Team of The Year and the brilliant youngsters who once went south of the border are no more.
Sunday Independent
