WORLD CUP GROUP NINE:SIX PLAYERS have withdrawn from the Scotland squad to play The Netherlands, but belief has not left with them. While it is a depleted unit that George Burley takes to the Amsterdam Arena, home to humiliation for Scotland on their last visit, the manager believes he can still call on the qualities that claimed the scalp of France when he seeks to repeat that stunning upset tonight.
A siege mentality often suits Scotland against superior opponents; it has been enhanced prior to the meeting with Bert van Marwijk’s gifted team by an injury list that few countries could withstand. “Why shouldn’t we repeat that performance against France?” asked the Scotland captain, Barry Ferguson, last night.
“There is enough quality in the squad to do it again.” Ferguson will make his first competitive start under Burley, but his availability – and arguably his optimism – are exceptions for the Scotland manager. Not that he is approaching this formidable task with dread.
“Games are not won on paper and shocks do happen in football,” Burley said. “The Dutch have fantastic players but football is a team game and our strength as a nation is working together, scrapping for each other and fighting for the result. That is the only way we will get a result here. Nobody outside Scotland expects us to get anything here, so it would be tremendous to repeat the France result. It doesn’t get any bigger than managing your country in a World Cup in Amsterdam. It is the biggest game of my managerial career.”
Ferguson was also keen to revisit the spirit of Paris, insisting occasions like tonight’s are precisely what has brought the best out of his national side in recent years.
“It is a fabulous stadium against a top team and these are the games you rise to,” the captain said. “Some of our best results in the past have come against the top sides: Italy, Holland at Hampden and obviously France.”
Three players will make their competitive debuts against The Netherlands should Burley add the Rangers defender Steven Whittaker to his starting line-up. The Scotland coach has confirmed that Allan McGregor, with three caps from friendlies to his name, will replace Craig Gordon in goal due to the regular number one’s inactivity at Sunderland. Christophe Berra, with three substitute appearances totalling 34 minutes so far, has to be given his first start in a defence weakened by injury. Whittaker is a possible inclusion in midfield. Burley is expected to adopt the same 4-1-4-1 system that brought such reward for Scotland in Paris, when they beat France 1-0 in September 2007, but that is where the similarities end. Alex McLeish, the then Scotland manager, had an embarrassment of riches compared to those his successor finds himself with.
Of the 11 players who started at Parc des Princes, only four are likely to play against The Netherlands: Graham Alexander, Scott Brown, Ferguson and Darren Fletcher. The rest are either injured, recovering from injury, out of favour at their clubs or, in the case of Lee McCulloch, retired from international football. If Burley has overseen a revolution since that heady September night, it is not one he would have chosen.
Optimism has evaporated, and it is the 6-0 mauling that Scotland suffered on their last visit to Amsterdam, for the European Championship play-offs in 2003, that dominates talk among the Tartan Army, not Paris.
A point would not represent a bonus for Scotland tonight but a revelation, a result to rival the victory over France. It is why Burley has openly admitted that next Wednesday’s home game with Iceland will have more bearing on qualification for South Africa than the visit to Group Nine’s front-runners, and why his comments have been accepted as realistic rather than defeatist.
“I don’t think I’ve been negative at all. I am an optimist, but I’m also realistic,” said Burley. “We are not going to out-pass the Dutch but we can give them other problems. Football is not all about skill. It is also about heart and strength of character, and we have plenty of that.”
