Scotland are not used to having compliments showered upon them as a footballing nation but yesterday Miroslav Blazevic, the manager of Croatia, came close to being awarded one of the Elgin marbles after a stupefying outpouring of praise.
The Scots face Croatia tonight in Zagreb in a Group Six qualifying tie which, until Blazevic opened his mouth, had seemed a straighforward fixture for the home team. The thought of Robert Prosinecki, Alen Boksic and Davor Suker (if he plays) knocking at the knees at the prospect of meeting Craig Brown's injury-depleted squad has always seemed absurd. Not, however, according to Blazevic yesterday.
"They (Scotland) have more journalists covering them, more fans following them and they are specialists in qualifying matches," said Blazevic. "They are a team with great spirit. They are capable of achieving anything."
With wry humour, the Scots have indeed always felt they were capable of achieving anything, but not as this Croat meant it.
Brown's team currently sit with six points from two matches and victory tonight would only confirm that the Scotland manager, who has outlasted every other European coach except Luxembourg's Paul Philipp, has more teflon qualities than anyone in the game.
Time and again a minor tabloid rumpus with an old girlfriend or some other daft incident is visited upon Brown. One month later, he always comes up smiling, sometimes clutching three points.
Tonight Brown will be without five key players - including Barry Ferguson and Paul Lambert - and there is a chance he will offer a starting berth to Manchester City's Paul Dickov. The other option would be to pair Don Hutchison in attack with Kevin Gallacher, from whom the genial Brown took a verbal blast following the Newcastle striker's substitution on the occasion of his 50th cap on Saturday against San Marino.
"I'm not aware of any problem with Kevin - if there is one I don't know about it," said Brown yesterday. "The only thing I know is that you pick your best team and not one based on sentiment. I make a value judgement about a player. If I get it right, I'm right. If I get it wrong, I'm depicted as a tube."
Croatia (probable; 3-5-2): Pavlovic; R Kovac, Stimac, Simic; Zivkovic, Biscan, Prosinecki, N Kovac, Jarni; Boksic, Balaban.
Scotland (probable; 3-5-2): Sullivan (Tottenham); Hendry (Coventry), Elliott (Leicester), Boyd (Celtic); Weir (Everton), Burley (Derby), Hutchison (Sunderland), Cameron (Hearts), Naysmith (Hearts); Gallacher (Newcastle), Dickov (Manchester City).
