I spent most of this summer in a studio apartment in New York. Which, just to be clear, is ‘studio’ in the sense that it had a lighting rig and a camera in the living room, not ‘studio’ in the sense that the microwave was next to the bed. One night — Wednesday June 24th to be exact — I braved turning off the rackety air conditioner just long enough to record a video on Scotland.
Their 0-3 exit at the hands of Brazil followed a deflating 0-1 defeat against Morocco, which itself followed a barely-inspiring 1-0 win against Haiti. Steve Clarke’s side being sent home having failed to reach the knockout rounds was dispiriting, but the numbers attached to that fact were somehow even worse. They had less ball possession than Panama, fewer shots per match than Curaçao, fewer shots on target than Saudi Arabia, and conceded as many chances against as Uzbekistan. I called them the single worst coached team at the tournament.
Three months is a long time in football though, and Scotland began Sébastien Pocognoli’s post-Clarke era with… another harrowing 0-3. Which, yes, admittedly, does sound very much like all the air coming out of a balloon — because it is — but I’m actually here to tell you it wasn’t all as bad as it probably felt. Scotland have a pretty exciting coach, with pretty fun ideas, and while you didn’t see much of it in his first two games you also didn’t see none of it.
So let me just quickly hand-waive Switzerland out the way for you. Going down to ten men, and then immediately 0-1, against an experienced international operation is pretty much fatal. You’d hope for more, and a team familiar with what their manager wants them to do could rally, but two games in you just have to take it on the chin and move on. As an aside though, Pocognoli has said that Jack Hendry’s red card “actually belongs to all of us” and, while I get what he means, it wasn’t my brain that fell out to make me push Dan Ndoye over.
The one crumb of comfort is that said red card came as a result of a high press, the likes of which this nation has never seen. Johan Manzambi’s flick around Lewis Ferguson completely splits Scotland open, but only because at that moment there are fully seven blue shirts trying to stop Switzerland passing the ball through their own defensive third. Compare that to the World Cup, where there often weren’t even seven blue shirts trying to stop opponents in Scotland’s defensive third, despite the entire team being camped in it.
It’s a good lesson for the team to learn about protecting themselves when their blood is up, but it’s also valuable for the nation. This is a great example of the risk/reward under this manager.
I won’t bore you with the history lesson, but Pocognoli’s Union Saint-Gilloise were great fun, and ending their 90-year wait for a league title marked him out as one of the most exciting young coaches in Europe. His move to Monaco was a bit of a bust, sure, but that was a circus from top to bottom and actually showed his flexibility as a coach despite the bad results. It’s unfair to say he’s rebuilding his career in this job, when ‘getting back on track’ would probably be more accurate, and it’s clear already that he wants that ferocious underdog mentality he had in Belgium.
And it’s been visible, in truth. Scotland were all over the place in the first half against Slovakia, but their first major chance arrives in the 50th minute with a long punt up field. They don’t win the header, but they do then immediately crash the second ball, which was a key element of Pocognoli’s Union. Ollie McBurnie, Billy Gilmour and Lewis Ferguson all flood the area around the loose header and successfully force a turnover, giving Scotland six players around the ball at the top of the pitch as well as forward momentum.
Then here’s the crucial bit: they don’t actually manage to make a chance from this recovery. Robbie Ure has his back to goal, a defender up his arse and can’t get turned, which sees the ball pinched off him. Oh no, you’d think.
But because of the principles Pocognoli instills in his players — even at this early stage — the momentum with Scotland is still to go forward and not to back off, and McBurnie is able to steal in on the ball as it’s being won back by Slovenia, and get in on goal to score. Which, of course, he absolutely should do here, and his new manager should have started his campaign with a win.
Likewise, in the 77th minute, a hasty clearance is immediately pounced upon by Gilmour who, instead of recycling possession and waiting for support, immediately feeds Kieron Bowie in the box. Annoyingly, Bowie seems as shocked by this fact as everyone else is, and scuffs his finish. Another great chance created purely from the forward momentum you get from simply following the ball into deeper positions.
And this is to say nothing of the decent set-piece chances Scotland carved out, with no fewer than seven headers in the box and McBurnie extremely unfortunate not to score from a late corner. Again though, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, given Pocognoli’s Union had the highest proportion of set-piece goals in the league the year they won it. Seventeen scored in total that season, without even cheating and including penalties. It’s morose in the extreme to say a disappointing 0-0 draw and a 0-3 drubbing is “exactly what the future looks like”, but the style of play is already there or there abouts.
Which brings me to the absolutely fanciful…
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