Berti Vogts holds no grudges about time in charge of Scotland

[BFTD]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/scotland/27741310

Pretty impressive title, considering that the man at no point gives any indication about why he'd have a grudge in the first place

Do we think Craig Levein still holds any grudges?

[~~~]

Levein was just a shite manager, I think Berti suffered because we had to rebuild the squad and we had never been big on giving young players a chance at international level at that time,

[Kejan]

Didn't some dick gob on him in Moldova?

I liked Berti. Tried his best although we were still shite, he was a good guy and got a hard time from our wannabe English press about his nationality. Give me a playoff with the likes of Gareth Williams, Paul Devlin, Robbie Stockdale, Steven Pressley, etc and sure we'd all take it.

The group was pish sure enough, but still we've never been close to qualify since he left.

[SpoonTon]

Didn't some dick gob on him in Moldova?

I liked Berti. Tried his best although we were still shite, he was a good guy and got a hard time from our wannabe English press about his nationality. Give me a playoff with the likes of Gareth Williams, Paul Devlin, Robbie Stockdale, Steven Pressley, etc and sure we'd all take it.

The group was pish sure enough, but still we've never been close to qualify since he left.

Gareth Williams and Robbie Stockdale never played in qualifying. Paul Devlin was a bit part player, and Steven Pressley wasn't all that bad at all (good enough to help us to a win over the likes of France, Norway and Slovenia).

It was Berti's choice to experiment with the amount of players that he did, and his unnecessary experimenting in friendlies cost us a few humiliations. And it wasn't just the player choices, I remember him once playing Christian Dailly at left midfield. Why didn't you mention players like Paul Lambert, Barry Ferguson, Gary Naysmith, Jackie McNamara, Christian Dailly, Kenny Miller, or a young James McFadden or Darren Fletcher? Paul Dickov, Colin Cameron, and Neil McCann were also playing top flight football in England around that time. It wasn't a complete team of diddies that we had, far from it. This was shown when Smith came in, and while it wasn't perfect there was an immediate (and massive) improvement.

We managed to finish above Faroe Islands, Lithuania, and Iceland - no Scotland manager has failed to do this. The start to the next campaign brought a defeat to Norway and draws against Slovenia and Moldova. Good results against Germany and Holland at home barely disguised a poor competitive record, and only served to show how little Berti was getting out of the team the rest of the time. He thought he had to re-invent Scottish football, he didn't.

[Gordopolis]

Didn't some dick gob on him in Moldova?

I liked Berti. Tried his best although we were still shite, he was a good guy and got a hard time from our wannabe English press about his nationality. Give me a playoff with the likes of Gareth Williams, Paul Devlin, Robbie Stockdale, Steven Pressley, etc and sure we'd all take it.

The group was pish sure enough, but still we've never been close to qualify since he left.

Agree with all except this. We were arguably closer to qualification in the Euro 2008 campaign (a win over Italy away from direct qualification)

[DA Baracus]

Just listened to the program on Radio Scotland with him. Comes across as a really nice guy but he was undeniably a failure for Scotland.

What annoyed me was when he said that Tommy Burns was worried about the number of Celtic and old Rangers players in the squad and was worries that there might be more of one over the other. Vogts said he was mystified by this as he (correctly) wanted to pick players on merit, not as an 'evening up' exercise to appease bigots (including the ones in the media). Confirms what many people have long suspected about the national team in that there were too many people with that awful, backward attitude high up in the national team and organisation. f**k them all (including Burns). They played a big part in holding Scotland and Scottish football back.

Thankfully it seems most of this attitude has been excised.

Oh and Vogts said in his interview that no one spat on him. Not like the media to make up lies...

[ecto]

When Berti got the Job, I like many I thought this looks a decent appointment, he had nothing to work with and was always doomed to failure, Levein was a decent enough coach and had done enough to justify his chance, Burley for what ever reason managed to rub players up the wrong way, also Burley was good with the press when at Hearts but that changed when in charge of Scotland

[HibeeJibee]

Time is judging Vogts reign here more sympathetically, and with justification.

He got us to the playoff for Euro 2004, which was what was asked of him - and he beat the Netherlands in the playoff first leg. He then made a bad start to WC2006 qualifying and got fired.

Due to the chronic lack of refreshment at the end of the Brown era he had to build an entirely new squad almost from scratch, which explained the number of friendlies and the number of players used: though people think his player turnover stats are a lot worse than they actually are, compared to other Scots managers. He also gave debuts to many individuals who went on to become key players such as McFadden, Fletcher, Gordon and others.

Finally, it is the largely unheralded work of himself and Rainer Bonhof in improving and modernising the youth set-up which has helped produce lots of the current, much-improved crop of better talent.

[harry94]

Do we think Craig Levein still holds any grudges?

Believe me; he does!

[ShawfieldAggro]

Time is judging Vogts reign here more sympathetically, and with justification.

He got us to the playoff for Euro 2004, which was what was asked of him - and he beat the Netherlands in the playoff first leg. He then made a bad start to WC2006 qualifying and got fired.

Due to the chronic lack of refreshment at the end of the Brown era he had to build an entirely new squad almost from scratch, which explained the number of friendlies and the number of players used: though people think his player turnover stats are a lot worse than they actually are, compared to other Scots managers. He also gave debuts to many individuals who went on to become key players such as McFadden, Fletcher, Gordon and others.

Finally, it is the largely unheralded work of himself and Rainer Bonhof in improving and modernising the youth set-up which has helped produce lots of the current, much-improved crop of better talent.

This. I enjoyed watching Vogts' teams, pumpings and one cap.wonders and all, than i ever did Levein or Burley. Mentioned earlier on was the pretty solid core of 8-9 quality players he mostly relied on, i'd say getting a playoff was a success in that period of rebuilding....almost every other middle-order nation have had stinkers comparible to some of ours when in the same position. What wasn't apparent to me at the time, but something ive often thought since, was the possibility of Vogts being undermined from within, and small wonder with shite like what was coming out of Burns'gub by the looks of it.

[craigkillie]

Finally, it is the largely unheralded work of himself and Rainer Bonhof in improving and modernising the youth set-up which has helped produce lots of the current, much-improved crop of better talent.[1]

[1] citation needed

[Savage Henry]

Time is judging Vogts reign here more sympathetically, and with justification.

He got us to the playoff for Euro 2004, which was what was asked of him - and he beat the Netherlands in the playoff first leg. He then made a bad start to WC2006 qualifying and got fired.

Due to the chronic lack of refreshment at the end of the Brown era he had to build an entirely new squad almost from scratch, which explained the number of friendlies and the number of players used: though people think his player turnover stats are a lot worse than they actually are, compared to other Scots managers. He also gave debuts to many individuals who went on to become key players such as McFadden, Fletcher, Gordon and others.

Finally, it is the largely unheralded work of himself and Rainer Bonhof in improving and modernising the youth set-up which has helped produce lots of the current, much-improved crop of better talent.

And which Billy Stark is doing much to dismantle. Oh for Rainer Bonhof now, rather than that retrograde buffoon.

Berti Vogts seems like a really good guy, and for that alone I want to think well of his reign. As you said, Brown's short term out look - 34 year old Colin Calderwood playing midfield? Tom Boyd at 37 playing full back? - hamstrung him to a certain extent. That shouldn't detract from the fact that we looked utterly clueless at times. (Admittedly, that's something that could also be said for Levein, Burley and even the first few Strachan games).

[Mr Bairn]

For all Berti's failures, his competitive record, up until the last few months, looks not bad at all.

The draw in the Faroes was the only blot of the Euro 2004 copybook, but the dreadful start to the world cup was dreadful, and his record in friendlies were atrocious.

You can say they're only friendlies, but imo it's important to win against comparable teams to boost your coefficient.

[pandarilla]

I never thought he was the right man for the job but the way the press treated him at the end was just ridiculous. The English media are the worse and as someone mentioned above there was a Scottish wannabe version (the likes of Jim Traynor). Although I am of the opinion that the manager should be the same nationality the anti-German nonsense that was used was bang out of order.

[HibeeJibee]

You can say they're only friendlies, but imo it's important to win against comparable teams to boost your coefficient.

I assume you mean World Ranking... that was not relevant at the time, because UEFA was applying their own coefficient (which is competitive games only) in deciding both WC and Euro qualifier seeding.

It was after Vogts time that FIFA ordered World Ranking used in WC qualifiers.

[Monkey Tennis]

Gareth Williams and Robbie Stockdale never played in qualifying. Paul Devlin was a bit part player, and Steven Pressley wasn't all that bad at all (good enough to help us to a win over the likes of France, Norway and Slovenia).

It was Berti's choice to experiment with the amount of players that he did, and his unnecessary experimenting in friendlies cost us a few humiliations. And it wasn't just the player choices, I remember him once playing Christian Dailly at left midfield. Why didn't you mention players like Paul Lambert, Barry Ferguson, Gary Naysmith, Jackie McNamara, Christian Dailly, Kenny Miller, or a young James McFadden or Darren Fletcher? Paul Dickov, Colin Cameron, and Neil McCann were also playing top flight football in England around that time. It wasn't a complete team of diddies that we had, far from it. This was shown when Smith came in, and while it wasn't perfect there was an immediate (and massive) improvement.

We managed to finish above Faroe Islands, Lithuania, and Iceland - no Scotland manager has failed to do this. The start to the next campaign brought a defeat to Norway and draws against Slovenia and Moldova. Good results against Germany and Holland at home barely disguised a poor competitive record, and only served to show how little Berti was getting out of the team the rest of the time. He thought he had to re-invent Scottish football, he didn't.

Good post.

Vogts made a difficult job at a difficult time harder than it needed to be.

The experimental side went too far and it was a mistake to give him a further campaign to screw up, after what was a poor complete one that saw us scrape the acceptable position before wilting embarrassingly in the resultant play-off.

Very possibly a nice man, but the wrong one.

[SpoonTon]

For all Berti's failures, his competitive record, up until the last few months, looks not bad at all.

The draw in the Faroes was the only blot of the Euro 2004 copybook, but the dreadful start to the world cup was dreadful, and his record in friendlies were atrocious.

You can say they're only friendlies, but imo it's important to win against comparable teams to boost your coefficient.

Our only ever loss to Lithuania wasn't exactly a highlight of that campaign either. We scraped to the play-off place in that group, finishing above 3 teams that we've never failed to finish above. It was never really convincing in the games that mattered.

[nsr]

Our problem is that we stood still or even went backwards while other countries (particularly new European states) overtook us. Sorting that out was a job beyond anyone.

The one thing I did like about Berti's reign was his willingness to turn up at games and watch potential call-ups. At least I seem to remember him doing that more than his predecessor - could be wrong.

Edited June 9, 2014 by nsr

[Gordopolis]

Another Berti positive is that he had us playing at every opportunity. Okay, we got felt up in the majority of the friendlies we played, but at least we were trying to get somewhere instead of avoiding games as we seem to be doing now.

[DA Baracus]

Another Berti positive is that he had us playing at every opportunity. Okay, we got felt up in the majority of the friendlies we played, but at least we were trying to get somewhere instead of avoiding games as we seem to be doing now.

You mean like the recent friendly against Nigeria? Or the one in Poland? Or the one in Norway?