Berti Vogts holds no grudges about time in charge of Scotland

[Gordopolis]

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

Poland could have been a double header (several other countries played two games that week). Nigeria could have been a double header too, or even a triple or quadruple header (as ROI have done). And we are not playing again before Germany, whereas most other countries have already arranged a warm-up friendly.

Case closed.

[craigkillie]

Poland could have been a double header (several other countries played two games that week).

Several other countries played two games in a midweek international friendly date when there were league matches on both the preceding and the following weekend?

Going to need some examples for that one I think.

[Gordopolis]

Several other countries played two games in a midweek international friendly date when there were league matches on both the preceding and the following weekend?

Going to need some examples for that one I think.

Yep, talking out of my anus for that one.

[SpoonTon]

Poland could have been a double header (several other countries played two games that week). Nigeria could have been a double header too, or even a triple or quadruple header (as ROI have done). And we are not playing again before Germany, whereas most other countries have already arranged a warm-up friendly.

Case closed.

Smith and McLeish avoided friendlies as much as possible and we performed much better under them. It's not a positive if you're just going to be handing out caps here, there, and everywhere, and conducting tactical experiments that are never going to work. It's damaging when it's causing so many morale-killing defeats in these games (especially, 3-0 to Hungary, 4-0 to Wales, 5-0 to France, 4-1 to South Korea).

It's sometimes more worthwhile just to have a training camp and a focus on a single match. You don't need to cap every eligible player to figure out that they're not good enough. It's very telling that so many of the players that Berti experimented with in friendlies got nowhere near the team in competitive games. It didn't take a managerial genius to figure out that McFadden and Fletcher had the sort of future that Williams and Kyle didn't .

[Gordopolis]

Smith and McLeish avoided friendlies as much as possible and we performed much better under them. It's not a positive if you're just going to be handing out caps here, there, and everywhere, and conducting tactical experiments that are never going to work. It's damaging when it's causing so many morale-killing defeats in these games (especially, 3-0 to Hungary, 4-0 to Wales, 5-0 to France, 4-1 to South Korea).

It's sometimes more worthwhile just to have a training camp and a focus on a single match. You don't need to cap every eligible player to figure out that they're not good enough. It's very telling that so many of the players that Berti experimented with in friendlies got nowhere near the team in competitive games. It didn't take a managerial genius to figure out that McFadden and Fletcher had the sort of future that Williams and Kyle didn't .

I totally agree that Berti's scattergun strategy of capping randoms from here there and everywhere is not the best approach. I'd rather we played our strongest team (or with minimal tweaks to let genuine prospects have a shot). But I'd rather we did this at every possible opportunity. Fair enough the odd time it might be better to rest players before a competitive match instead of organising a friendly, but I'm totally against us passing up international dates more often than not. A strong squad that plays games often has a chance to grow in experience and confidence. We've looked cap-light for a good few years now.

Walter Smith opted for 'squad gatherings' to protect a squad whose confidence was utterly shot. We're in a place now where I see in the players more frustration at not playing more than anything else.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Gordopolis

[Thumper]

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

I used to work with a guy who was absolutely mad for the 21s and he could not find a good thing to say about Bonhof.

As for Vogts, the fact is that if he'd been kept on we'd have been nowhere near as close to qualifying for 2008 as we eventually ended up. Accordingly, binning him was the correct approach, even if the job were something of a no-win situation in the first place. He's still two hundred times better than Levein was.

[Hampden Diehard]

Vogts was left with the remnants of a squad. Craig Brown persisted with guys like Hendry (and it actually worked, to be fair), but to the detriment to the development of the squad. Berti basically had to start again.

Towards the end, the press were a disgrace, essentially laughing at the guy; no change there. Remember that one journalist followed him round and photographed him having a meal with his son in Glasgow after his marriage had broken up. Disgraceful, but just what you'd expect from the press here. Remember how they ultimately treated Advocaat. Fannies.

He wasn't the best communicator (a problem he also had in Germany), but English-speaking people seem to regard a poor command of English as some sort of mental deficiency. SPEAK LOUDLY AND SLOWLY AND THEY WILL UNDERSTAND.

He had a really hard job to do and is given no credit for trying to rebuild from scratch....and having to deal with a poor pool.

[SpoonTon]

Craig Brown trusted some of the older players far too much, and made some terrible tactical decisions in this regard. But let's dismiss this myth that players become good through playing international football. Who were the young players that Brown was refusing to bring through? He got criticised for not playing Mark Burchill - says it all.

Meanwhile Vogts made Davie Weir a scapegoat and didn't mind because he thought he was too old - it's also important not to through out experienced players who are still good enough. We needed a manager to come in and stabilise the team and get the best out of it while we waited for young players like Fletcher and McFadden to be ready. We didn't need a revolution where we gave just about every young Scottish player a chance at international football.

[H_B]

Vogts was a horrendous Scotland manager.

No rewriting of history after the fact should disguise the awfulness of his reign.

[Todd_is_God]

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

Easier than that, all we had to do was beat Georgia.

[craigkillie]

Easier than that, all we had to do was beat Georgia.

That's not true. Even if we had beaten Georgia, we could and probably would have gone out with a defeat at home to Italy.

[Thistle_do_nicely]

That's not true. Even if we had beaten Georgia, we could and probably would have gone out with a defeat at home to Italy.

IIRC we were quite heavily reliant on the France - Ukraine game? And France - Faroe Islands is in my head, too, but France - Ukraine is sticking out the most in my memory, pretty sure it was the final game.

i.e. a draw against Italy meant we were still out if France beat Ukraine. So even if we'd beat georgia + lost to Italy we'd have been at the mercy of that game, and relying on France losing to both Ukraine and the Faroe Islands...

[Mr Bairn]

Had we won in Georgia then France would have needed to beat both Lithuania and Ukraine to prevent us qualifying. They drew in Ukraine and got a very late winner against Lithuania.

So we'd have qualified had we beaten Georgia (although you could argue that France might have won in Ukraine if they knew they had to)

[HibeeJibee]

Bump.

No coincidence I think that hero of the hour David Marshall was brought into the national fold by Vogts.

Thank you Berti from all of us.

[Lurkst]

17 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said:

Bump.

No coincidence I think that hero of the hour David Marshall was brought into the national fold by Vogts.

Thank you Berti from all of us.

Marshall now has the longest Scotland international career in history I believe. 

 

[Insert Amusing Pseudonym]

On 08/06/2014 at 15:36, Mr Bairn said:

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.

Tbh I'd disagree.    Drawing with the Faeroes, luckily, losing to a godawful Lithuania and scraping a win in the final qualifier after playing terribly.

Even the draw with Germany was put in context by them failing to win a game at the finals despite playing Latvia and drawing with Lithuania and Iceland in the qualifiers.

The whole Vogts reign had one genuinely impressive result.  We were abysmal in 95% of his games though

[HibeeJibee]

8 minutes ago, Insert Amusing Pseudonym said:

The whole Vogts reign had one genuinely impressive result.  We were abysmal in 95% of his games though

History will show that in the 23-year interregnum between WC 1998/Craig Brown and Euro 2021/Steve Clarke it was Berti 'Call me McVogts' Vogts who got us to a playoff and won 1st leg.

Thank you Berti from all of us.

 

34 minutes ago, Lurkst said:

Marshall now has the longest Scotland international career in history I believe.

By next year he'll have spent almost as much of his life as an international footballer (17 years) as he lived before becoming an international footballer (19 years).

Worth adding Craig Gordon was of course also first blooded by Vogts, actually before Marshall.

Edited November 13, 2020 by HibeeJibee

[Donathan]

Quite incredible that Marshall has such a long Scotland career but still only 40 caps

[San Starko Rover]

Quite incredible that Marshall has such a long Scotland career but still only 40 caps

Not really as at the same time we had Craig Gordon and Allan McGregor so it was an area we were very strong in, had Gordon not suffered injury and McGregor not taken the huff Marshall might not have been in goals last night let alone have 40 caps.

[Gordopolis]

Marsh has only ever been clear first choice once in his 16 years with Scotland (twice if you include now), during Strachan's time. Never heard a peep of discontent or dummy spitting from him. Top boi.