Gordon Strachan

[Officer Barbrady]

9 hours ago, forameus said:

Absolutely correct on the last point.  Taking your world ranking at any one point is usually pointless.  We're low right now because all the major teams in Europe, South America and North America have all played tournaments this summer.  You get more points for major tournament games.  We're at 51, and only 11 teams above us weren't playing tournament football this summer.  Most of those were in Africa, but even they'll receive a bump in January come the African Cup of Nations.  Once everyone starts playing games we'll settle back into a more "natural" position, unless, like you say, we really shit the bed.  

But it doesn't really matter at the end of the day.  We only really need our ranking to be high in the months before a World Cup Qualifying campaign starts.  It's still another 3 years before the next draw that uses them.  Even if we qualify for the World Cup, we're very unlikely to make it into the top 8 ranked sides going there, and so will be unseeded into one of the regional pots.  The rankings are a complete irrelevance otherwise.  We win games, we'll rise.  The former is more important than the resulting latter.

As a side note, I'd also imagine that if we had a striker of Robbie Keane's quality, he'd have a similar amount of caps for us.  We just haven't had players that have been good enough for long enough to warrant that many.  

And we all know why our players had an idle summer, don't we?? 

 

There's always this 'yes, but that's because we did/do this/that' among the Strachan defenders. Not all of the teams who played in the summer (looking at Turkey, Austria, Ukraine, Sweden) will have improved their ranking, however meaningful it's deemed to be. Put the shoe on the other foot, and you'd all be wanking furiously if we got even a sniff of a top twenty spot, rather than disregard it as a pointless statistic. 

 

It's almost as if mediocrity is a fucking fashion statement among the proletariat. The reason Scottish players struggle to break the 50 caps is because of their terrible attitudes to lifestyle, which seriously impact ability to play consistently, regain fitness after injury, and develop as players when they do. 

[BFTD]

Fairly certain all of those countries will have picked up more ranking points during the tournament than we did by not playing. Can't imagine anyone giving a toss about us being 20^th in the world if we still didn't qualify either, although it would have been an impressive achievement worthy of any Scotland side  

[Officer Barbrady]

16 minutes ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

Fairly certain all of those countries will have picked up more ranking points during the tournament than we did by not playing. Can't imagine anyone giving a toss about us being 20^th in the world if we still didn't qualify either, although it would have been an impressive achievement worthy of any Scotland side  

We've managed it twice, and all anyone says about it is to criticise the manner of the success we had at both times. I think we reached 16th at one point during the 98 campaign, and 14th under McLeish........yet some think we've successfully 'moved on' from such dark days. 

[54_and_counting]

3 minutes ago, Officer Barbrady said:

We've managed it twice, and all anyone says about it is to criticise the manner of the success we had at both times. I think we reached 16th at one point during the 98 campaign, and 14th under McLeish........yet some think we've successfully 'moved on' from such dark days. 

funny we rose in the rankings back then and didnt qualify for tournaments, yet now our drop is put down to teams playing more games in the summer lol

maybe if we had the audacity to actually qualify for a major finals we could play they extra summer games every 2 years instead of sitting on our arses wondering how bad the next campaign might be

[BFTD]

That's the point, though. We didn't qualify, so we took a wee dunt in the rankings. This particular recent drop isn't that big a deal, unless we take a tanning in the upcoming games.

I can't be arsed putting too much effort into this, but we rose to 14^thduring the 2008 qualifiers, in which we did well in an almost impossibly difficult group. By the November of 2008, after Euro 2008 finished without us, we'd dropped to 34^th. That seems to back up what I'm saying.

Who on Earth is annoyed about Scotland's best tournament performances in the past twenty years?  

[Officer Barbrady]

6 minutes ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

That's the point, though. We didn't qualify, so we took a wee dunt in the rankings. This particular recent drop isn't that big a deal, unless we take a tanning in the upcoming games.

I can't be arsed putting too much effort into this, but we rose to 14^thduring the 2008 qualifiers, in which we did well in an almost impossibly difficult group. By the November of 2008, after Euro 2008 finished without us, we'd dropped to 34^th. That seems to back up what I'm saying.

Who on Earth is annoyed about Scotland's best tournament performances in the past twenty years?  

The pan-handlers who think the manner of those results needs to be 'moved on' from, for a start. I find it as confusing as you, Dave, i really do.

 

The only thing i can think of, off the top of my head, is that with that period (the Belarus home defeat aside), the results fly in the face of the agendas clearly laid out nowadays, as to why we shouldn't succeed.

 

It's like they're looked upon as some sort of black arts which we should never return to again. It was basic football which got us in that position.....you hear Scotland players talk about 'the nice stuff' and 'mixing it up'....they do neither. If they stuck to one of them, they might get somewhere. 

[BFTD]

Still confused, but never mind. Maybe some other posters can give their reasons.

Just noticed something negative - my favourite result of the 2008 campaign was the opening 6-0 win against the Faeroes. Administered a good hiding on a lovely sunny day; doesn't happen very often. However, I've only just noticed that, not only did Georgia beat them by the same scoreline a couple of weeks earlier, they did so in Toftir!

Absolute disgrace. How they let Smith stay on after that outrage, I'll never know  

[Officer Barbrady]

Don't see why not....it was the first time they played in Scotland, and didn't score. 

 

Maybe i'm looking at the 'good' period a bit too longingly, as obviously it being a decade ago, and further still a decade on from the last one, so we must be as bad as we're always told. 

 

I, personally, believe that to be shit, and every failure since McLeish to be fully explained by managers being utter cocks. 

 

Vogts' reign of error i feel less strongly about, as we had enough material from then to learn from those mistakes. We have not. It's gotten worse, if anything. 

[dogmc]

The rise in rankings following the 2008 campaign led to a fairly easy group for the 2010 wc qualifiers. Unfortunately burley made a complete arse of it. Flawed as the rankings are they are still important but only if we have a competitive manager......

[forameus]

13 hours ago, Officer Barbrady said:

And we all know why our players had an idle summer, don't we?? 

 

There's always this 'yes, but that's because we did/do this/that' among the Strachan defenders. Not all of the teams who played in the summer (looking at Turkey, Austria, Ukraine, Sweden) will have improved their ranking, however meaningful it's deemed to be. Put the shoe on the other foot, and you'd all be wanking furiously if we got even a sniff of a top twenty spot, rather than disregard it as a pointless statistic. 

 

It's almost as if mediocrity is a fucking fashion statement among the proletariat. The reason Scottish players struggle to break the 50 caps is because of their terrible attitudes to lifestyle, which seriously impact ability to play consistently, regain fitness after injury, and develop as players when they do. 

So I called the rankings an irrelevance - because it is - but I'd then be "wanking furiously" over getting a top 20 spot.  Aye, ok then.

Like I said, the only time it matters is around the time when World Cup draws get made.  That means around December 2017 and I believe the same time in 2020.  Until then they really, really don't matter.  They're a side show - if we win games, we'll rise.  But you won't find anyone going "aye, it was great we got through the playoffs and got to Russia, but it's the best thing that we're now ranked 15!" 

Wind your neck in, you're massively overreacting to this.

[forameus]

11 hours ago, 54_and_counting said:

funny we rose in the rankings back then and didnt qualify for tournaments, yet now our drop is put down to teams playing more games in the summer lol

maybe if we had the audacity to actually qualify for a major finals we could play they extra summer games every 2 years instead of sitting on our arses wondering how bad the next campaign might be

And we'll rise in the rankings again.  And probably fall.  They change month-on-month.  Right now countries all around the World received a boost from playing and winning games.  We didn't.  Next month everyone starts playing again, so we'll probably rise.  

But hey, it's another stick to beat Scotland with, so have at it.

[54_and_counting]

24 minutes ago, forameus said:

And we'll rise in the rankings again.  And probably fall.  They change month-on-month.  Right now countries all around the World received a boost from playing and winning games.  We didn't.  Next month everyone starts playing again, so we'll probably rise.  

But hey, it's another stick to beat Scotland with, so have at it.

Still doesnt explain our drop from top twenty to outside top 50 since eck was in charge

[forameus]

11 minutes ago, 54_and_counting said:

Still doesnt explain our drop from top twenty to outside top 50 since eck was in charge

What do you mean it doesn't explain it?  Since 2008 we have fallen and risen.  That is indisputable fact.  And we'll continue to do it.

And the explanation for dropping most of the time was probably George Burley and Craig Levein.  In fact, from a pure rankings perspective, it's not really fair to blame Burley.  In his time in the job, he got us to a high of 14th and a low of 46th.  Then Levein took over, and in his time he got a high of 41st and a low of 72nd.  Strachan took over and turned it around a little.  We rose in 2013, then rose even higher in 2014.  Then we had our shit the bed period and picked up 2 draws from 4 competitive ranking games (Gibraltar literally don't count as they're not a FIFA member).  So for 6 months of 2015 we picked up almost f**k all.  Then we played some decent enough friendlies which would have helped, but then lost to France and Italy, getting us nothing.  While three continents worth of teams above us picked up at least some.

What part of that is hard to understand?

[Gordopolis]

What do you mean it doesn't explain it?  Since 2008 we have fallen and risen.  That is indisputable fact.  And we'll continue to do it.

And the explanation for dropping most of the time was probably George Burley and Craig Levein.  In fact, from a pure rankings perspective, it's not really fair to blame Burley.  In his time in the job, he got us to a high of 14th and a low of 46th.  Then Levein took over, and in his time he got a high of 41st and a low of 72nd.  Strachan took over and turned it around a little.  We rose in 2013, then rose even higher in 2014.  Then we had our shit the bed period and picked up 2 draws from 4 competitive ranking games (Gibraltar literally don't count as they're not a FIFA member).  So for 6 months of 2015 we picked up almost f**k all.  Then we played some decent enough friendlies which would have helped, but then lost to France and Italy, getting us nothing.  While three continents worth of teams above us picked up at least some.

What part of that is hard to understand?

I don't think burley got us to 14th - he inherited it did he not?

[Gordopolis]

Still confused, but never mind. Maybe some other posters can give their reasons.

Just noticed something negative - my favourite result of the 2008 campaign was the opening 6-0 win against the Faeroes. Administered a good hiding on a lovely sunny day; doesn't happen very often. However, I've only just noticed that, not only did Georgia beat them by the same scoreline a couple of weeks earlier, they did so in Toftir!

Absolute disgrace. How they let Smith stay on after that outrage, I'll never know  [emoji14]

That Faroes game stands out in the memory for me also. A good professional shoe-ing, with all our strikers notching and the campaign table off to a nice, satisfying start. I think 5 of the goals were scored in the first 40 mins so it did seem quite surreal.

[forameus]

4 minutes ago, Gordopolis said:

 

I don't think burley got us to 14th - he inherited it did he not?

 

The rankings don't go into much detail within years, but yeah, you're probably right actually.  We were 13th at our highest in 2007, so 14th was probably very early 2008.  Still though, he didn't fall quite as far as Levein did.  He was definitely the beginning of the rot though, which Levein well and truly let multiply.

Chillingly, wiki also said something along the lines of "Burley failed to qualify, but the SFA decided to stick with him.  He resigned after a humiliating friendly defeat at the hands of Wales".  It won't be Wales, but hopefully history doesn't repeat this time around.

EDIT: Actually, looking in detail at the results we managed during his reign, I'll lump Burley in right alongside Levein.  Three competitive wins (2 against Iceland, one against Macedonia).  Actually scratch that, three wins overall, three draws, then the rest defeats.  Ooft, brutal.  He also left prior to the period that Strachan has just gone through, so Levein probably did get a huge drop as part of that.  But then he failed to do anything to arrest the slump, unlike Strachan in the beginning.

[TheScarf]

56 minutes ago, Gordopolis said:

That Faroes game stands out in the memory for me also. A good professional shoe-ing, with all our strikers notching and the campaign table off to a nice, satisfying start. I think 5 of the goals were scored in the first 40 mins so it did seem quite surreal.

That was the one at Parkhead wasn't it? Lokomotiv Moscow's Garry O'Connor getting the 6th right at the end.

[1320Lichtie]

That was the one at Parkhead wasn't it? Lokomotiv Moscow's Garry O'Connor getting the 6th right at the end.

Yes Robbie Williams was at Hampden that day so it was moved to CP. I remember this as I couldn't go because my dad went to the Robbie Williams concert with my maw.

Arsehole.

[Gordopolis]

Arsehole.

Your da or Robbie Williams?

[1320Lichtie]

Your da or Robbie Williams?

Both. [emoji34]

Dads made up for it big time in recent years tbf but Robbie is still an arsehole.