GROWING WINGS AND FLAPPING AROUND HAMPDEN PARK
“I’ve always said that you can live without water for many days,” the philosopher Brendan Rodgers once mused, “but you can’t live for a second without hope.” Sage words, Brendan. Hope is seductive, drawing you in and whispering in your ear that lovely, marvellous, sweet things might happen to you. But hope – hope is a dangerous thing, as Brendan would know if he followed the word of Ellis Boyd Redding. Hope can drive a man insane.
Hope could drive a whole country insane, in fact, and while the whole population of Scotland haven’t quite lost the run of things about the prospects of their football team, last week there was hope. Hope that they could do something they haven’t managed since the days when Billie Piper was the latest pop sensation, ‘Titanic’ was deemed a better film than LA Confidential by the Academy, and Bill Clinton weighed up the various uses for a cigar and elected for one of the more unconventional options.
Scotland haven’t gained entry to a major international tournament since 1998, when they failed to heed the advice of their official World Cup song by Del Amitri and did in fact come home rather too soon, bundled out at the group stage in France by Youssef Chippo, Mustapha Hadji and their Moroccan chums. Much like ‘Trainspotting’, the documentary that accurately depicted day-to-day life on the streets of Scotland, a sequel to that tournament appearance has been a long time coming, but just as a follow-up to that great example of verite filmmaking was confirmed by Danny Boyle this week, so it seemed that another Scottish appearance with the big boys would be coming your way in summer 2016.
For last week, there was hope – hope that they could once again earn their way over the Channel to France by picking their way through the Euro 2016 qualifiers, in which 53 teams are competing for 23 places in the finals. Or, in other words, a system in which it’s almost more difficult not to qualify. However, after a performance in which they looked dozier than the historical figure Daniel ‘Spud’ Murphy, Wee Gordon Strachan’s boys laboured to a 1-0 defeat by a game-but-still-no-good Georgia side, meaning a large needle was taken to their balloon of hope and left them even behind Ireland in the Group D table. Perhaps more chillingly, it meant that to keep alive any faint hope of automatic qualification for next summer’s hoopla, they would probably have to get some sort of result against Germany, who visit Hampden Park this evening having regained some of the swagger that led to them strutting away with Big Pot in Brazil last year.
“We are not saying it’s over and done with if we don’t get it,” reassured Wee Gordon before the game, “but I am more than confident we will get something from the game … we’ve got to try and get our minds set on the fact that we are playing the world champions here at Hampden, and that anything can happen. We’ve done it here before and we know we can do it again.”
He is technically correct – anything can happen. A horse could grow wings and flap around the roof of Hampden tonight, holding up the progress of the game but keeping everyone enormously entertained. The pitch could split apart to reveal a shadowy criminal’s hidden lair, complete with long range rockets and pools full of man-size piranhas. Steven Fletcher could score a goal. Literally anything, including the most implausible events you can think of, could happen.
Of course, the most likely thing that will happen is that Germany will pop on their best goal-scoring pants, oompa their way onto the pitch and give the Scots a good solid thrashing, dashing their dreams of a summer in Paris or Marseille rather than Leith or Paisley. But there is still hope. Whether that’s a good thing or not, well, Gordon and the boys will find out at about 9.45pm in the cool autumn Glasgow air.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“You take the locks off the doors and open the windows. There is no need for secrecy” – former Fifa presidential candidate Prince Ali reveals the complex plan he has to clean up the dormant volcano that serves as Fifa’s lair if he runs for president again.
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BITS AND BOBS
Karim Benzema is continuing to push through a stay at Real Madrid. “I’m not going to repeat myself every time,” he sniffed. “I’m at the best club in the world and I’m going to continue to work every year. I’m happy where I am.”
Aaron Ramsey is confident Wales can secure a spot at Euro 2016 with a jaunty flourish when they play Bosnia and Herzegovina next month. “We are disappointed not to have qualified yet but we can take positives from [Sunday’s] game. We dominated possession, created opportunities and just couldn’t quite finish one off,” he trumpeted.
Saido Berahino will not play Jeremy Peace but he will play small-sided games and do some stretching at West Brom.
Tickets for Wembley’s Tuesday night clash between England and Switzerland are selling like reasonably desirable football tickets, with the national goalscoring record in Wayne Rooney’s sights – but the stadium is unlikely to be full.
And Italy’s Serie B is introducing virtual green cards to award instances of fair play. “We need to provide good examples because clearly they’re lacking lately,” high-horsed a league suit.
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