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Scotland and Glorious Failure: Is It Our Comfort Zone?
After watching Scotland just miss out again last night, I was reflecting on our National character and how it shows itself in our National game of football (soccer).It would be churlish of me to dampen spirits by suggesting that the current National side have not restored a great deal of pride after an outstanding campaign. Of course they have. Among other things I'm extremely proud of what we've achieved in the last couple of years. To those that don't follow football (soccer), or care much about Scotland let's just look at what that is:
1) We've just played 12 games in a group that included both finalists from the last World Cup - France and Italy - as well as the Ukraine, who were quarter finalists, and only lost out in our final game.
2) We beat France at home and away in the process.
3) We've improved our World ranking from something like 70th to 13th and put ourselves into a position where we should be seeded for the next qualifying campaign.
So, it's been great. Or has it?
We seem to have this great affinity with glorious failure in Scotland. As long as we go out fighting that's OK - we can hold our heads up high. But let's look at the reality. We went to Georgia in our second last game and played dreadfully - when a win would have put is in a great position in our last game. We choked. Then, we needed to beat Italy - World Champions - in our final game. We gifted them a goal after only a minute, and then we started to play.
My argument is this: that Scotland need to be the underdogs and don't play well under pressure. I'd go even further than that, in fact, and argue that 'glorious failure' is our 'Comfort Zone'. Yesterday, we created a scenario that made it unlikely that we would win - and then gave it a right good go. We can go to France and win because no-one expects us to.
In the qualifiers for 2002 (I think it was), we had to play off against Holland. No expectation. We beat them 1-0 at home. Then we started to think that we might have a chance. What was the result in the return leg? 6-0. A hammering.
Before that is was England. They beat us 2-0 at home, so we went to Wembley with no realistic chance of progressing. We won 1-0. Not enough to get us through, but another 'glorious failure'.
It goes back further. Losing to Costa Rica in '90, only to almost hold out for a draw with Brazil. Drawing with Iran in '78 and losing to Peru, before beating eventual finalists Holland 3-1 (not enough to go through though).
Our history is littered with these tales. It seems to be written into our psyche that it's OK to lose, as long as. we go out fighting. It is a safe and comfortable place, away from the big boys and the real pressure. As long as it's OK, it holds us back.
So what do we do next? How do we break out of it?
Well, the good news is that this team must have grown in confidence enormously (though not enough to go out to Georgia and come back with three points). There's also clear dissatisfaction among the players to have missed out on another major tournament.
"We think we deserve to be at a major championships and we'll prove it in the forthcoming World Cup campaign" Scotland striker James McFadden
But the only way is to learn to deal with expectation and pressure. We've got to be able to say. "Yes, we're the favourites here, and we're comfortable with that." To do that we have to set ourselves up for a potential fall and not be stifled by the fear of failure (or of success?). We have to say to ourselves that we are going to join the elite - set ourselves challenging goals - and be able to put them to one side and play in the moment. We have to invite expectations and not let them be our shackles. The best way to do that is to keep putting ourselves in the right positions - the Italians are not mentally tough by accident ut through experience.
I think we have players who are capable of thinking like that. Players like McFadden who is, in our own language, "gallous" or in others', "audacious". He's prepared to have a go, try something different - he's got balls. That's what makes him special to us. He's also prepared to publicly state the intention to prove himself in the next campaign. He's not the only one that could step up, but he's typical of what we need.
It is also crucial that everyone associated with the National team do not get wrapped up in their emotional response to this campaign, whether it is pride or something less positive like anger or resentment that they feel. Indeed, they must ensure that the lessons that need to be learned are objectively assessed, learned, then actions put into place to ensure that they are not repeated - whether that be why Italy were allowed to score so easily yesterday, or how they went to Georgia and pretty much created nothing in the game.
We've all got our part to play too. Let's stop being content with 'glorious failure'. We can be proud of our team's performance, but let's not be too comfortable with our failure to qualify. Let's be dissatisfied just enough to eventually get rid of it from our sporting vocabulary once and for all.
Rob Robson
