Today sees the start of the new league season. The World Cup is barely over and we’ve already played four games in the League Cup.* (Lost three, won one – perhaps surprisingly against a team in the Division above. Due to the pitch at the Rock being replaced with artificial turf our two home games were played at Cliftonhill.**)
So it’s back to nerve-shredding Saturday afternoons, then, starting with an away game at Stirling Albion. Then it’s two home games in succession – against Clyde and Edinburgh City.
I’m fearful that at the end of those we’ll have no points. Our squad is pretty low on numbers -we’ll need to get some more loan players in I think. And while goalie Aidan Rice is back to us on loan, Alexander Smith (Smudger) has opted to go elsewhere for this season. I would go so far as to say that it was his contribution to our cause last season that enabled us to avoid the relegation play-off.
Plus Stirling are nearly always a tough nut to crack, Clyde were pretty good last season and Edinburgh City simply owned us.
I admit I have more trepidation than hope at the moment, but only time will tell.
I would like to see us play some football, though, rather than try to avoid defeat.
And so to the much anticipated World Cup, which after Scotland’s long wait of 28 years, starts for us in less than 24 hours.
I realise for some people this is a new experience and it is eagerly awaited. That euphoria of the qualification night was perhaps justified. There were three memorable goals (plus a scrappy one.)
However there was a sense of unreality about it all. It was the most surreal qualifying campaign I can recall. The 0-0 draw in the first game at the Parken Stadium in Copenhagen was deserved – in fact we might have snatched a win. But the wins against Belarus – both of them – were nervy affairs and we were maybe lucky not to drop two points against them at home. As for the home game versus Greece, we were never in it. How we managed to score three is beyond me. And Greece were way better than us for most of the away game. Indeed there is an argument that says Greece were actually the best side in our group. Belarus getting a draw at the Parken saved our bacon and set up the decider versus Denmark. Even on that night they got back to 2-2 and if they hadn’t had a man sent off…. But they did and so here we are.
I must admit it was a professional performance against Curaçao in the Hampden warm-up friendly (again helped by a red card for the opposition) and the one in the States versus Bolivia was simply very unScottish in its efficiency. I was left wondering just how good – or should that be bad? – Bolivia are.
The game against Haiti gives me the fear. These are the sorts of matches where we traditionally fall down. I’ll not be watching it live, it’s too late at night. I’ll take a win – any kind of win – though, and hope that would be enough to take into the knockouts, which really will be something to celebrate. No matter what, points gained versus Morocco or Brazil will be a bonus. We can hope.
However, those of us who are long in the tooth fear we know how this ends. With Scotland it’s usually in tears.
Dutch football legend Johan Neeskens has died. He was part of that magnificent Dutch side of the 1970s which reached the World Cup final twice in a row but unfortunately did not manage to win the trophy.
Neeskens also had a secondary assist on the superb goal – aided by a sublime pass from Johan Cruyff – he scored against Brazil in the 1974 World Cup .
Johannes Jacobus Neeskens: 15/9/1951 – 6/10/202. So it goes.
Gigi Riva, Italy’s all-time top goalscorer, has died.
In all he scored 35 goals for the national team from 42 appearances.
But it was his club career that marked him out. After starting with a local side he moved to Sardinian club Cagliari, then in Serie B, where his goals helped them to promotion in 1964. More astonishingly he took Cagliari to the Scudetto in 1970, the club’s first (and only) Serie A title. Indeed, it was the first time a club from south of Rome had won the title.
His celebration of this goal in the 1970 World Cup semi-final perhaps inspired Marco Tardelli’s in the final in Spain 12 years later.
Luigi (Gigi) Riva: 7 /11/1944 – 22/1/2024. So it goes.
Hot on the heels of the news of the death of Mario Zagallo, the first man to win the World Cup as both a player and manager, comes the death of the second, Franz Beckenbauer.
Zagallo’s playing career was a bit before my time but he won the World Cup twice as a player, in 1958 and 1962, and was at the helm when Brazil won their third World Cup in 1970. He was assistant manager for their 1994 win. This makes him the most successful footballer in World Cup history.
Mário Jorge Lobo Zagallo: 9/8/1931 – 5/1/2024. So it goes.
Beckenbauer leapt into the British consciousness during the 1966 World Cup in England, where he stood out as a new type of footballer, striding about the midfield like someone playing a different game altogether. Not long after he more or less invented the role of the attacking centre back from the seeper/libero position. His control of games led to his German compatriots giving him the nickname Der Kaiser. Domestically he was the driving force behind making Bayern Munich the abiding success they are today.
In later years his reputation was tainted by allegations of corruption surrounding the securing by Germany of the hosting of the 2006 World Cup but it his achievements on the pitch which will be his legacy.
Franz Anton Beckenbauer: 11/9/1945 – 7/1/2024. So it goes.
One of the best football players of my lifetime, Bobby Charlton, a silky inside forward (and later midfielder) with an explosive shot, has died.
He was a member of that inspirational Manchester United team known as the Busby Babes of whom too many died in the Munich disaster. For ever after he naturally dreaded flying but as a professional footballer at the top level had to do so many times.
He then captained that formidable side United team which also featured club legends George Best and Denis Law when they won the European Cup at Wembley in 1968.
As a World Cup winner he will be forever an English football immortal. His record of international goals for England (49) stood for decades. Some poeple attribute England’s defeat in the 1970 World Cup quarter-final in against West Germany in Leon to the fact that manager Alf Ramsey, thinking the game won, withdrew Charlton to save him for the semi. That decision allowed Franz Beckenbauer to dominate the midfield and inspire the Germans’ comeback.
Sadly his last days were blighted by dementia maybe induced by heading the heavy footballs of his youth and playing days.
Robert Charlton: 11/10/1937 -21/10/2023. So it goes.
FIFA World Cup, Final, Lusail Stadium, Doha, 18/12/22.
This certainly provided drama – but not until late in the second half.
In the first and most of the second France were pedestrian wheteher due to suffering from a virus or not, but more likely because Argentina were at them from the start. France barely had a kick in the first half. Then again Argentina were playing not only for themselves and their country but also for Lionel Messi.
Argentina’s penalty looked like one to me, Dembele clipped Di Maria not once but twice. Messi despatched it with ease.
The second goal was a thing of beauty. Messi’s pass to Alvarez delightful and Mac Allister sweeping on to supply Di Maria who scored with what football commentators sometimes call aplomb. The withdrawal of Di Maria changed the game a bit and Argentina began to look like they thought they’d won it.
Then came the real turning point, Otamendi’s failure to hit the ball into row Z leading to a clear penalty. Kylian Mbappe was not going to miss.
France now had their tails up and when Mbappe knocked down the cross a minute later, his marker failed to track him and Mbappe’s finish was brilliant.
Then Messi seemed to have won it for Argentina all over again after another sweeping move cut France open before we had the third penalty of the game and a hat-trick for Mbappe.
Loads of incident but all the tension packed into the last forty minutes of the contest, up to then Argentina were strolling it.
But that shows how a goal can change a game. This would most likely have fizzled out but for Otamendi’s mistake.
The result means no-one can now deny Messi’s footballing stature. He has won everything he could in the game and emulated Diego Maradona as a World Cup winner.
I’m sad to note the death of Paolo Rossi, who was in effect the prototypical Italian striker, arguably the best ever such.
There is an argument to be made about whether one man can be said to have won a World Cup for his country, the usual example given being Diego Maradona.
However it is almost certain that without Paolo Rossi, Italy would not have won the World Cup in 1982. His contribution to that success was profound – and indispensible.
He had only recently come back from a two year ban resulting from the Totonero betting scandal (in which he said he was unjustly implicated,) and had endured, as did his team-mates to be fair, a non-descript start to the 1982 tournament. But his hat-trick buried an extremely talented Brazil side in what was effectively a knock-out game in the second phase in one of the best-ever World Cup matches. Was there ever such a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles as in his third in that game?
Italy 3-2 Brazil:-
Rossi then scored the two goals which defeated Poland in the semi-final and set Italy on their way to the Cup with the first in the final against West Germany – a goal which he said most exemplified his style in anticipating where the ball would be before the defender could react in time.
Six goals, the Golden Boot, and Golden Ball for most valuable player, with the 1982 Ballon D’Or added in for good measure.
All six goals:-
In his career he had multiple Italian domestic trophies, and all but the EUFA Cup in European competition. One of the greats.
The draw for the European qualification round for the 2022 World Cup (to be held in Qatar) was made today.
Scotland’s fate could have been worse I suppose – we managed to avoid holders France, world ranked no 1 Belgium and also Spain, England, Germany, Italy and Portugal, nemeses in previous qualification campaigns, but Denmark, Austria and Israel (yet again drawn in a group with Scotland) are no mugs; and I always get the fear over games against countries like the Faroe Islands and Moldova.
Our last two games were 1-0 defeats too let’s not forget, but I’ll give the team a pass on those as they were hungover (in the nicest sense I hasten to add) from managing to reach the Euro finals.
You may have noticed there’s a rather large and important football competition taking place at the moment. (A swift glance at TV schedules would be enough to tell you that.)
Four years ago I expressed my fear that a period of Germanic hegemony was upon us. Notwithstanding Portugal’s efforts at the last European Championships the young German side which triumphed at last year’s Confederations Cup boded well (or ill, according to view) for that prospect.
It seems that hegemony is not to be. In three performances of stunning inadequacy Germany have been so poor as to finish bottom of their group, only a moment of individual brilliance on the part of Toni Kroos yielding them a solitary win over Sweden.
It’s been a topsy-turvy sort of tournament what with England playing well (so far) and Argentina, like the Germans, struggling badly – but still managing to reach the second round.
I’ve not been overly impressed by anyone – though I thought Colombia looked good against Poland. But that may have been because the Poles were totally ineffective.
Brazil seem unbalanced to me; too much in thrall to their star player, Neymar, who doesn’t look fully fit. Belgium may be dark horses but haven’t played anybody of standing yet.
Judgement must be reserved till the knockout games. Too often before, a good showing in the group has unravelled at the next step.
But… Could this be Uruguay’s year again? They’re the only side yet to concede a goal.
