Celtic's failings in the Champions League this season are a continuation of the dreadful decline of Scottish football which cannot now be denied. An inability to convert prime chances and defensive combustion did for Gordon Strachan's side Tuesday night were merely superficial self-inflicted wounds.
Celtic's failings in the Champions League this season are a continuation of the dreadful decline of Scottish football which cannot now be denied.
An inability to convert prime chances and defensive combustion did for Gordon Strachan's side against Aalborg BK on Tuesday night. These were merely superficial self-inflicted wounds.
There is a far deeper problem: Scotland has bred ageneration of soft touches on the football field.
This season, the country's European representatives have been involved in 13 matches and yielded a paltry, nay embarrassing, return of no wins, three draws and 10 defeats. Queen of the South, Motherwell, Hibernian (albeit in the InterNoNo Cup), Rangers and Celtic have all been complicit in a frightful downturn.
As freakish as Celtic's demise was in the Energie Nord Arena, those statistics do not correlate with the widely held belief that the national standard bearers were simply unlucky.
The players are at a loss to explain how a seemingly comfortable one-goal advantage became a 2-1 defeat when Aalborg had offered ziltch before plungingtwo deflected goals past Artur Boruc.
Even Gary Caldwell, one of the more articulate members of the playing squad, could not muster more than a contradictory soundbite by way of examination.
"Sometimes things just go against you but there can be no excuses," he said. Caldwell was the victim of cruel fate on Tuesday night. An exceptionally imposing performance in the holding midfield role was rewarded with him being credited with the winning goal for the opposition after Glenn Loovens' panicky clearance pinged off the Scot's legand signalled a sorry end to a flimsy campaign.
At such times, the hoary old argument about indigenous handicaps and financial constraints are trotted out to bring a reassuring and forgiving perspective. Celtic, and Rangers for that matter, cannot be expected to thrive in Europe while being fed slops in comparison to the Michelin-starred leagues of England, Spain, Italy and Germany etc.
Money did not seem an insurmountable obstacle lastseason when, for the second time running, Celtic fought their way into the last 16 of the Champions League, Rangers barged their way to the UEFA Cup final and even Aberdeen squeezed into the group stages of the secondary competition.
This season, Aalborg and Anorthosis Famagusta have confound the haves and have nots' argument. Temuri Ketsbaia's Cypriot champions will reach the last 16 for the first time in their history if they can overcome Panathinaikos in Greece in their final game. They will have done so on a wage bill of 5m.
Aalborg are the latest model of modest Nordic efficiency. Rosenborg, the habitual Norwegian champions, were the pioneers of Champions League prosperity against implausible odds. Aalborg are now Denmark's most successful team in the history of the competition.
John Hartson, whose goal against Barcelona in Camp Nou gave Celtic their solitary away point from 54, provided the most succinct assessment of the plucky Danes. "I think they will lose by five or six at Old Trafford; they are that poor," he said. What does that say of Celtic's inability to beat them home or away?
The mind-numbing drivel endured on a weekly basis in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League is undoubtedly a corrosive factor. Celtic have won 11 games in a row while sustaining an entire line-up's worth of injuries. It says as much about the utter weakness of their rivals as it does Celtic's resourcefulness.
This season, in particular, Strachan has frequently referred to Scotland's greatest problem with a flippancy thatbelies the seriousness of his argument. "We are a nation of wee men," he has regularly volunteered, and from personal experience.
Caldwell started in midfield on Tuesday simply to beef-up an otherwise puny side. The extinction of the tanner ba' player may be the root of Scottish football's technical deficit but you know you are in trouble when Allan Kuhn, the Aalborg manager, proclaims a victory derived from "Braveheart" spirit.
Scotland have now been left behind in football's physical evolution. The modern player, at the elite end, is a slave to sports science and nutrition. Theyare fuelled by a regular ingestion of protein shakes and bars, amino acids, creatine serums, powders and capsules, and spend their 20s in the gym adding meat and sinew to their frames. The technical groundwork has long since been laid.
Celtic are the fittest team inthe land: only three outfield players - Scott McDonald, Lee Naylor and Gary Caldwell - have a BodyMass Index over 10 but still they lag behind the cream of the continent.
Scott Brown, the club's most combative player, simply bounced off Villarreal's Marcos Senna in confrontation. The lack of real brawn perhaps explains Strachan's preference for zonal marking. Yet, a lack of physical toughness is only part of the problem. As was discovered on Tuesday, a lackof mental toughness canbe just as costly.
Gus MacPherson, the StMirren manager, confirmed the softening-up of Scottish footballers in conversation last week. Arugby player of some renown at Lenzie Academy, he was encouraged to continue by Jock Wallace during his early career at Rangers in order to build his strength.
Now, without saying so explicitly, he believes there is an undeniable lack of fortitude, even compared to his era: astartling admission from amanager who only hung up his boots six years ago.
How to reverse the decline is an issue that would require an entire pull-out to even begin to address. Governmental apathy, a bloated and bureaucratic senior set-up, negligent organisational bodies, an inherently lazy culture and a raft of limited, insular players are just some of the roots of failure.
"We have to look at ourselves," said Caldwell, in many ways an exception to the general rule of dwindling return. Sadly, the cliched ritual of standing up and being counted has long gone.
