Spiers on Sport: Craig Levein faces his Judgement Day

Graham Spiers

Tuesday 4 September 2012

I’ve heard a familiar refrain this week from certain brassed-off Scotland supporters. “Craig Levein is out of his depth,” someone tweeted me. “Get him out before it is too late.”

For some reason being “out of his depth” is a favoured phrase among the Levein detractors. I’m not myself aware that some deeper rocket-science applies to international football tactics as opposed to those at club level – indeed it is normally at club level that fresh football ideas tend to spring – but it’s as if the international game is deemed too lofty for the current Scotland manager.

This is according to his critics. To those who back him – and they are still the majority of the Tartan Army – Levein is viewed as a decent coach who is soldiering on. But, whatever way you look at it, the Scotland boss is now approaching his definitive Judgement Day. Scotland’s 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign is about to start, and the fact is Levein could be in dire trouble within days. We’ve had enough whimpering now, surely, about hoping to take four points from six, or even three from six, in our two opening home games of any campaign. Scotland’s recent qualifying hopes have been done in by frailties at home, and Levein will know it. This time his two opening 2014 qualifiers are against Serbia (35^th in the world) and Macedonia (ranked 102) and, in a murderous group, six points would seem a must. If Scotland fail to deliver two home wins then their World Cup campaign will already appear to be on the skite. So far, after his near three years in charge, it is hard to say anything more auspicious of Levein’s term in office than that he is plodding along. When he was appointed to the job in December 2009, Scotland were ranked 46^th in the world, and 33 months on, they are still ranked 46^th. In competitive games, Levein has neither starred nor floundered. He has played 8, won 3, drawn 2 and lost 3. In total, Levein’s Scotland record reads: played 20, won 10, drawn 3, lost 7. This surely is the stuff of unspectacular grafting. Of his eight competitive matches so far, which comprised the doomed 2012 European Championship campaign, only two results seemed poor, and neither was lost. Levein’s team drew 0-0 away to Lithuania when arguably they should have won, while drawing 2-2 against the Czechs at Hampden in a game in which both sides suffered refereeing injustices. There was also, of course, the affectation of Levein’s strikerless 4-6-0 system against the Czechs in October 2010 while losing 1-0. Levein will never live that down, notwithstanding his attempts to justify it. Nor, with Scotland, will he ever play the system again, I’ll wager. To hear Levein himself on the subject, you’d think his team was improving in dramatic leaps and bounds. He uses phrases such as “we are definitely better” and “we are making real progress” when it is often quite difficult to tally these claims with actual results. There are all sorts of reasons for end of season ennui, but even so, Scotland’s 5-1 humping against the USA in May was an embarrassment for Levein – the more so for one who prides himself as a defence coach. Last month at Easter Road, when Australia showed up and lost 3-1 to Scotland, there was more pressure on Levein than he was prepared to let on. Well, the debate will soon be over. Levein will either take his team to a play-off place for the 2014 World Cup, or he will fall on his sword, and maybe sooner rather than later. He faces an ominous task. Of Scotland’s looming group A opponents, three countries, Croatia, Belgium and Serbia, are better, while even Wales are currently ranked higher than Scotland. Serbia, however, are certainly beatable at home, and Levein will have to deliver a win, and repeat the feat three days later against Macedonia, to stay buoyant. I’ve always liked Levein, as a bloke and as a manager. I certainly do not believe he is “out of his depth” with Scotland. But I severely doubt he will be able to steer Scotland to better than third place in this imminent qualifying campaign.

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Spiers on Sport: Craig Levein faces his Judgement Day

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