As Others See Us: How the World's Press Reported First Indyref Debate

Alex Salmond - global journalists seemed to agree - needed a show-stopping performance to eat in to Better Together's lead in the polls.

But, the First Minister, defying international expectations, failed to do so.

Reuters set the tone. "In an unexpected setback for those who support a breakaway, Salmond, did not land a knockout blow in a lively debate," the news wire service said.

"With the Yes camp trailing in opinion polls, most commentators had predicted Mr Salmond, a powerful speaker, would notch up a rhetorical victory to breathe new life into the campaign.

"By contrast, Mr Darling, a former British finance minister with the manner of a school master, had been expected to flop.

"But many observers said the 59-year-old Salmond had not performed as well as expected and critics said he had failed to craft a convincing economic vision for an independent Scotland."

These words, written in the immediate aftermath of the debate between the First Minster and Better Together leader, were carried in newspapers from Peru to Japan, from India to Australia

But the growing number of outlets using their own correspondents to cover Scotland's big vote came to similar conclusions. Many, of course, will have taken their cues from Scottish and UK commentators. But their verdict was tough: Mr Salmond struggled with big issues.

Take Le Monde. Darling, the Paris daily said, "did not fail to point out the main obstacle to independence: the economic weakness of Scotland.

"The independentists want to keep the pound but were accused by Mr Darling of having No Plan B while London never ceases to cast doubts on a currency union."

Mr Salmond, it added, "tried to impose his charisma and cheeky face on the former UK finance minister, who was presented as a less good speaker, but the No leader was very aggressive in the face-off."

Germany's Spiegel was even tougher on the SNP leader. Mr Salmond's answer on the mass of factual questions from Mr Darling were "hardly satisfactory," an online review posted by the magazine said, suggesting the first minister struggled on currency.

"What money did he want to introduce in Scotland, asked Darling. Salmond took refuge in platitudes. Salmond had little more to offer than emotional appeals.

"'Where is your plan B?' Darling asked several times. Salmond had no answer."

The New York Times didn't quite declare a Darling victory. But it repeated the "knock-out" line of Reuters and others.

"Despite fierce, sometimes angry, exchanges," it reported, "a televised debate on Scottish independence from the rest of Britain failed to produce a decisive victor.

"Opinion polls indicate that Scots will reject independence, making the two-hour confrontation particularly important for the leader of the campaign for independence, Alex Salmond, who has a reputation as a talented debater. Most commentators suggested, however, that he had not produced a knockout punch during the exchange with the leader of the campaign to keep the union, Alistair Darling."

The debate generated more heat than light, the respected title declared. "Little new information emerged, with both speakers sticking to entrenched positions, but Mr. Darling performed better than many had expected, perhaps benefiting from being the underdog."

Nowhere outside the UK follows Scottish politics with quite as much intensity as Spain and its Catalan and Basque minorities. EFE, Spain's national wire service, declared Mr Darling winner of the debate - but a narrow victor, in copy carried across the Peninsula.

La Vanguardia, the Barcelona daily, published a detailed account of the debate but couldn't decide who won. Its correspondent in Edinburgh, Rafael Ramos, stressed the sheer importance of the moment for Mr Salmond to seize.

He wrote: "Despite the fact that the distance between the Yes and No camps had shortened by four points since June, the two hours of debate were a unique chance - perhaps a last chance - for the independentists to change the course of events and set a trend that would carry them to a new destiny, afar from England."

Mr Ramos described disputes over money and fiscal policy but found it hard to figure out who had the upper hand.

"As was predictable," he said, "they didn't come to an agreement either on the figures or their significance and at this point they entered in to a hand-to-hand combat in which it was impossible to discern who was right.

"Darling tried to take refuge in the dialectics of numbers, because he didn't have to convince anybody, just keep up the doubts that already exist. Salmond was forced to elevate the debate to higher ground, the excitement of adventure and change, the search for a new destiny and courage, or, as American President Franklin Roosevelt put it, to have nothing to fear but fear itself."

The view was different in Madrid. Staunchly unionist ABC grandly headlined that "Scottish independence defeated in televised debate". It then added: "The pound and EU membership have turned in to Salmond's nightmare" describing Mr Darling pursuit of an answer to his question on Plan B.

There was a sting in the tail for Darling too, from Spain's Te Interesa. "Salmond loses debate to Scotland's most boring minister," the website declared yesterday, citing "unanimous" commentary that the first minister had been beaten by the Better Together leader.

The debate many international journalists, of course, would really have loved to see would have been between Mr Salmond and Mr Cameron. The Washington Post, stressed the "silver-tongued" Scottish leader "needed a boost", but reckoned the SNP could have done with a "slugfest" with a different opponent.

"This wasn't the battle Salmond had wanted," it said. "He would have preferred to spar with Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party, a tarnished brand in Scotland ever since the days when Margaret Thatcher was in charge."

The debate, of course, isn't about England. In fact, as numerous world commentators pointed out, England wasn't even watching.

Russian rolling news channel Vesti led on that point. The station covered by the duel, proving it was of international interest. But it was "important enough for the UK" to be transmitted on English TV stations. Moskovsky Komsomolets, a major Russian tabloid, expressed surprise that the debate was kept off "national TV".