T HE nails and the coffin have been gradually coming together for six months.
This may be the night when the final ones are hammered in. If Scotland drop points in Serbia this evening – and Belgium and Croatia win their fixtures – the formalities will be complete. Scotland's chance of appearing at the 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil will be gone.
In truth, whether it happens tonight or in some later round of games matters about as much as the precise time a signature is put on a death certificate. Scotland's prospects were essentially damaged beyond realistic repair on the night of the defeat in Cardiff, five months, two qualifiers and one manager ago.
Laying the groundwork for a resurrection is about all Gordon Strachan can hope for in Novi Sad tonight. The new manager is in charge of his first away fixture yet it was a palpably subdued, flat SFA party which flew from Glasgow to Belgrade yesterday morning. In truth, it doesn't really feel as if anyone connected with Scotland is really in the mood for this game.
What happened against Wales on Friday knocked the wind out of Scotland. The first half an hour was about as bad as any produced by the national team and although there was a recovery, the 2-1 defeat was utterly demoralising. Strachan repeatedly referred to the appalling start as "freaky" yesterday, still struggling to comprehend that his players could perform so poorly. His view is that they could not – and will not – play so badly for their country again. Supporters can only hope he is right.
"It's been a blow. I think the players are confused. I said to them it was a freaky 25 minutes. When you watch it again, something is just not right. At the time I thought: 'This is international football here,' but even watching it again I thought to myself: 'It was worse than I thought.' The players are a wee bit embarrassed about that 25 minutes."
For him, the disappointment and "hurt" was the same as he had felt when losing 5-0 to Artmedia Bratislava in his first competitive game as Celtic manager. Trying to make sense of Friday was still difficult, but he tried to find explanations. "If you look at the midfield it was one that's never played together before. They weren't inexperienced as players, but they were inexperienced in playing together. I don't know if they actually knew each other very well, as people or as players. It was a new thing to them."
The withdrawal of Kris Commons and Russell Martin yesterday added their names to those of Steven Fletcher, James Forrest, Danny Fox, Ross McCormack, James Morrison and Robert Snodgrass, all lost from the original squad for one reason or another. Darren Fletcher and Scott Brown were already absent. That has left an inexperienced, fragile group to take on the Serbs tonight. Their own Group A campaign has been almost as dismal as Scotland's – other than their own freaky night, when beating Wales 6-1, they haven't scored in the group – but they are physically formidable and capable of inflicting further damage on Strachan's men. "I don't think the best group [of Scotland players] is here, or was there on Friday," he acknowledged. "There are a few missing. Hopefully there are a few out there ready to be discovered."
Gary Caldwell and Grant Hanley are likely to remain as the central defensive partnership. "There needs to be a bit of continuity in some department. I hope what I do reaps rewards, but it needs to be right away. I know if it's not right just now then I will have to take a few hits.
"For all the disappointment you feel about Friday it eases off a bit until the build up to the next game. Then you think: 'We can win this.' That's the way it goes. It's a strange, strange thing but as soon as you see the players train you think: 'Yeah, I'm alright, there are good players there'. But I always have the fear of getting beat. That's what drives you."
Strachan is coming to terms with the realities of international management – its pleasures and its restrictions – and one of the latter is the inhibiting feeling that a Scotland manager cannot simply tear into players who have displeased him, because they might take the huff and withdraw their services. He spoke yesterday with a sort of quiet regret about the fact managers have to bite their tongue these days, but also lamented the fact players themselves are far less openly critical of each other in a dressing room than they were in his own playing days.
"It's life. They were more in your face [when I played]. They were more demanding from each other. We've got a society where we're scared to speak to somebody next door because 'if I say something he might not like me'. He might Tweet about me or somebody might say something to his mate in the media It was right in your face when I played. We all had characters to say 'right, you're not playing well, sort yourself out' and to scare them into playing better. That kind of thing's gone."
The scariest thing now? That Scotland could be out of a World Cup tonight, after six games of their qualification campaign.
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