RICKY Sbragia spent time in the aftermath of Scotland’s ominous 1-0 defeat to Macedonia in European Under-21 Championship qualifying on Friday night lambasting their opponents for the “diabolical” time-wasting tactics they displayed at Tynecastle.
From players rolling around supposedly injured and the berating of the fourth official by a mob from the visiting technical area to multiple balls being lobbed on to the pitch in a bid to slow a resurgent Scotland’s momentum, the national Under-21 coach was left infuriated and frustrated on a night that all but ended his side’s hopes of qualifying for next summer’s finals while their opponents remain well in the mix.
However, Liam Henderson, arguably Scotland’s best player on the night, believes those in dark blue could perhaps take a leaf out of the Macedonian book.
The Celtic midfielder was instrumental in much of Scotland’s positive play, including a clever run that ended with him having a goal disallowed in the dying seconds. But the disappointment at seeing their Polish dream fade in Gorgie was not enough to bring the 20-year-old to criticise the behaviour of Blagoja Milevski’s staff or squad. Quite the opposite.
“I wouldn’t say it’s frustrating,” said Henderson. “For me if you look at the top European sides in the top leagues, the stuff there is frowned upon here by the people who watch the game and the press. In a way it’s clever and, for me, the teams we play against do anything to win. So I think we could learn a bit of that and maybe put it into the game.
“Maybe it’s not nice to see but at the end of the day football is a results-driven business so you just want to get the results.”
It was a night filled with what-if moments for the Scots. Better marking surely could have stopped Kire Markoski from opening the scoring on 17 minutes; better finishing and a less superhuman performance from Macedonia goalkeeper Igor Aleksovski might have yielded more than one goal.
Yet, the biggest talking points fell in the seven injury-time minutes that were added on in the second half. During that brief spell, Henderson had a legitimate goal overruled after he knocked the ball away from Aleksovski, through his legs and into the net. In the final minute, Scotland would then be awarded a penalty before it was – correctly – taken away. While Romanian referee Sebastian Coltescu got the latter decision correct, the same cannot be said for the Henderson incident.
“Maybe infuriated isn’t the right word,” Henderson said. “I just came in laughing. You can’t go back and change it. I put it through his legs, I’d tell you if I didn’t. I’m an honest boy. I thought it was a perfectly good goal.
“The referee aside, I thought we played pretty well minus the result. We played properly, we played from the back, we mixed it up, so it was a good performance.
“I never questioned [the referee] at the time because the game was going on and there was still time to get another goal.
“Afterwards I asked him about it but he said, ‘I don’t need to explain my decision to you’, and just left it there. That was nice, but there was nothing we can do.”
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