In life, it would be somewhat expedient if when in midst of the ‘good old days’, someone taps you on the shoulder to make you fully aware these are indeed the ‘good old days’. A juncture’s been reached now with the Scottish national team where it’s safe to say we don’t need to wait for the rear view mirror, awash with nostalgia, to appear so we can judge if these are the ‘good old days’ or not. Quite simply, they are, enjoy them.
For the first time in a long time – living memory for many – Scotland are a very good and capable football team. With the greatest respect, Scotland are not a Northern Ireland – a team greater than the sum of it’s parts, punching way above it’s weight but for a finite time only. Scotland are not a Wales – a team heavily reliant on one superstar who for a period of about six years was arguably one of the top five players on earth but has now retired to the golf course.
Both Wales and Northern Ireland are regressing to the mean. Scotland have something far more sustainable.
Throughout this Scotland team there are a plethora of technical, skillful players, capable of protecting the ball and recycling it with regularity. This isn’t a squad of hammer throwers and hard men. Equally important is the age of some of these players; Billy Gilmour – 22, Nathan Patterson – 21, Aaron Hickey – 21. To say the future’s bright is putting it lightly.
Andy Robertson, Kieran Tierney and John McGinn are the stardust on top of a squad that is bursting at the seems with quality – in every department. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say right now that in the aforementioned trio, we have three of the best players the country has ever produced – and they are all in the prime of their careers right now. Not the three best players ever produced, but three of the best. Laying in our beds, many years from now, we will look back and talk of these guys in the same way generations before talk about Baxter, Gemmell and Jordan.
Robertson and Tierney’s career’s speak for themselves so let’s put John McGinn under the microscope. Here we have a top class operator. Versatile, agile, box to box, tough in the tackle and like many lefties before him, the propensity to unleash the spectacular with regularity. John McGinn’s endearment to the nation goes beyond his footballing ability – he’s a jovial character, bordering on cheeky schoolboy. You do wonder if there was a more solemn side to him, dare we say serious or dour – and this is in no way a criticism nor advice – if the perception of his abilities would be different?
Regardless, the hard facts are thus; John McGinn is 28 years old and is currently a mere thirteen goals short of equaling the all time goal scoring record for the Scottish national team. Don’t wait until his careers over to acknowledge his astounding contribution, this is a bona fide living legend in the dark blue.
Results are rolling in. Those who stand in the way of Steve Clarke’s men are falling like dominoes. Georgia were dragged out into the Hampden rain, kicking and screaming at the unfairness of having to face them. Spain cried their eyes out after facing them. Through tears laced with salt, midfielder Rodri lamented the unfairness of it all; “For me, it’s a bit rubbish because it’s always wasting time. They provoke you. They always fall. This for me is not football.” As the old phrase goes – winners win, losers make excuses.
Scotland are winning the games they should win and the ones they shouldn’t. They are getting under peoples skin and it is beautiful. No more are they the butt of every joke. The days of big players developing a thigh strain at the sight of an international fixture, only to turn out for their club side the following week are gone. Nobody wants to be left out of Clarke’s Scotland juggernaut.
Not since the late Walter Smith’s time in charge or Alex McLeish’s first tour of duty, has there been an atmosphere quite like this around a Scotland squad. Great managers though they were, with respect, that was the era of near misses and glorious failure. Thanks to the ingenuity, pragmatism and all round brilliance of Steve Clarke as a football manager, this is different. This, this is the era of expectation. This is the golden age and we are living in it.
Calum Maltman
