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SPL August 2010
Scottish Premier League News August 2010: Scotland Face Tough European Championships Qualification
Motherwell | Celtic | Scotland
Ali Hannah
Motherwell
Craig Brown has urged Motherwell fans to make their Europa League return against Aalesund a night to remember at Fir Park with lasting benefits for the club.
Motherwell secured a 1-1 draw against Aalesund in Norway to give themselves an edge ahead of the second leg of the third qualifying round.
Jamie Murphy netted the crucial away goal three minutes after the interval, but the night could have been so much better for Brown's men.
Well were leading in injury time until Demar Phillips went down over Steven Saunders' raised boot in the penalty box to give Alexander Mathisen the opportunity to hit an unexpected last-gasp leveller from the spot.
However, the draw would have been gladly accepted by most Motherwell fans before a tie on an artificial surface against a side sitting fourth in the Norwegian league after 18 matches.
Brown now wants those fans to roar his side into the play-off round - and provide some much-needed income to allow him to add to his squad.
The Motherwell manager, who only has enough money to buy one player as the budget stands, said: "There is great potential for it to be a great night.
"That would help if we could get a good crowd on Thursday and it might loosen the purse strings."
Brown added: "We had only played three competitive games this season and that extra game will bring more sharpness to our team. We played very, very assured football and defended competently."
Brown was full of praise for Scotland Under-21 international Murphy, who broke Motherwell's European goal scoring record, previously held by Stevie Kirk, when he netted his sixth Europa League goal.
Murphy turned and fired into the bottom corner from ten yards after Chris Humphrey had cut back Tom Hateley's low cross. "It was a terrific goal he scored," the Motherwell boss said.
"He deserves it because he's a conscientious boy. He works hard and you never hear him boasting. He puts a shift in for the team."
Celtic
Neil Lennon's Celtic face an uphill battle this month to keep their flickering European hopes alive.
The Parkhead side went down 3-0 to SC Braga in the first-leg of their third round Champions League qualifier, a result that suggests the Champions League will be a step too far for the Parkhead side.
If, as expected, they fail to overcome the Portuguese, they will face another qualifier simply to make the parachute into the Europa League. However, despite the task that faces them, those at the Parkhead side remain determined not to go out without a fight when they take on Braga in Glasgow.
Gary Hooper, one of six new players signed by Lennon, in a £2.4m deal from Scunthorpe is desperate to be given a chance to play against the Portuguese runners-up and has not given up hope of the Champions League.
"We can definitely do it," he said. "There's every chance. If we get in their faces and press them high up the pitch, we will score the goals."
Hooper argues that Braga's winning margin flattered them but accepts that the Celtic rearguard cannot continue to be as porous. "It should have been 1-0 at the most in Braga," he said. "We created a couple of half-chances, but we will create more on Wednesday night and we have to take them.
"Watching it last week, I was thinking that I would love to get at them. Their defenders weren't the biggest or strongest. They are good on the ball, but if we press them, I think they'll give it away a lot.
"They won't be used to the British style of game. They are used to having time on the ball and passing it around. But if we get into them, we'll have no problem.”
For most of the last decade full houses at Parkhead for European nights have been commonplace but that is unlikely to be the case. Celtic have refused to allow the match to be televised live in order to boost the attendance but, at £28 per ticket and their side staring at elimination, many fans may decide to stay at home.
Hooper hopes that isn't the case. "We want to have 60,000 fans behind us, singing as loud as they can," he said.
Meanwhile, veteran manager Stewart Baxter has described his appointment as consultant to Celtic as a casual arrangement, designed to keep his current employers, the Finnish FA, onside.
Just hours after the much-travelled Scot was spotted at the Emirates Cup in London, Parkhead boss Neil Lennon confirmed the man who has managed Finland, South Africa and a host of clubs had agreed to accept an advisory role with Celtic. He is delighted that, after long negotiations to persuade the Finnish FA to allow him to remain their national team manager and hook up with Celtic, the deal is agreed.
Baxter said: "It is not going to be the official connection that I think we would have liked it to be. The Finnish FA were very keen to distance themselves from that one. But the connection has been made between myself and Celtic. I am in contact with them as a consultant, in inverted commas.
"What we have tried to do is find a happy medium, so that I can be in a position to help out Celtic but also do it with the blessing of the Finnish FA. They have to be able to see some value in it for them, and the way that everything came out at first and emerged through the media, they felt as though they were the ones losing out.
"I have to respect that because, obviously, the European Championships is now my most important task. If I can find a balance that allows me to do that while also being available for Celtic, then everyone is happy."
Baxter believes he is making good progress with the Finnish national side, and the 56-year-old did not want to be put in the position of having to choose between his job with them and the position with Celtic. The entire deal could have been doomed before it really got going when the Finnish FA took umbrage at the suggestion they might be prepared to allow him to become a part-time national coach.
"There was a lot of speculation when the story first came out and when things were crossing the water over here they were getting a little bit twisted," explained Baxter."That meant the Finnish FA were really not happy at all."
Now that everything is settled, and he has met with Lennon and seen almost all of the squad in action, he just wants to get going.
Baxter said: "I was a bit disappointed that things didn't quite go as they might have because it would have been interesting to have had a bit more involvement. I could have taken part a bit more. But, as it is, it will be an arrangement on a purely casual basis, if I am needed, and that is fine with me. It keeps the Finnish FA satisfied, too."
Lennon has always maintained that he was not against having a more experienced man on hand to consult with, if and when required. He was never keen on having someone installed at the club as a full-time director of football and said: "Stuart will be the advisor to me, if and when I need it. It's a part-time situation. He has a job with the Finnish FA and he will simply be a phone call away for me.
"He is someone I can bounce a few ideas off. The one thing I do lack is experience. He has had a lengthy career in Scandinavia and elsewhere. I do not know him well at all, but he does not need to be my pal. We are just going to talk football, and going away in Europe he might be able to help us."
Scotland
Scotland manager Craig Levein is well aware how much he has his work cut out for him when it comes to rebuilding the fortunes of the national side.
Scotland have not qualified for a major international tournament since 1998 when they made it to France but since then they have been bystanders as international football has moved on.
There remain some, he says, for whom pulling on the dark blue jersey is the ultimate accolade and the fruition of a dream. For others, though, he senses the honour has been diluted.
"As a kid I remember watching Archie Gemmill score that goal (against Holland] and you can't help but smile and your eyes light up just thinking about it,” he said. “Kids watched that and wanted to do that, wanted to be involved, they dreamed of following in his footsteps and playing for Scotland and somewhere along the way we have lost some of that and we don't seem to think it's as important as that.
"But, one of the things I am passionate about is the importance placed on playing for the national team. Somewhere along the way it has kind of got lost and I'm not saying that's the case with every player but there is a bit of a malaise and I think as football people we have allowed that to happen.
"Maybe that's because we haven't qualified for so long, people are maybe looking at the Scotland set-up and thinking ‘well, it's not as if we are going to qualify, and if I'm not there it's not the end of the world because we are not going to qualify anyway'. We have to try to change that mind set. We have to develop a group of players who have an affiliation with the SFA and for playing for Scotland and it might be that we have to work with players a lot earlier just so we can cultivate this idea that Scotland winning things is possible."
In Levein's mind things are still positive. Instead of just moaning about what is wrong, he thinks there are a growing number of people keen to get together and actually do something constructive as the game attempts to drag itself up by the bootstraps.
"I think a lot of it, like when it comes to achieving anything in life, is all about your attitude. If you think positively, you find more positive things tend to happen so first of all I want to give the players a good experience of coming along, having fun, playing football and winning games, so that it becomes a self-perpetuating thing and they want to keep coming back and believe they can win. We have to look at the younger age groups and make it special again to be playing for Scotland,” he explained.
Only in the job seven months and with a solitary game under his belt, he has not had enough time to gauge which players amongst the current first-team contenders get the biggest buzz from representing their country but he will. And if there are two people vying for the same position, then he would be inclined to give the nod to the one who values the cap the most.
Said Levein: "It should be the case that every player wants to play for Scotland and, you know, I think of people like Davie Narey, who probably went along to 80 Scotland gatherings and hardly played any games but he saw it as representing his country and he knew it was an honour and he would never have dreamed of saying ‘sod that'. And he was a top, top player.
“Scottish history is littered with top players who went along and didn't get a game but who kept going because they saw it as something to be proud of and we need to get back to that. It has definitely been diluted and I don't know what all the reasons for that are but it's not my job to look for excuses, it's my job to do something about it."
Ask about his highlight as Scotland manager so far and his response his immediate; the victory over the Czech Republic. Wins breed confidence which is why he has placed so much importance on the upcoming friendly, away to Sweden in August. "It will be really, really tough, but if your are talking about building confidence and momentum then we want another good result to take into the first competitive matches. I would rather deal with heightened expectation than have to convince players they are as good as they are."
With five games in two months, having the players in on a regular basis will enable him to cultivate something akin to a club mentality and work on the self-belief, hopefully getting the results which add weight to his preaching ahead of the tougher tasks of facing the likes of new world champions Spain.
He is under no illusions how much it will mean to the nation."Football is about memories and people really get excited when they are discussing their football memories. Going abroad is the biggest thing.
People tell you about when they were in England when we played them, in Italy, in Mexico, in France, wherever. They all speak passionately about the great time they had so it's not just going to watch the football team, it's the whole experience, especially with Scotland because no matter which club you support we can all come together and share in that.
"Everybody has been waiting and waiting and waiting and when we do get there it's going to be a fantastic experience for everyone. That's what I want, for the fans and the players as well."
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