"There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns; there are things we do not know we don’t know."
A touch of dark humour in this quote from Donald Rumsfeld regarding a lack of evidence supporting the United States' claim of Iraq possessing Weapons of Mass Destruction. Although it smacks of the aloofness and disregard of emotion that surrounded their invasion of Iraq, it still gives us a template of some philosophical truth. The only terrorism we need to deal with this weekend will be the impact of David Villa, David Silva and Andres Iniesta on the Scottish defence a week on Tuesday.
Scotland were given a massive scare against Liechtenstein who at times would have flattered to deceive casual observers that they were the World and European champions. The game was ugly from a footballing point of view and highly frustrating from a Scottish one. Liechtenstein scored a goal of some beauty; however, Scotland managed to grab 3 points courtesy of a swing of the left leg from Kenny Miller and a header from Stephen McManus 7 minutes into 5 minutes of injury time! It was a classic in terms of drama, however certainly not in quality. From the very start of Craig Levein's tenure as Scotland boss, the catchphrase that accompanied every interview, every squad announcement and every stage of the saga regarding the now impossible return of Barry Ferguson has been "I want to make Scotland hard to beat". Does this in turn make it hard for Scotland to win? Though this was evident of the friendly with the Czechs, the performance in the 0-0 draw in Lithuania showed a lot of positivity and Levein had lined Scotland up in a very attacking fashion for the Liechtenstein game. Despite that attacking lineup, the way the game had panned out, the 3 points looked like the most unlikely Scotland had ever picked up. It certainly wasn't a performance that deserved them. To the nation that invented 'glorious failure', it had ventured into the new territory of 'inglorious victors'.
Glorious Victory
To win in a glorious fashion is something that is almost exclusively reserved for the greats of football. In this sense we are looking at teams such as the Brazil team of 1970, the Germany team of 1974, the France team of 1998, and perhaps from a Scottish perspective, the Celtic and Scotland teams of 1967. This is a label that Scotland, over the last 20-30 years, would not come close to attaining and today have been as far as they ever will. The Scotland teams of the 70s & 80s had every right to believe that they may reach the latter stages of major international championships. Any success there would have indeed been glorious. It is a great indictment of our already well documented poor footballing situation that qualification in this country has equal importance to World Cup success next door in England. So, what of any thoughts of opening up against Spain and trying to play attractive and effective football against them? It isn't worth thinking about. Spain are a team well versed in passing teams to death - the kind of teams that already line up to strangle their style of play and can still dispatch them in a convincing manner. To continue the terrorism theme, opening up our style of play against the Spanish would be football suicide.
Glorious Failure
This is a theme that is almost starting to become boring with the Tartan Army. The Scots invented 'glorious failure' in the 1974 World Cup by becoming the first team to be unbeaten in a World Cup and not win the trophy. We continued it in 1978 with a marvelous victory over the Netherlands and has followed us during the 80s and of course in our painful failure to qualify for Euro 2008 despite beating the French twice in the group, Ukraine 3-1 at Hampden and totally banishing any memory of Berti Vogts from Hampden Park. So shall we turn up against the Spanish at Hampden, defend valiantly, attack with enthusiasm and come away with a respectable 1 goal defeat? Teams that have any sort of ambition to succeed and get back on the international scene with some sort of respectability should not settle for this. As for the Czech Republic, no failure against them can ever be glorious. A win for the Czechs might turn out to be ill-deserved but given the fall from grace they have had since the 90s and the most part of the 2010s, this is a team that Scotland should be confident about taking 3 points off if they want to qualify for the Euros.
Inglorious Victory
This is something usually described of those that vanquish Scotland, particularly if we think about Italy and the free-kick that should never have been given in 2007. However, they still qualified. It is a source of pride of football in Britain amongst a culture of gamesmanship, perceived to have come from continental Europe, that we engage in fair-play, do not antagonise opponents off the ball and never dive. However, how successful are we compared to the teams of Europe? Should the mantra of 'win at all costs' now replace becoming 'hard to beat’? The 'hard to beat' mentality is already producing negative formations and is something that we shouldn't be too dissimilar with. Those wins against France came from parking the bus in front of goal and hitting on the counter attack. Catenaccio is fast becoming a recognisable feature of our national teams play. In Prague, we may need to play in an ugly fashion to succeed; against Spain, containing the World and European champions will not be pretty - win, lose or draw. Underhanded tactics should not be unfamiliar to the Tartan Army either. The Welsh would be quick to exemplify Joe Jordan using his own hand to win a penalty, handing Scotland a place in the 1978 World Cup at their expense. Likewise, John Collins unsubtly punching the ball off the line in Euro 96. Scotland is a team that needs to fight hard to obtain any sort of reputation these days, especially off the back of being let off the hook against Liechtenstein and our club teams failing so badly in Europe. If it is to earn that reputation, with the talent they have, Scotland may need to start playing dirty and a so-called 'anti-football' style of play to keep a match against Spain competitive.
Inglorious Failure
Something we avoided against Liechtenstein and something we face if we come away from the Euro-qualifier double header with less than a point - either playing football the right way, or the wrong way. There are doubters claiming that we can expect to walk away with 1 point from the two games. If we are to qualify, we should be expecting at least four. As mentioned before, we cannot expect to start qualifying for major tournaments and not show any sort of ambition. The manner with which we play and show that ambition, will determine whether or not we qualify and not by the pool of talent that we have.
In football we have the teams that win in the beautiful way - the Glorious Victors; there are the teams that show magnificence but yet miss out on the prizes - the Glorious Failures; there are teams that employ underhanded tactics and go against the spirit of the game to achieve - the Inglorious Victors; and there are those whose shortcomings are matched by their lack of achievement - the Inglorious Failures. There's every chance that whatever the result may be in Scotland's next two games, it won't be pretty on the eye. Behind the scenes, Scottish football will still need to address the problems it faces regarding the quality of footballers it is producing to bring the game in this country up to pace with the rest of Europe. For the current national team, they may need to address how far they will need to go 'to win at all costs' - with or without the glory.
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