The fall out continues from Scotland’s disastrous attempt at making an impact at Euro 2024.
Hopes were high of a place in the knockout stages for the first time ever.
But like many Scotland sides before them, they crashed out with a whimper and let themselves down when they are capable of so much more.
This is not a new thing, not at international level or indeed club level when it comes to our nation’s record in the beautiful game. Better Scotland sides in the past, much more talented than the current squad have failed to achieve the holy grail that is the knockout stages.
It’s often put down to bad luck, but there’s far more than to it than that, not that we want to admit it. Whether that’s in international qualifiers, major tournaments, or on the European front at club level we are used to failure, and what’s worse we seem to accept it. I include our own club, Celtic in that.
One reason why we continue to fail is our lack of self belief. We lack the confidence that other nations have in abundance, yes it helps to have more talented players, but it hasn’t stopped other nations from doing themselves proud on the big stage.
Teams like Iceland, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Wales have shown in recent years on the international stage that a lack of quality can be countered with sheer belief and determination. While at club level teams from nations ranked lower than ours have shown they have no problem competing and advancing on the big stage.
Then there are countries like Croatia, Denmark and Switzerland who all have similar populations as ourselves, yet are no strangers to making the latter stages of major tournaments. They also have an unbelievable pool of talented players who ply their trade with top sides all throughout Europe, and that is down to grassroots. Although that’s an entirely different argument altogether.
The honest truth is that a big part of our repeated failures is that we don’t believe in ourselves. We are often told that we are beneath the big nations and sadly we let ourselves believe that and seem to accept it.
The time has come to admit that we have a severe inferiority complex, and the only way to fix that is to face it head on and start believing in ourselves on the pitch. Only then will be able to better ourselves on the international or European stages.
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
