German football writers say it's time up for McBerti

Published on Friday 15 October 2004 01:07

ALL across Germany yesterday, they were writing the obituary for Berti Vogts’s career.

The Munich newspaper Abendzeitung wrote: "Poor McBerti - it looks like nothing can save him now." Die Welt said: "Berti Vogts is worried for his job. This was a bad night for him and Scotland as the possibility of travelling to Germany in 2006 pulls ever farther away."

Bild, the country's biggest- selling paper, said that, whatever the SFA claimed about his job being safe, "it isn’t".

When they were not pitying him, they were mocking him. Austrian Radio broadcast this joke yesterday: "Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow went to see the Wizard of Oz to ask one question. Dorothy wanted to know if she was the prettiest girl in all the world. She saw the Wizard, came out smiling, and confirmed to her friends that, indeed, she was.

"The Cowardly Lion went in, asked if he was the most cowardly creature on earth, and the Wizard said yes. He beamed the news to his friends outside.

"Then the Scarecrow went in to ask if he was, indeed, the most useless, worthless, vacuous, empty-headed, bereft-of-ideas creature on earth. He came out looking very glum and said: ‘So who’s this Berti Vogts then?’"

Peter Heck, Bild’s football expert, said: "He is going from one thrashing to another, his team is dropping further in the world rankings and everybody over here is laughing at him."

At the Schotten (Scottish) pub in Berlin, a regular, Torsten Schneider, said: "It’s about time the Scots shipped him home to well-deserved obscurity."