Henry believes World Cup should hold no fears for resurgent Scotland

Published on Tuesday 22 July 2008 21:51

WHEN Scotland failed to qualify for the finals of Euro 2008, many members of the Tartan Army sought solace in the fact that it was the World Cup finalists, France and Italy, who had finished above Alex McLeish's team.

That sense of consolation may have diminished during the finals themselves, as France failed to get out of their group and Italy were knocked out in the quarter-finals, but Thierry Henry, for one, believes Scots should still take heart from the last campaign.

The Barcelona striker, in the country for his club's matches against Hibernian tomorrow night and Dundee United on Saturday, is convinced Scotland can look forward with optimism to the World Cup qualifiers which begin this autumn, and suggested that being in the same group as the Netherlands should not be a cause of undue gloom.

"If Scotland hadn't lost in Georgia then it would've been very difficult for us to qualify," he recalled of the Euro matches.

"So it was possible for you to qualify right up until the very end. So with the qualification for the World Cup coming up I don't see why you should be scared of any team. You have already proved you can beat the best teams in the world."

That narrow failure under McLeish is regarded in some quarters with a sense of resignation as a high-water mark for the national team. The pessimistic prognosis sees George Burley, McLeish's successor, struggling to inspire his team to reach the heights they did in moments such as the victory in Paris.

That analysis is based on the notion that the squad over-achieved, and that with some key players approaching retirement we could be approaching a fallow period for the side. Henry, however, sees things differently.

Although he admits to being no expert on Scottish football, he has been surprised by the feeling of defeatism which exists in so many parts of the game here, and among so many supporters.

Henry finds it hard to comprehend a mentality which, at its most stereotyped, thinks Scottish players are no good, that positive results are invariably caused by good luck, and that even if the odd decent player does somehow emerge from this country we can expect a very long wait before a second one turns up. "We played against Scotland twice last year when we met in the qualifiers for the European championships," he added. "You beat us twice so there's no doubt you have good players."

Of course, in retrospect it is possible to see that France were already some way past their best when they played Scotland. Having just managed to qualify for the finals, they were dismal in the tournament itself in Switzerland and Austria in June, and their failure to reach the last eight spelled the end of their international career for several members of the team. Yet, while diplomatic and willing to flatter his hosts to an extent, Henry baulked when asked if he thought the tournament had been poorer because of the absence of Scotland.

"I don't know if Scotland would've done better," he said. "We didn't play well and were poor this summer, we know that. I suppose it is easy to sit and say that you could've done better and got further than the team who went in your place, but we will never know. All I know is that we didn't play well and the teams who qualified from the groups and got to the final deserved to. Spain were deserved winners, we can't have any argument about that."