Culture of failure a danger to Scotland

FORMER Scotland manager Craig Brown has warned the current national team must not allow themselves to be drawn into a culture where failure is the accepted norm.

Last night’s 3-1 defeat to world champions Spain in Alicante ended Scotland’s hopes of qualifying for Euro 2012, meaning they still have not been to a major tournament since the 1998 World Cup in France.

Scotland will face Croatia, Serbia, Belgium, Macedonia and Wales in their bid to reach the 2014 World Cup, and Brown believes Craig Levein’s team have a strong chance of making it through to the finals in Brazil.

But he suggested last night’s loss was “another glorious failure”, with results in earlier qualifiers the main reason for Scotland missing out again.

Brown insists the players must show mental strength as well as footballing ability to achieve their ambitions.

“There should be no place for failure in the mentality of players,” Brown told BBC Radio Five Live. “The fans are now beginning to accept failure, which is surprising. The Tartan Army definitely deserves to go to a major tournament. I’m hoping and praying it will be the next one, the World Cup.”

Brown expects Scotland to be back on the major stage at some point.

“Obviously yes, the law of averages says yes,” he said. “I was lucky. From ’86 to ’98 I was at five major tournaments with Scotland. It just became accepted we were going. I was lucky to be at three World Cups and two European Championships. Now we’re struggling to get to either of those.”

Tuesday’s results mean Scotland’s absence from a major tournament will stretch to at least 16 years, equalling the previous worst run which was between 1958 and 1974.

The present barren streak is even worse because it encompasses seven failed qualifying campaigns compared to five between ’58 and ’74 when Scotland chose not to try to qualify for the European Championships in 1960 and 1964.

Despite the poor run, Brown believes there are better times ahead.

“I genuinely think this team which is emerging at the moment is good enough to qualify for the World Cup,” he said.

The former Scotland manager was particularly impressed by Brighton’s Craig Mackail-Smith who played as the main striker against Spain in the absence of the injured Kenny Miller. “He’s an energetic guy,” Brown said. “We thought we’d miss Kenny Miller for his energy and enthusiasm up front, but Craig Mackail-Smith certainly has the same qualities as Miller. Now I’d love to see both of them up front. It would be difficult to defend against these guys.”

As thoughts turn to the next campaign, Gary Caldwell believes Scotland can take positives from the Spain defeat which will stand them in good stead for the World Cup qualifying which begins next year. “Some of the football they played was exceptional,” the Wigan defender said. “It was very difficult to deal with. But nights like last night are encouraging, we were up against the best team in the world and many teams would have folded but we never did and that was very encouraging.

“We showed we can compete and we are going to be playing lesser teams in the next competition and hopefully we will do a bit better.

“Craig Levein was a new manager at the start of the campaign and he had to find out things about the players and what formation he was going to play and we have got to a level now where the manager knows he can go forward and we can be successful.”

Levein insists he was hamstrung in this campaign because he was still trying to assemble his squad in its early stages.

“If we had three or four games before we started the campaign we could have got a better start,” the Scotland manager said.

“But I didn’t know my best team then. It has taken me over a year to feel we have a strong squad. The campaign started slowly as we tried to establish who were our best players, trying to pull it all together but the second part was better. We missed out this time but we are determined not to miss out the next time.

“For the World Cup we will start from a better position, with a solid base. We have a fair idea who our best players are and we are looking to increase our pool of players.

“So I have a great deal of confidence and look forward to the World Cup qualifiers.”