I took this game in on Saturday evening from the Electric Bar in Motherwell. Not my local but my other half’s who hails from that part of the country. So not dissimilar a setting to Tirana then where the game was taking place.
It proved to be an apt name though as Scotland produced a free-flowing performance, devoid of suicidal defending and where the referee Vladislav Bezborodov actually showed he had a pair and made the rights calls.
Albania tried some neat passing at the back but Ryan Christie was having none of it and stepped in to feed Ryan Christie who charged into the box before curling it past Etrir Berisha in the Albanian goal to make it 1-0 after a mere 14 mins.
Alex McLeish tries to make sense of that he’s looking at.Â
Usually, it would be all downhill from there for the national team but then the Albanian captain, the wonderfully named Mergim Mavraj, stepped up and wrote his name into Scottish football folklore with a fabulous one-two. The first one was a challenge over the ball on James Forrest and the second was an unnecessary headbutt on Ryan Christie. He got a yellow card for each one resulting in an early bath. Did Christie milk it? Probably. But every other nation on God’s green earth does it so for me he was just being streetwise.
From there Scotland took full advantage. An Armstrong free kick on the edge of the box was needlessly handled by striker Rey Manaj and resulted in a penalty which one-time Celtic target Steven Fletcher duly dispatched on the stroke of half-time and Scotland were now really in dreamland.
I, on the other hand, had to depart to the function room next door to join in the 50th birthday celebrations for Elaine – a woman I’d never met before and didn’t actually get to meet during – but was able to get back through under the pretense of needing some fresh air to witness most of the second half which featured a dominant Scotland display that included two more goals both of which were executed by James Forrest.
The first came after the Celtic winger was released through by teammate Ryan Christie before squeezing it past Berisha and the second was a wonderful goal. Christie found Fraser out on the right wing with a beautiful pass from midfield and the Bournemouth man fed Forrest in the box who knocked it up with his right foot past substitute Kastriot Dermaku before buying it past Berisha again with his left.
Wee Jamesy scores a belter.
There should have been more and substitute Scott McTominay should have done better with an effort from the edge of the box that clipped the bar though replays showed a wicked bobble just before it got to him.
The pub was actually eerily quiet during that second period. Most people sat, pint in hand with their jaw agape wondering what the hell was going on and when they would awaken from their slumber as only a dream state could explain what they were witnessing on the TV screens before them.
All that aside Callum McGregor was magnificent in the holding role that he has also really stood out in for Celtic recently and is a perfect example of playing a guy in a position where he is playing well in for his club and hey presto….it works for the national team as well.
I’m no fan of Big Eck and think he’s made a bit of a pig’s ear of the Scotland job thus far considering the position the national team were in when he took over but some nights it just clicks and Saturday was one of those nights.
Scotland can now win their group if they beat Israel on Tuesday. The Israeli’s have proven to be a far more capable outfit than hapless Albania and have far better players, especially in the forward positions, but are also renowned for not performing and the momentum is definitely with Scotland as well as the home advantage.
The contribution from the Celtic players was immense with Christie pivotal in three of the four goals and being smart enough to react to Mavraj’s stupidity as opposed to standing his ground and likely getting a yellow himself. McGregor ran the show and Forrest continued the free-scoring form that has seen him bag 26 goals for the Hoops in the last 18 months.
Injuries aside I’d image the exact same team will take to the field on Tuesday night in the group decider. But then again with Big Alex at the helm……..
So on Thursday night, we travel to Germany and Leipzig to be precise.
There we will be playing literally the most unpopular team in the country.
Why you may ask when Bayern Munich have been sweeping all before them for years now without any significant resistance?
Well Bayern, unlike our hosts have a real history unlike Leipzig, a club literally manufactured by the Austrian based soft drinks company Red Bull in 2009 after they purchased fifth tier German side SSV Markranstädt – or their licenses at least, it’s all a little confusing as a team called SSV Markranstädt continued to operate as an affiliate of the new entity – and from there the team we now know as RasenBallsport Leipzig e.V., was born and play in, you guessed it, the Red Bull Arena.
Most clubs in Germany are of course still primarily fan owned with the sale of significant never mind controlling share interests to large corporations or wealthy individuals generally discouraged as not being in sync with the culture of fan representation on club boards. It’s known as the 50+1 ownership rule and has led to Borussia Dortmund having 15,000 members. RB Leipzig, on the other hand, has just 17 and their ability to circumnavigate the rules has unsurprisingly led to other clubs, Bayern being chief amongst them, to call for the rule to be scrapped so that significant investment can be brought in.
The 50+ 1 rule states that: “No single person or entity may possess more than 49% of the voting rights in a German club’s professional football division, preventing the sale of a majority stake to outside investors, protecting clubs from irresponsible owners and maintaining the democratic nature of fan-owned German clubs.”
Despite this a quarter of Bundesliga clubs currently don’t follow the 50+1 rule to the letter, while some clubs have been granted certain exemptions. However, Leipzig really is the black sheep as they have pretty much discarded the rule altogether.
For more info on all of this, I’ve embedded a video at the bottom of the page featuring a short documentary on RasenBallsport Leipzig’s controversial origins from Copa90.
In the nine seasons since Red Bull created their own footballing Frankenstein, they have won the fifth tier German league – aka NOFV-Oberliga SĂĽd- in their maiden season and then spent two seasons in the fourth tier Regionalliga Nord failing to gain promotion in each one with fourth and third place finishes respectively.
It then moved to another regional fourth-tier league the Regionalliga Nordost – God only knows why – which it won with an undefeated campaign in 2012-2013, hence promotion to 3. Liga which you won’t be surprised to hear is the third tier of German football.
It finished runners-up in its first season there leading to promotion to 2. Bundesliga and the top flight was now in sight.
The 2014-15 season saw them finish only fifth but they bounced back the following term to finish runners-up and with that, they had finally gained promotion to the hallowed Bundesliga within seven seasons, one less than Red Bull had originally targeted when they launched the new club back in 2009.
Much to every other German supporter’s chagrin outside of their own, they made quite the impact in their first top-flight season spectacularly finishing runners-up to runaway leaders Bayern whom they had now replaced as the nations most loathed footballing entity due to their somewhat artificial beginnings.
Last season was a bit of a reality check for them though as they dropped to sixth in the division however this was of course still enough to deliver them a Europa League place.
And now to this season which is of course what concerns us the most.
They are managed by veteran Ralf Rangnick who’s been in the coaching game for over 30 years, all of which has been spent in his native Germany.
He actually managed them before back in 2015/16 when they gained promotion to the Bundesliga but was replaced by Ralph HasenhĂĽttl despite this success but got his own back in May of this year when HasenhĂĽttl left and now Ralf with an ‘f’ is back in the big chair.
That’s Ralf.Â
They were hammered 4-1 at the Westfalen by Borussia Dortmund on Matchday One of the new season but have bounced back strongly with an undefeated run of seven games featuring four wins and three draws scoring fifteen – through six of them came in a 6-0 rout of FC NĂĽrnberg – and conceding just four in the process and sit fifth in the division on 15 points.
In the Europa League, they have navigated through three rounds defeating Swedes BK Häcken 4-1 on aggregate, Romania’s CS Universitatea Craiova 4-2 over the two legs and in the playoff round they overcame Ukraine’s FC Zorya Luhansk 3-2 on aggregate.
Interestingly though they were undefeated in the qualifiers they never won a game on the road with three wins at home and three draws away. That gives us some hope for the home match but not much for Thursday night.
They were turned over 3-2 at home in the group match opener by their namesake Red Bull Salzburg.
2-0 down at one point they did come back to equal things up but fell to a late Fredrik Gulbrandsen strike for the visitors.
But Salzburg, as we know, are a team in incredible form this season having claimed 16 wins from 19 matches so far with no defeats in all competitions and 48 goals scored in the process so no shame in a tight 89th-minute loss to them.
We, of course, showed up pretty well against them in the opening 45 mins before being bulldozed in the second half.
Last time out in Europe Leipzig romped to a 3-1 win in Trondheim against Rosenborg, a team who as we experienced ourselves in the Champions League qualifiers are no slouches at home.
Anyway, aside from Leipzig’s form they also made some notable moves in the transfer market this summer. And it’ll be of no surprise to hear that like so many clubs that we come up against in Europe now they are on a totally different level from us financially.
This summer alone they spent €43 million on three players, defenders Marcelo Saracchi and Nordi Mukiele as well as striker Matheus Cunha. All are under 21 so they are definitely targetting youth with resale value, a similar policy to our own.
Uruguyuan Saracchi arrived from River Plate, Mukiele from Montpellier – where he’d made 50 league appearances in two seasons – and Brazilian Cunha from Swiss side FC Sion where he scored 10 league goals in 29 games last season.
They did, however, rake in €72.8 million primarily from the sale of star man Naby Keita to Liverpool (€60 million) along with Brazilian full-back Bernardo to Brighton for €10 million.
Another player they released was Israeli forward Omer Damari. He was a goal machine at club level in his native Israel but couldn’t hit a barn door in Germany failing to score once in his three-year stay there.
Their main men in the wake of the departure of Keita are Austrian internationalist Marcel Sabitzer who has weighed in with 23 goals from 106 games in midfield and the striking partnership of Danish internationalist Yussuf Poulsen and the star of the team, German internationalist striker Timo Werner.
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Poulsen and Werner have 91 goals between them in the Red Bull colours as well as 50 international caps with Poulsen hitting the net six times already this season and Werner bagging four.
The 22-year-old Werner though is bound for bigger things and has struck 21 goals in each of the last two seasons. It’s actually a testament to Leipzig’s financial backing that they have been able to hold onto him for so long in the face of fierce competition for his signature.
One bit of bright news is that Swedish internationalist Emil Forsberg, who generally pulls the strings from the midfield, has been ruled out with a groin strain but one player does not a team make and despite his absence they still have pretty intimidating five-pronged threat of the aforementioned Augustin, Cunha, Poulsen, Werner and 23-year-old Portuguese winger Bruma who is also a bit tasty on his day.
I mean this would be a tough ask even on home turf but away it looks really difficult. Like, really, really difficult. Just our luck we have two teams in our group that just happen to be two of the form teams on the content right now.
We are of course inform ourselves hitting 10 in two matches but this is a huge jump in opposition and despite the likes of Forrest, Rogic, McGregor and Edouard currently being on fire I don’t think it would be smart to go toe to toe with them especially in their own stadium. Something similar to what we produced in the first 45 mins away to Salzburg but this time maintained for the full 90 mins will be required which seems more feasible with Filipe Benkovic back in for the hapless Jack Hendry.
Our away form in Europe is, of course, feeble to the point of being shockingly bad and I guess there’s no point in going over all of that again.
I felt similarly pessimistic for our away tie against another German side Borussia Mönchengladbach almost exactly two years ago and that turned out okay with an unexpected 1-1 draw which could have been even better if Callum McGregor had held his nerve with a gilt-edged chance in the dying embers.
Maybe Thursday evening will be the start of a bright new beginning for us on the road in the continent. I mean stranger things have happened. Right?
Another international match under Alex McLeish and another defeat.
The reason I bother with these international reviews is because our players generally feature pretty significantly in proceedings.
For this one, Kieran Tierney was allowed to drop out due to a ‘loading issue’ which is bullshit football ‘tech-speak’ for him being tired due to the number of games he’s played so far this season.
No doubt Brendan’s been on the phone and requested that he be rested as opposed to being played out of position in a pointless friendly.
Leigh Griffiths, of course, hasn’t featured in the last two internationals now as he tries to improve his fitness. Of course, we know the real reason is that he can’t stand Big Eck and his banal ongoing decision to choose Johnny Russell and Steven Naismith up front ahead of him.
Craig Gordon was back in after being fairly dropped for the on form Allan McGregor and also back in the line-up was James Forrest, ludicrously not started against Israel after scoring four times for us the weekend before, and ex-Celt Stuart Armstrong. Callum McGregor also got his latest cap. Jack Hendry also got a start which was purely due to Charlie Mulgrew and John Souttar being unavailable.
On the whole, it was much better performance though ultimately another bad result as the ruthless Portuguese punished every error from Scotland, proving that even without the scandal-plagued Ronaldo why they are rated number seven in the world rankings.
Costa’s was a tap-in after an Andy Robertson mistake but the other two were fabulous goals. A great header from Lopes after a floated cross to the edge of the box and a peach from Banga just inside the box subsequent to skinning Graeme Shinnie.
Stevie Naismith posted a consultation at the death resulting from a beautiful back-heel from another ex-Celt Gary Mackay-Steven which set him up for a tap-in.
Scott McKenna had missed a stick-on opportunity to equalise earlier with a diving header that went inches past.
All of the Celtic players did okay with the exception being Jack Hendry who continues to look way out of his depth when faced with any opposition remotely resembling quality.
For McLeish, the 4-4-2 formation with an actual left back playing in position worked better and with the recalls of Forrest and Armstrong there was a lot more vibrancy to the team but the same old errors continue to be punished. Rather like Celtic in Europe Scotland look completely incapable of keeping the back door shut for 90 mins.
Anyway, Big Eck staggers onto the doubleheader with Albania and Israel next month after this sorry weekend brought his record to two wins and six losses. Willie Miller remained optimistic that his friend could pull it off in the Sportscene studios last night obviously completely oblivious to what has occurred so far under his former central defensive partner.
The big adventure continued under Alex McLeish last night and took the national team plus about 1500 weary souls to the cavernous and mostly empty Sammy Ofer Stadium in Haifa, Israel for the latest instalment of the UEFA Nations League.
There they were subjected to some of the worst football we’ve seen from a Scotland national team in a long, long time.
Now that really is saying something.
The face of the Scotland national team.
Getting beaten by World Cup qualifiers such as Costa Rica, Peru, Mexico and hammered by the second best national team in the world in Belgium is one thing but Israel are rated 96 in the FIFA rankings and had one win in ten coming into this.
They have some very good players at their disposal such as former Celtic midfielder Beram Kayal, now with Brighton in the EPL, as well as the prolific Red Bull Salzburg striker Munas Dabbur who we know all about after his shenanigans a week ago last night against us in the Europa League.
But the fact remains that they seldom if indeed ever pull it together at national team level until they met Scotland of course.
Scotland were rubbish from the get-go. The nonsense of trying to deploy both Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney down the same flank continues and nullifies the abilities of both. That aside it appeared to be five at the back with a deep-lying midfield and the two strikers completely cut off.
Scotland never pressed the ball at all until going behind in the second half and generally sat deep allowing the Israeli team to ping the ball about in front of them like a classic Brazil team and build both momentum and confidence.
A gift was handed out in the 23rd minute when Peretz needlessly barged Naismith to the ground in the box. Charlie Mulgrew subsequently stepped up and converted and you thought that might actually breathe some life into the Scotland performance but instead, it seemed to fire up the hosts who proceeded to subject the Scottish goal to wave after wave of attack for the remainder of the game.
Peretz made up for his earlier misdemeanour by equalising on 54 minutes which was long overdue and after Souttar walked for a second yellow – his first was mindless and second came from his mistake – there was only going to ever be one outcome and it happened when a hopelessly out of position Tierney scored an OG he’d like to forget with about of a quarter of an hour left.
John Souttar is the only shocked man on the pitch.
Allan McGregor made save after save and Israel hit the bar when they should have scored and 2-1 flattered Scotland. Despite that Callum McGregor had a few chances to actually pull something out of the fire but shanked them both which was a continuation of his finishing against Albania.
Disjointed, disorganised, fatigued and ultimately dispirited just about sums up Scotland last night as they made it five defeats from seven under Alex McLeish with a first competitive defeat in 23 months.
Players such as Kevin McDonald and Johnny Russell appear to be getting games for no reason whatsoever. McDonald is playing in a Fulham team that are being trounced most weeks and Johnny Russell is playing in the retirement village that is the MLS at 28 and even then is hardly setting the heather alight.
They now play Portugal at Hampden on Monday night which will likely be attended by ten men and a dog and anyone who thinks Portugal don’t have the potential to destroy Scotland without the presence of the scandal-mired Cristiano Ronaldo are sadly mistaken. Portugal won 3-2 away in Poland last night and even without their talisman, they are a handy outfit rated seventh in the world.
Though a right hammering might not be such a bad thing as it might force the SFA’s hand vis-Ă -vis the ongoing farcical second reign of McLeish which hit a new low last night and considering his inability to make any actual big decisions, implement anything approaching a system and his alienation of some of the countries best players a decision really needs to be made sooner rather than later.
Under the previous manager, Scotland had gone unbeaten in seven – six of them competitive – whilst under Big Eck they have lost five in seven scoring four and conceding ten. Expect that to be even worse after Monday evening.
In the post-match press conference, Alex thought the system was actually working in the first half, that the team had kept possession okay and John Souttar’s red card was harsh. He also said he was about to bring on Scott McKenna for Souttar just before he got his second yellow even though McKenna was already on the pitch having been substituted on for the injured Charlie Mulgrew at half-time………………………………
Finally Celtic produced a performance worth raving about after a pretty tepid opening few months to the season as they found not only their shooting boots but some actual form in Perth.
It’s been a bit of a slog so far this season with elimination from the Champions League qualifiers, no wins away domestically in the league and generally pretty monotonous and uninspiring play week in, week out.
That all changed though at a wind and rain swept McDiarmid Park on Sunday.
After a ropey start where the Saints clearly fancied their chances and decided to take it to us, no doubt believing we would be drained both physically and mentally after a second-half roasting by RB Salzburg on Thursday evening, and created a few decent chances with a Danny Swanson volley from close range stinging the palms of Craig Gordon.
For the first 10 mins, Celtic were struggling and you couldn’t help but think ‘here we go again.’
Thereafter though it was a slaughter.
Celtic rained down attack after attack on the Perth sides goal and eventually took the lead after 15 mins when an Edouard shot was saved by Zander Clark only to rebound back to James Forrest whose shot made it into the back of the net after an unsuccessful attempt by Clark to claw it away.
Edouard, who had been unlucky not score only minutes previously, then did get on the score sheet only seven mins after the opener, finishing from outside the box with a neatly drilled finish into the far lower corner.
French Eddy and Ross Callahan compare dance moves.
In the final 15 mins of the half, the floodgates truly did open as Forrest added another three to his previous effort, combining well with the majestic Rogic for each one and showing some wonderful finishing ability with both feet.
All of those three goals were special with the first seeing him finish off a 1-2 with the aforementioned Rogic which cut the Saints defence apart and then the Aussie playmaker feed him through to finish with his right foot and seal his hat-trick. Forrest’s final goal was probably the pick of the litter though as he played another 1-2 with that man Rogic again and raced through on goal from his own half before finishing low past Clark also again.
A liquid finish from the impressive Forrest.
In amongst all of that, a Leigh Griffiths free-kick effort from 30 yards produced a wonderful save from Zander Clark who was actually having the game of his life in between picking the ball out of the net.
Nobody could have predicted 5-0 at halftime in their wildest dreams and a shellshocked looking Tommy Wright was clearly regretting his decision to play expansive football and attack an apparently bedraggled Celtic.
A beleaguered Tommy Wright demands the ref blows the final whistle.
As is often the case after that kind of first half the goals dried up in the second period with Callum McGregor tapping in a sixth after some neat build-up play on the 84th-minute mark.
Previous to that Danny Swanson got a straight red card for hacking down Forrest who was on the charge again. Swanson had clearly seen enough of that in the first half and refused to stick around for more.
It was quite a day, easily Celtic’s best domestically so far this season, notwithstanding the Rangers game, and before we unilaterally dismiss the level fo opposition let’s not forget that St.Johnstone had been unbeaten at home since late February.
So Celtic now climb to the third spot in the league, only three points off the top and with a vastly improved goal difference. Not a bad way to go into the international break and let’s just hope this is a return to the dynamic free-flowing football we had previously associated with Brendan’s reign at the club.
....Always A Tim! 