The Lion roars at the Eagle (SCOTLAND … 1 GERMANY … 1)

Just when we thought season 2002/2003 couldn’t get any better …

Over a decade ago, on the first ever night of UEFA Champions League matches, a young central defender called Steven Pressley was forced into the European limelight in a manner he’d much rather forget.

“Elvis” had just recently turned nineteen. In January 1992 The Elgin-born stopper captained the Rangers youth team to a Glasgow Cup victory over Celtic. In November 1992, with a single substitute’s appearence for the first-team to his credit, he was asked to make his second such appearance for Rangers. This time, however, it wasn’t a token run-out against Motherwell for a club which had just clinched it’s fourth successive championship; this time he was replacing Richard Gough at the heart of the Rangers defence, in the midst of a European Cup tie against Bernard Tapie’s Olympique Marseille.

With Rangers already an Alen Boksic goal behind, young Steven attempted a pass back to goalkeeping legend Andy Goram. The ball stuck in the Ibrox mud and one of Marseille’s host of millionaire stars simply walked the ball into the back of the Rangers net. Goram was up and shouting at Pressly before it even crossed the line - The Goalie knew when he was beaten and the striker who’d just skipped past him was not a man to miss such chances. The player who’d just put the visitors 2-0 up ran away calmly to the small bunch of French fans celebrating in the Broomloan Road stand. Despite the atrocious Glasgow weather, Rudi Voeller’s famous grey perm bounced merrily as he soaked up the Gallic applause.

Some Rangers fans sitting next to me simply got up and left. As far as they were concerned it was Game Over. We’d been struggling with injuries before the match even kicked-off, now our players were dropping like flies, young boys were being asked to plug the gaps and we were two down to a club who would clearly not stop spending til they were champions of Europe. Voeller already had a World Cup winners medal in his pocket, won with West Germany on the same Stadio Olimpico pitch where he’d become a much-loved star with AS Roma - these guys didn’t throw away two-goal leads.

But the Rangers team had other ideas that night. In one of the most famous matches ever played at Ibrox, another youth - a certain Gary McSwegan - came on to pull one back for the home side before Mark Hateley stooped to net a dramatic equaliser. Voeller thought he’d nicked a winner from Elvis but the Scots eventually took all the glory … on the night. Voeller and Marseille went on to win the 92/93 Champions league but Rangers had taught themselves the ultimate continental silverware wasn’t as distant a dream as we once thought.

Cut to June 7th 2003 and Rudi Voeller, this time sat in the technical area as manager, his perm less bouncy but his reputation greater than ever, is back in Glasgow and once again he’s celebrating a lapse by Steven Pressley. A Torsten Frings cross from the right floats embarassingly over the Scotland defender’s mistimed leap and Fredi Bobic is allowed to head Germany ahead in the EURO 2004 qualifier at Hampden Park.

There are 23 minutes on the clock and, despite the fact Scotland have played out of their skins from the first whistle, the feeling is one of order being restored. As Bobic runs off to the 12,000 or so German fans gathered colourfully in the traditional Rangers End of The National Stadium, almost everyone watching the match, in the stands or at home on TV, is singularly unsurprised.

Three World Cups, and four-times runners-up. Three European championships and a further two silver medals in that particular tournament. Germany are historically the greatest international side in Europe and are bettered only by Brazil in terms of the entire planet. Rudi Voeller coached them to last summer’s World Cup final where, had Michael Ballack not been suspended and had Oliver Kahn not chosen to make his only mistake in a month at the feet of one Ronaldo Louis Nazario de Lima, the Nationalmannschaft would have won World Cup number four.

Scotland? Well, we’re basically AWFUL these days. In the latter quarter of the twentieth century we’d always be expected to struggle against Germany but since hiring a certain German to coach our national side we’re expected to lose to everyone and anyone. A month ago I sat with 12,000 of my countrymen and women as Austria easily won the battle of Europe’s furthest fallen fitbaw nations (we should have invited Hungary along to make up teh set). Fortunatley I missed the 1-1 draw with mighty New Zealand at Tynecastle, Pressley’s home ground in his latest role as captain of Hearts. But I did make it to Hampden for the 2-0 loss to The Republic of Ireland’s reserve side back in February.

These three nights of disaster were all friendlies. The stereotypical pragmatism we attribute to the Germans would suggest our national boss, Berti Vogts, was happy to get the bad play out of the way during non-competitive fixtures. Well, that may be the way people like myself saw it back in March 2002 when “Der Terrier” became the SFA’s first non-Scottish first XI boss but the 2-2 draw with the Faroes last September suddenly told us the 5-0 loss to France and the 4-1 drubbing by South Korea weren’t part of a learning curve.

Home and away wins against our predicted rivals for Group 5’s play-off slot, Iceland, cancelled out another friendly loss, this time to Denmark at Hampden, and almost made us foirget about trailing 2-0 at half-time to a bunch of teachers, fishermen and postmen in Vogt’s first competitive match in charge. Almost … but then we lost 1-0 to Lithuania.

Basically, I was sceptical about the appointment of Alex McLeish as Rangers manager and he’s been an unqualified success. I was delighted with the appointment of Vogts as national boss - and he’s looked to be a total flop. In the space of this last week, I’ve wished McLeish knighted and Vogts hung, drawn and quartered.

When Michael Ballack, one of the best players in the world right now, passed a late fitness test for the visitors, it seemed as if Berti would receive just such a brutal execution. Any kind of result for Scotland was such a distant possibility that I, like a few other guys who attended the game yesterday in tartan scarves, found ourselves wishing for a heavy Germany win. If we lost by just one or two goals Vogts would find excuses and he’d keep his job. If we took a thorough pounding, however, the man who managed Germany to ultimate victory in EURO 96 would be back in his homeland looking through the jobs pages of Der Speigel before the EURO 2004 finals had even begun. John McBeth was elected President of the SFA only a few days ago - it’s fitting his reign should begin with such Shakespearean thoughts and plots of treachery among his subjects.

Yet the first 23 minutes of Germany’s visit to Hampden proved to be far from a fluke. Before and after Bobic’s goal the men in Dark Blue gave Hampden it’s roar back with more effect that any pathetic musical reworking of Flower of Scotland ever could. Whether our national anthem is perfromed on the pipes and drums, by a Corrie in a dinner jacket, by three tenors in orange kilts or Led flipping Zeppelin, the real atmosphere comes from a genuine belief that the team wants a win as badly as we do.

My god, that was certainly the case yesterday. Ballack was kicked, tripped, shoved and elbowed from every quarter at every opportunity. Pressley’s attentions to Miroslav Klose were far from gentlemanly but there was no way the Kaiserslautern striker was winning any of his customary headers in this game. A German friend has just e-mailed me to say German TV spent half of last night wondering why Maurice Ross wasn’t dismissed for a “tackle” on Bayern-bound Tobias Rau which couldn’t have been anymore dangerous if the Ibrox full back had a disembowling tool tacked on to the end of his boots.

Okay, what we in Scotland term “passion” the rest of the world probably understands as “psychosis”. It’s all part of that perverted British thing where spitting on an opponent or diving to gain a free-kick is the lowest of the low but breaking someone’s leg with a vicious tackle is just good old “honesty” or “commitment”.

Mozza should have gone, yes, as could a few other Scotland players. But the dirty play from our guys was the only way we could ever stop Germany winning. Frankly, we had to stop it being a football match - in large parts we did. Technically gifted players are very thin on the ground in Scotland … as are physically gifted players - we’re a small football nation in every sense of the phrase. All we can ever demand of our team is they show passion. Passion = aggression and that’s what the team have lacked so abundantly over the last year and more.

The physical stature of the Germans, coupled with their reputation both historical and contemporaneous, was probably as much of a catalyst for this abusive onslaught by Scotland as any personal grudge Vogts may have against the DFB and the German media. A small country often needs a big opponent to bring the best out of itself but, as cliched and worryingly amateurish as Vogts’ call for typical underdog spirit from Scotland may have seemed, to watch our lads go out there and compete with the best Europe can offer was utterly thrilling.

Jeeze, Germany even called the pre-match shots over stadium advertising! The only Scottish advert to appear on the continually rolling bill-boards surrounding the pitch appeared at half-time, when German TV would be focusing on it’s studio anchor-man. Yet, when the word BAUHAUS parenthesised the on-field events, it was clear Berti Vogts had at last managed to design that perfect blend of form and function which, while not pleasant to the ignorant eye, is deemed beautiful by the fact it performs its task so perfectly. They’re saying he was cursing and swearing in the dressing room before the game. They’re saying Vogts became more Scottish than the Scots in his exhortations to bring these prima donnas to their over-paid knees.

And it worked, even if any such name-calling was deeply inaccurate. As Ballack was mauled time and time again by Christain Dailly, the star man ’s reaction was as modest and self-posessed as the best of sportsmen. Germany’s behaviour was exemplary - considering the rough house treatement doled out by our lot there was almost no complaining to the Italian ref by the visitors; the DFB boys just got up and got on with it. Christain Worns’ jersey was stained with blood yesterday, reminiscent of the bandaged and bloodied Guido Buchwald staggering round the Idraatspark pitch in Norrkopping during EURO 92. It’s the smallest victory for us to mix it rather than just mix with such esteemed opponents. The Germans took some individual physical batterings yesterday but their players will be the last ones to moan about it.

And they showed their playing class too when allowed. Some of the defending when Scotland did actually mount an attack was brilliant to watch. Jeremies’ tackle at the edge of the box in the first half was sublime.

Penetrating attacks were thin on the ground. Germany and Scotland both finished badly when given a rare chance to score - Colin Cameron’s fresh air shot from eight yards was equalled in its profligacy by Worns’s smack over our bar near the end. We kept the Deutscher dudes goal-threat at bay thanks largely to an overall game-plan of smothering the midfield, making our penalty area a place of pain and ruthlessness and using the flanks to occupy German minds with something other than constantly attacking us.

Andy Webster joined Pressley in holding it together in central defence while Dailly was thoroughly unchristian in his pursuit of Ballack. When freed from defensive duties, Naysmith and Ross would pop up the wings to support the tireless Devlin, Cameron and Lambert in picking out our two strikers. Kenny Miller and Stevie Crawford, however, rarely acted as out and out front men. More often than not they were found out wide, simply trying to give their team-mates options. Lambert and Colin Cameron spent as much time shutting down the Germans as they did forming a launch pad for Scotland attacks. The whole team was relentless, the energy quite miraculous considering the long season which preceeded this match. It was attack as defence and defence as attack. It was all hands to the pump in anticipation of a flood.

Two men who played in a draining UEFA Cup final a few weeks ago were central to our goal remaining mostly intact. One commendable and one thoroughly brilliant save by Rab Douglas, each from the cultured feet of Bernd Schneider, hinted that Scotland may at last have another dependable keeper. Paul Lambert hasn’t announced his intentions yet but if yesterday was his last match for Scotland it was fitting that it should (a) be against Germany and (b) be his best performance in Dark Blue. He was everywhere and he did it all.

Then The two other men in the team with most cause to be drained, Kenny Miller and Colin cameron, combined to score Scotland’s roof-lifting equaliser. An English Nationwide First Division campaign is long enough but even more so if you’ve just made it into the Premiership via the play-offs. Yet even their super-human running was shoved to the background by the sharpness displayed in exploiting the one moment we truly had the Germans on the ropes.

A free kick was awrded in the 69th minute, some twenty plus yards from the visitors’ goal and everyone stopped to regroup and ctach breath … maybe even form a wall or devise a fancy set-piece. Everyone except Cameron and Miller - the former spotting and passing the ball in one instantaneous movement, the latter outrunning the slowed German defence before angling a cool finish across the world’s best goalkeper into the far corner of the net.

The Hampden Roar had been hinting at a return for over an hour. When Miller hit that goal, the cacophony could be heard in Frankfurt.

The best laugh of the remaining twenty minutes was the collective demands for Scotland to push forward in search of a winner, while every supporter who shouted for such an unlikely event then turned to their friends and quietly admitted they’d much rather just hold out for the more realistic single point.

We duly held out and it’s hard to explain what it meant to us. I’m not idding myself about the long-term state of our national team and it’s all a massive compliment to Germany that we’re so proud of taking a point at home but suffice to say there was no way we could envisage taking anything from this game. To see germany in teh flesh again was ecitement enough. For Scotland to have actually competed was a real surprise. To come away with a concrete reward for our efforts was a fantasy ending to what has been a dream season.

Vogts previously reminded me how much I care for the national team when he took us to within an inch of losing to the Faroes - I was deeply, deeply ashamed. The half-time break in that game was the worst I’ve felt about Scotland since Argentina 78. Yesterday he did it again by helping us take a competitive point - this was no friendly - from the giants of the game. Suddenly I was prouder than ever to be a Scottish football fan.

Okay, Lithuania did the same IN Germany and the men wearing the white shirt with the black eagle will still walk the group … and the fact that we took a point by bringing Germany DOWN to our level is far from a perfect scenario … and REAL progress would be if we’d beaten all the other teams in the group and lost all six points to last year’s World Cup finalists … BUT … but …

… but, the pride engendered by such a performance throws all the realism and common sense out the window. Essentially it’s what this game is all about - taking us out of ourselves. Scotland has a proud history in exporting this game and others to the rest of the world. While we were taking Germany close at football, our rugby team was losing narrowly and valiantly in South Africa and our cricket team was edged out by just one wicket against Pakistan. Ironic in that these are also games we were the first to take from the English and that Pakistan and South Africa are nations who, like Germany and Brazil, now consistently show us Brits how to play it properly. Ironic also in that the cricket match took place at Hamilton Crescent, Partick, on the very same picth on which Scotland met England in 1872 for the world’s first ever football international.

Despite the fact the rest of the world has consistently come back and thrashed us with what we taught them a century ago, for a nation of five million we actually have quite a solid record at home in qualifying tournaments (especially for the World Cup). I’ve watched Scotland thrash the likes of Spain and France; Italy have never scored in a competitive match in Glasgow; Germany have now yet to beat us at home after two competitive visits to Hampden and, despite enjoying the longest running international rivalry in the world with a nation ten times the size of our own, it’s only in the last decade or so England have pulled away from us in terms of wins. Recently I’ve thought that even this somewhat convoluted record of doing well on our own patch (or at Wembley!) against bigger nations was also about to crumble.

There’s a documentary on BBC2 this Thursday on Andrew Watson, the world’s first black international footballer. He captained Scotland to their 6-1 win over “The Auld Enemy” at The Oval in 1881 - a result which remains, to this day, England’s heaviest home defeat. Stuff like this is only ever a boast for historians … until we get a game like yesterday’s, when the men with the lion rampant on the dark blue shirt seem to inately understand just who and what they’re representing.

A tiny population didn’t stop Uruguay winning two World Cups and a huge population hasn’t helped China do anything significant on the football pitch. Football success sometimes eminates from the depth of love and feeling for the game rather than the numbers of citizens available to represent your country. Every now and then I get tired of boasting about Hampden’s European crowd records and how continentals once called cultured, passing football “The Scottish style” - sometimes you just yearn for a solid, undeniable, 21st Century result to be proud of. 7th June 2003 was one such result.

If we now go on to struggle against The Faroes and Lithuania at home … or if we make the play-offs and lose to Latvia - that’ll be equaly in keeping with Scotland’s footballing traditions. For now, though, I’m just happy that the cynicism surrounding the Scotland national team has been transfered from the opinions of the fans to the tackles by our players.

Pressley’s blunder and Rudi Voeller’s joy were again forgotten by the end of a dramatic match in Glasgow. As in 92/93, one suspects Voeller will still have the last laugh and there’s clearly no guy in the business who deserves success more than the self-effacing former striker. But Scotland have once again proved to themselves and their fans that “in the past they must remain” is a refrain only applicable to our national anthem - it needn’t refer to the glory days of our national team.