George Burley's time as Scotland manager is over after the SFA chose to sack the under-fire boss. After failing to secure World Cup qualification and the embarrassment in Wales, where did it all start to go wrong?
Defeat at the hands of Holland should have been the last straw for the manager who had to weather a storm of criticism as Scotland’s campaign faltered. But the Scotland manager insisted he wanted to stay and the Scottish Football Association decided to stick by the man who failed to build upon the promising work of Walter Smith and Alex McLeish.
But a humiliating 3-0 defeat away to Wales on Saturday raised questions again on the capability of Burley to lead his team to a successful 2012 European Championships qualifying campaign. Scotland also lost 2-0 away to Japan, but the number of call-offs and first caps provided a suitable excuse.
Yet well before Wales the seeds of Burley’s exit had been sewn far and wide. Baffling decisions to play Macedonia in scorching sunshine and against Norway before the Scottish season had started put the Scots off balance. They were more the SFA’s culpability than Burley’s but the manager’s tenure was to be tainted by further scandal and player controversy.
October 2008 saw Chris Iwelumo miss from two yards against the Norwegians. Hampden was agog, Kris Boyd was furious. Left on the bench in favour of the uncapped Iwelumo, the Rangers striker promptly retired from Burley’s Scotland. Iwelumo’s miss hung partly on his manager’s shoulders.
Arguably the most damaging chapter of Burley’s tenure arrived in April following his decision to sanction a drinking session after a 3-0 defeat in Holland. That led to the eruption of the now infamous “Boozegate” affair which ended the international careers of Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor. Burley compounded the players’ actions with weak and confusing discipline, again in clumsy cahoots with Gordon Smith’s knee-jerk SFA.
The one time Hearts manager made it difficult for his players, announcing that only those playing first team football need apply; Lee McCulloch announced he would no longer play for Scotland after being left out of two squads. More recently David Weir was retired, by Burley, and then re-called a week later.
With an ever diminishing pool of players the manager was forced to call on some players who even the ever positive Tartan Army doubted. That came to a head with a 4-0 drubbing in Oslo as Norway. His captain was sent off, his formation was a shambles and his support evaporated.
Burley’s super-can-do attitude had become grating and unrealistic. His refusal to contemplate defeat set him further adrift from a Scottish support already largely resigned to missing yet another major championship.
“There will be a job vacancy soon," fortold a fans spokesman at the end of the 2010 campaign. “It’s not if and when. It’s who will be willing to take on the poisoned chalice.”
Last updated: 16 November 2009, 23:26
The links provided allow you to bookmark this page into your favourite social media website. For users with JavaScript disabled copy and paste the URL from the address bar into your chosen social bookmarking site.