Pic: ©SNS Group
While it will be all eyes on Kaunas for the Tartan Army as Scotland face Lithuania in their crucial European Championship qualifier on Friday, Billy Stark takes his intrepid Under 21 side to the equally exotic one-time Soviet republic of Belarus.
Friday’s 4pm kick off in the Borisov City Stadium represents a trip into the unknown for Stark’s young Scots ahead of a vital five days for the Under 21s. A win or draw in Belarus would set up a final group match showdown with Austria at Pittodrie on Tuesday and the manager confirms that a haul of four points, or better, in the next two games will be enough to ensure qualification for the 2011 Euros at the expense of one of Scotland’s final game opponents.
As is typical of Scotland though, the campaign has not been lacking in drama thus far. Austria top the group having played a game more than Scotland and Belarus, with both Stark’s team and Belarus one point behind on 13. Scotland occupy second place by virtue of their last gasp 1-0 win against Belarus in October last year at St Mirren Park, Paisley.
However, that home win over Yuri Pudshev’s Byelorussians, and confident away results in Albania and Azerbaijan, where the young Scots triumphed with something to spare, barely prepared the Scots for the setback of a 2-2 draw with Azerbaijan at The Falkirk Stadium in March.
Undoubtedly a bad blow for our under-21’s hopes of qualification, the Azerbaijan result appeared all the more perplexing because Scotland had thrashed the same team 4-0 away from home in the previous game.
Back on Scottish soil, Azerbaijan led twice, against the run of play, in a game marred by a poor surface at TFS, but the unheralded visitors deserve credit for grabbing their point having been forced to play for the last hour with just ten men. Typically, Scotland piled on the pressure late on but there was no way past the tiring Azerbaijanis.
However, Billy Stark would rather look ahead to Friday’s fixture than dwell on what might have been in March. “It is a big game for us this week and when the fixtures were announced we hoped that we would be anticipating a big game this week,” he says. “A qualification campaign is inevitably full of twists and turns and just as we could fixate on the Azerbaijan result we could equally feel hard done to by a 1-0 defeat to Austria where we feel we had the chances to win the game.”
As such the manager says that the challenge at the young international age groups is to prepare players so they can eventually make the transition to the full international side.
He says the days when Scottish teams could simply rely on the national characteristics of strength, competitiveness and aggression to upset the odds are long gone and what he requires from his teams is something potentially far more exciting: a style of play that marries the best of Scotland’s dynamic attacking traditions to a contemporary philosophy based on versatility, patience and good possession – that so-called Western European style familiar to anyone who regularly watches the Champions League.
With that in mind, Billy Stark has made six changes to his Scotland Under-21 side for the crucial Uefa Under-21 Championship double header from last month’s friendly match with Sweden.
After impressing in a series of first team outings this season at Parkhead, Celtic starlet James Forrest unsurprisingly retains his place in the squad and will be hoping for his first competitive cap. Recent Rangers departure Danny Wilson (Liverpool) is also included, as is Motherwell’s Europa League hero Jamie Murphy.
Defenders Jason Marr and Steven Saunders, English-based midfielders Scott Arfield, Paul Coutts and Stephen McGinn and the Dundee striker Leigh Griffiths are all recalled, having missed the 1-0 August friendly defeat at St Mirren Park.
Rangers keeper Grant Adam and the English-based quintet of defenders Brian Easton and Grant Hanley and midfielders Tom Cairney, Bradden Inman and Kevin McDonald will be disappointed to drop out.
Though the recent recruits from the U19 set up (Adam, Hanley, Cairney and Inman) will remain very much in the manager’s plans for the future, the Burnley pair McDonald and Easton will know that their international claims can only be cemented with regular first team exposure. In this respect they join the likes of Motherwell’s Ross Forbes and Hibs’ Lewis Stevenson in what is a decent wider pool of talent that the manager can currently call upon.
Indeed, the fact that Kevin McDonald, scorer of the U21’s winning goal against Finland in Billy Stark’s first game in charge of Scotland’s youngsters, is currently out of the international picture is a timely reminder of just how cutthroat football in this pivotal age group inevitably is.
Aged 19, McDonald was already the subject of a £500,000 transfer from Dundee to Burnley in June 2008. Five months later the Carnoustie-born midfielder crashed the back pages everywhere as his two-goal salvo dramatically ousted Arsenal from the Carling Cup.
In April 2010, however, the Scottish midfielder achieved "infamy" of a different kind when he was fined by Burnley for going to a pub during half-time as his side were enduring a 6-1 thrashing at home to Manchester City. And he has barely kicked a ball for the Lancashire club since.
For the moment though, the most pressing concern for Billy Stark is Scotland’s Euro qualification bid and Byelorussian opponents we should underestimate at our peril. Friday’s opponents showed enough in Paisley to suggest that the teams will be well matched and despite the fact that the manager feels Friday’s opponents may be better suited to counter-attacking away from home he is nonetheless anticipating a tough game.
He says: “There is plenty of Champions League and Europa League experience in this Belarus side and when you have players who are both holding down first team places and scoring goals at that level you have the basis of a very strong team.
“Typical of sides from that part of Europe, Belarus are a good technical team. They are patient, play a short passing game of neat triangles and they are especially dangerous when they switch the play quickly but we’ve already shown in this competition that we are capable of turning in good performances away from home.”
If they can do that again it will set Scotland up for a fate defining clash in Aberdeen on Tuesday.
Goalkeepers
Jamie Barclay (Falkirk), Scott Gallacher (Rangers*), Alan Martin (Leeds United**)
Defenders
Paul Caddis (Swindon Town), Paul Hanlon (Hibernian), Jason Marr (Celtic***), Ross Perry (Rangers), Steven Saunders (Motherwell), Thomas Scobbie (Falkirk), Daniel Wilson (Liverpool)
Midfielders
Scott Arfield (Huddersfield Town), Barry Bannan (Aston Villa), Paul Coutts (Preston North End), David Templeton (Hearts), Stephen McGinn (Watford), Andrew Shinnie (Rangers), David Wotherspoon (Hibernian)
Forwards
James Forrest (Celtic), David Goodwillie (Dundee United), Leigh Griffiths (Dundee), Chris Maguire (Aberdeen), Jamie Murphy (Motherwell)
*On loan to Forfar
** On loan to Barrow
*** On loan to Falkirk
