Smith calls on Scotland to exorcise ghosts of the past

The Scotland manager admits he has not hidden from dredging up the past, and that embarrassing 2-2 draw in 2002 with the part-timers from the North Atlantic that launched the reign of his predecessor, Berti Vogts. As Smith prepares today to embark on the 12-stop voyage for the Euro 2008 finals by confronting the Faeroes all over again, he has told his players to give a team ranked 169th in the world the same respect as Thierry Henry and Francesco Totti.

Scotland were cast into the strongest of all the groups in the qualifying process, facing seven teams, three of whom reached this summer’s World Cup quarter-finals and two — Italy and France — who fought out the final in Berlin just eight weeks ago. The journey begins at Celtic Park against the weakest side in group B but Smith knows that, with bigger fish waiting elsewhere, there is no margin for error.

In his 18 months in charge, Scotland have risen from the depths of 84th place in the Fifa rankings under Vogts to 40th. They even won a piece of silverware, by lifting the Kirin Cup in Japan in May.

However, the only measure of progress that Smith will accept is taking six points from today’s fixture and then the match in Lithuania on Wednesday to give his team a chance in a group that sees Andriy Shevchenko’s Ukraine as the main threat to Franco-Italian hopes of annexing the two qualifying places.

“I don’t think there is anything wrong with going back to that bad day,” Smith said yesterday. “That shows what can happen if you are not on top of your game and we’ve been using that memory to remind our players. We are not good enough not to respect any country and Scotland knows the pitfalls only too well.

“Tommy Burns [Smith’s assistant] and a couple of the players, such as David Weir, are still around the squad from that day in the Faeroes. They want to make amends. There was a lot of doom and gloom around the Scotland set-up when I came in but the players have responded and we have had some decent results in the last 18 months. We have given ourselves a platform to start a new campaign and show we’ve improved.

“There is no getting away from the fact that the expectation levels have risen. There is a different challenge in every game. It will be obvious against Italy but the challenge here is to put out enough attacking strength not just to win, but to play well.”

Smith saw the Faeroes thrashed 6-0 in their opening game a fortnight ago by Georgia. Rather than consider that as a sign of weakness from a side who have taken Germany and France to the brink in recent campaigns, the Scotland manager suspects that will simply make the visitors more stubborn.

“The Faeroes have no real pretensions about where they are in the world,” Smith said. “They will sit in against us. They even do that at home. They did so against Georgia. There is nothing wrong with that and it is not an insult to the Faeroes to say that their game plan is to try to frustrate opponents. They held France to a single goal in the World Cup qualifiers until the French added a couple late on. We have to take the game to them and handle any frustration if we don’t score early.”

To that end, Scotland will use three strikers in a bid to damage the Faeroes. Smith’s reign has been characterised by a side that plays far better on the road, with a counter-attacking style that suits his 3-5-2 formation. That may be tweaked to accommodate his maverick force, James McFadden, allowing the Everton player to operate in a free role behind the front pair of Kenny Miller and Kris Boyd.

While the latter has been prolific, netting 24 goals in 25 games since moving from Kilmarnock to Rangers last January, and two on his international debut in Scotland’s 5-1 Kirin Cup success against Bulgaria, Miller has experienced a goal drought since joining Celtic in the summer from Wolverhampton Wanderers.

“Finishing third in this group might be seen as respectable but you do not set out to be third,” Smith said. “We want to finish as high as we can. If that takes us into third, second or even first, then fine. I’m not worried about a new contract [Smith’s expires in June 2008] because if we don’t do well, I will be out.”

Taken from timesonline.co.uk