The lesson? Bad boys never win

SINE DIE. Once upon a time the words were spoken, if mispronounced, in hushed tones. Now players manage to ban themselves, sack themselves, or fall into incurable huffs. It's what they call the modern world.

This is not the place - nor do I have the strength - to recount the whole grisly episode again. Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor will no longer play for Scotland, or their club. So what, apart from the obvious, does that tell us?

Clearly, that bad boys never win. Wasn't this what Paul le Guen believed and Walter Smith knows?

Secondly, it reminds us, doesn't it, that Scotland now possesses such a wealth of talent it can afford to pick only the very best-behaved players. Disruptive drinkers need not be tolerated. Just picked as subs.

I'm not making light of the affair, nor am I defending a couple of clods. It is nevertheless worth recalling what was being said before the SFA and Smith went defecating-ape over wee ned V-signs.

It is also worth considering the players, as players, and the wider Scottish game.

Scotland has lost its captain, after all, and the goalkeeper who was, if briefly, first choice before Swallygate. Hours before the Iceland game Ferguson was being nominated by Olafur Johannesson, the opposing coach, as one of our two key players (with Darren Fletcher). After the tie, asked if the midfielder would be picked again, George Burley said simply: "Yes".

Previously, the national manager had described the erstwhile Rangers captain as "outstanding". This was - how soon we forget - one of his "untouchables". But presumably Burley had not seen the pictures from the Hampden technical area when he spoke, or guessed at the reaction of the SFA.

McGregor, the younger man, probably counts as a different case. With a lot more to lose, he could perhaps say he was led astray by an individual currently viewed as the Prince of Dressing Room Darkness. Perhaps.

Remember, though, that the goalkeeper was first selected to appear against Holland for two reasons: Craig Gordon has disappeared from the Sunderland scene and Burley preferred the Ranger to David Marshall. In Amsterdam, he was deemed the best we have. Now he is another untouchable, but in a new way.

So was it not bold and brave of the SFA to dispense with two key players for indiscipline (easily remedied) and causing offence (apologies come cheap)? Or is it rather the case that Scottish football remains deeply mediocre if one fading player and one largely ordinary keeper could be honoured to begin with?

Did Ferguson play against Holland? I'm not sure. Someone who looked like him certainly appeared, but that's about it. Strictly speaking - by which I mean purely in terms of football - he did not deserve to be picked for the Iceland game.

All those ankle operations had begun to tell long since. The sense of vision that once allowed him to run a midfield faded a while back. To put it no higher, Scott Brown and Fletcher did not miss Ferguson at Hampden. The ban and sacking might even have done him a strange kind of favour. All that remained was arrogance.

McGregor, in contrast, could have looked forward to a few more caps. But in the aftermath of Amsterdam even Burley, who rarely gets to the point, admitted that we lost two goals because balls coming into the six-yard box were not dealt with and were duly, perfunctorily headed home. McGregor may have been blocked for one, but the area in question is supposed to be his. Rangers fans know the problem.

So: two of our best players banned, or two loutish passengers sent packing from a Scotland still burdened by a lack of choice? Guess.

It's one thing to say Gordon was admirable against Iceland, but Burley's original analysis was sound. If you can't get picked for Sunderland, you should not count as Scotland's safest pair of hands. Brown and Fletcher may have flourished without Ferguson, meanwhile, but neither player is exactly the epitome of consistency. And who else, seriously, do we have?

So much for the main events, and the shortcomings for which Burley may yet be able to compensate. The other stuff, the prehistoric, depressing stuff that blights the Scottish game and Scotland squads, might be beyond him and any "new code of conduct" Gordon Smith can devise.

Eight hours on the drink? The wider Scotland may be blighted by booze, but Gazza, my friends, has left the building. Ferguson and McGregor were not the sole culprits. And this was no mere "breach of discipline". This is what happens, still, while Europeans look on astonished.

As for Ferguson the Disruptor, what remains to be said? Walter Smith was supposed to have cured that ailment, but apparently not. The dismaying fact is, though, that a group of Scotland players rushed initially to the defence of their leader (not Burley). Wisnae us; wuz the media.

The Scottish press is petty, but we don't actually want to see the team lose. We were not buying the rounds, either. What part of playing for Scotland do they not get? Don't answer that.

Taken from the Sunday Herald