Sir Fergie bemoans loss of Fletch

Instead of letting Arsene Wenger do all the talking about the pointlessness of international friendlies, Sir Alex Ferguson, briefly a Scotland manager once himself, went off on them as well this week, after losing Darren Fletcher for six weeks due to a knee ligament issue in Wednesday’s draw with Croatia. The Knighted One said:

“It is a bad blow losing Darren and again shows the futility of playing friendly games. It is crazy.”

Hold on a second, as I shed a single tear for Fergie and his horribly understaffed Manchester United midfield. All done. Look, I hate to see Fletch injured as much as anyone, and perhaps he could have been subbed out earlier, but just as Sir Alex would never make a substitution to free a player up for country duties, George Burley should be, and is, making decisions that favor Scotland, not Manchester United. Burley would certainly be saddened by the loss of Fletcher if things happened the other way around, but I doubt he would call into question club football’s right to exist. He sure didn’t do that when seven players suddenly came up lame (three extremely suspiciously) before the friendly.

This is the kind of club-vs-country rhetoric that makes people mad for a few weeks and then fizzles out and goes nowhere, as it should be. Sir Alex is a big deal, and one of the best coaches in the world. Scotland is very proud to claim him. But he is not bigger than the national side, and neither is his team, not in the eyes of Scots and Scotland fans. Deal with it, Sir.

In other news, does anyone know what today is? One year from today, on March 28, 2009, Scotland will travel to the Netherlands for what might be the most important match of our World Cup qualifying campaign. The return leg at Hampden will still lie ahead, but even a point on their ground will really solidify our chances at qualification, barring disasters before that point (*cough*Georgia*cough*). That will be one of the most important matches in recent Scotland history, and we’ll be all over it.