No friendly today, so a scouting report instead

It’s still a month and change until George Burley’s first friendly match in charge of the Scotland side, but he’ll have been watching keenly today as many of our upcoming friendly and World Cup qualifying opponents were in action. Here’s a quick look at how they fared.

The big one: Croatia v. Netherlands
This is the match that most interests Scotland, since Croatia is our first opponent in March, and Holland is the first seeded team in our World Cup qualifying group. The ninth and tenth ranked teams in the world, both will be important teams to succeed against in the coming year. The Dutch owned this matchup, which was a bit of a surprise to me. Croatia made its name in the Euro qualies this time around, especially against England, but went down 3-0 to a rampaging Holland side today. If it’s any consolation, the final goal was scored by Celtic’s Jan Vennegor of Hesselink, who our SPL-heavy defense should be quite accustomed to seeing. Vennegor in the 89th minute. God I’m sick of those words.

Armenia v. Iceland
Iceland did well to take a 2-0 victory on the road in Armenia today, proving that though they may be ranked 87th by FIFA, they are not an altogether terrible 5th-seed in the World Cup group, especially for a Scotland side that can still remember the horror of drawing against the Faroe Islands under Berti Vogts. A banana peel that is best left for someone else in the group to slip on. Respect them, George, though there’s certainly no reason to fear them.

Wales v. Norway
To me, this is the shocker of the day, a 3-0 home win for Wales over the Norwegians, who have had a bit of a resurgence lately, and made life quite nervous for their groupmates in these past Euro qualifiers. Wigan’s Jason Koumas scored a second-half brace to seal the win over a Norway side 29 places above them in the rankings. Well done to Wales, and a sign that perhaps Norway may not be the scary 3 seed they looked this past year.

Macedonia v. Serbia
Speaking of scary, I am very concerned with some of the results Macedonia has been able to achieve. They impressed everyone in the Euro qualifiers, taking 4 wins including a shocker over group winner Croatia. Today they continued their good run with a draw at home to Serbia. This is the side that may decide second place in the World Cup group. They don’t have the quality to take it themselves, but they are certainly able to pull out spoiler results, and George Burley needs to keep a tight eye on them to know who to mark. Serbia is currently ranked 27th, a full 33 places above Macedonia, and it’s a good result for the always dangerous minnows.