By J Hutcherson - WASHINGTON, DC (Aug 3, 2011) US Soccer Players -- If it's Wednesday, it must be Edinburgh. That's where Hearts majority owner Vladimir Romanov is wondering aloud why anyone would question parting company with a manager that has one point out of six to start the season. Wait, two games into the season with the point coming against defending champions Rangers on opening day? That's probably why. Still, as money quotes go….
"Judging by the pre-planned squeals the media monkeys are making, Hearts has hit the point with the move. I believe that with only one competitive win in 15 games, only fools and idiots would not raise questions and suspicions," he told his club's official site. I now understand why Scotland is in 61st place in FIFA rankings behind such poor football countries like Lithuania, Albania and Gabon."
Ah, so we're counting last season as well and trying to disrupt the continuation of a run of subpar form. Yes, it's form that had Hearts finishing third last season and qualifying for Europe, but with a 29 point gap between them and 2nd-place. Hey, somebody has to set a standard. One might ask why it took two games into the new Scottish Premier League season and one in the Europa League if things had gone so obviously wrong, but that's going to get us lumped in with 'the media monkeys' and we can't have that.
We should also work on resisting the urge to try to play this as anti-critique. He's not talking about anyone we know because we nod along with the point. A professional soccer coach that doesn't get results is usually an unemployed soccer coach, after all. As bad as "media monkeys" sounds, "fools and idiots" is a step worse.
Instead, let's take the last part of the Romanov critique, what on the surface looks like a cheap shot at the whole of Scottish soccer. Scotland dropped out of the top 30 in FIFA's World Ranking as of October 2009. Thins went from bad to worse over the last few months when they fell below 50th. Currently 61st in the World and 33rd in UEFA, it's a tough position to defend regardless of how you might feel about the FIFA Ranking.
Gabon on the world list and Albania on the UEFA list happen to be the teams right in front of them. One would assume the assumption should be somewhat safe that Scotland beats both of them in a home and away series, but that's not the point of the FIFA Ranking. Since FIFA legitimized the importance of the ranking - if not the system - by using it to seed the last World Cup, it's tough to simply dismiss the rankings outright. You still see the throwaway comments whenever the rankings are published questioning their relative worth, but we know what they're worth. Potentially a World Cup seed, and that's about as high as a stake gets in international soccer.
With that in mind, it certainly impacts a real soccer nation to borrow an MLS-ism if that nation finds itself falling down the chart. Romanov used Scotland's position to make a point about how they perceive the game and what he believes to be a crucial change for his club. Allowing Hearts to find itself under yesterday's management became a risk the owner decided wasn't worth taking. Results weren't good enough for the one opinion that truly matters. Again, extending that criticism to Scotland's National Team might be a bit of a cheap shot, but it's certainly not completely out of bounds.
Romanov is pointing to an atmosphere that doesn't have an easy defense when criticized for allowing failure without repercussion. Fair enough, all things considered. Scotland didn't end up 61st overnight. It's not even the first time in recent years that they've watched their ranking tank. It happened in the mid 2000's, with the National Team program falling below 80 in December of 2004 and not getting above the 80 mark until September of '05. That was before the ranking system changed, but it looks like a similar story under a new system that isn't likely to make any allowances for teams that miss the World Cup and don't perform well in the European championship.
What Romanov has done here is tack on a significant statement. Scotland not only should be better, they should expect better both with their clubs and with their country. After all, this is a country with the kind of history that demands more than 61st in the World, 33rd in Europe. To get around that, we have to enter into the kind of false flattery that turns every country into a contender.
You know how that goes. Every game is a big game, no team should be underestimated, and the expectation should always be that even the best teams could end up on the back foot fighting for a late equalizer. Part of the game, no doubt, but it also becomes an easy excuse for underachieving. Do it enough, and you have the foreign owner of one of your clubs openly asking what exactly you're playing at.
I'm sure Scotland's National Team program really appreciates the shout out, but it's a short and pithy reason for why a team has to be held to results even when the whole of a country's soccer is talking about change. That's Scotland, trying to revamp their league setup while pushing their National Team program to be better than their ranking currently suggests. With that in mind, Romanov is right in saying that he's 'hit the point' for club and country. And it's not just applicable to Scotland.
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