Scotland 0, Hungary 3

Not a hint of progress in Hampden humiliation

GLENN GIBBONS AT HAMPDEN PARK

BERTI Vogts will be unable for much longer to take refuge behind his habitual insistence that friendly matches are unreliable indicators of the worth of his work as manager of Scotland. Even before last night’s embarrassment against Hungary, it was not convincing in any case.

Whatever else may be said of this latest outing, it at least exposed as myth the manager’s claim that he has a squad of 28 players, with quality players in every department. The goals they conceded - full-back Saboics Huszti starting with a penalty and producing a second before David Marshall’s own goal - and those they failed to score, despite generally enjoying the ascendancy in the first half, betrayed weakness all over the field.

If the penalty that gave the visitors a half-time advantage came as a shock to the puny crowd, it was largely because they had been foxed into believing that Scotland had been in unchallengeable control for the 45 minutes before.

At times, exerting the kind of pressure that forces the opposition’s goalkeeper to go to work regularly came so easily to the Scots that it seemed legitimate to question the standard of the Hungarians’ resistance.

While the middle-to-forward play of the home side was, during these periods, illuminated by a pleasing slickness of thought, movement and execution, they were too often allowed to exhibit their ‘A’ game without the potentially disruptive presence of an authentic challenge.

This was especially true during a first half in which Lothar Matthaus, the great German player now managing the Magyars, spent much of the time hopping from his seat in the dug-out with the obvious intention of fulminating against his players’ slackness.

With a little luck - and without the alertness and safe hands of the visitors’ goalkeeper, Gabor Kiraly - Matthaus would have had cause for mourning the loss of a goal or two before the interval was reached.

James McFadden, who clearly revels in international football as a release from his trials at Everton, was characteristically incisive when he took possession some 40 yards from goal and delivered a precise through ball to his front-line partner, Kenny Miller.

The Wolves striker made a neat job of slipping his marker, but found the defender, Peter Stark, coming across to cover just as he hit his shot. The ball spun from the toe of Stark and would have made its way into Kiraly’s top left-hand corner without the twisting leap from the goalkeeper that allowed him to touch it wide.

From the set piece, Nigel Quashie, the Portsmouth man who has an encouraging willingness to have a scoring attempt at the slightest excuse, hit a powerful, controlled, low drive with his left foot which caused Kiraly to dive to his left to smother.

Quashie was involved in the next threat, receiving a short free kick just outside the area and having his shot blocked. The ball fell to Andy Webster and the Hearts defender made a competent job of the necessarily quick volley from 16 yards that once again exposed Kiraly as a sound goalkeeper.

By the time Quashie drove in from the right and capped his run with a right-foot drive that sailed too high, however, there were grounds for the onset of the kind of uneasiness that has settled on Scotland watchers throughout the past four years or so.

Despite some attractive play, they appeared once or twice to be susceptible to the break from which the Hungarians took the lead. Peter Kovacs, who had replaced the injured Sandor Torghelle after 25 minutes, pushed past Andy Webster with discomfiting ease on a through pass from Huszti and, if the contact from the Hearts man’s challenge appeared minimal, it was enough to send the striker to the ground.

The French referee’s decision to award the penalty appeared justified, and Huszti made a smart job of the conversion by driving low to the left of David Marshall.

Matthaus’s earlier exasperation would have been replaced by unbridled elation when the marauding Huszti completed his double and extended the Hungarians’ advantage with an extraordinary piece of work just eight minutes into the second half.

The full-back, who had been an energetic presence in containing Gary Holt’s runs and in pushing forward himself, on this occasion carried the ball through the inside-left channel and sent a ferocious left-foot drive from 25 yards high to the right of Marshall.

The Scots were a little fortunate not to be further behind soon after, when Stark reached a centre from the right and lobbed the header gently over Marshall, the ball drifting marginally wide of the far post. That would have been particularly embarrassing, as McFadden had, just before, allowed an excellent chance to escape.

In that moment, McFadden seemed to confirm that he is no penalty-box predator in the McCoist or Larsson mould. Holt’s low centre reached the former Motherwell man’s right foot just six yards from goal. The instinctive striker would have struck first-time, but, in pulling the ball back on to his favoured left foot, he allowed defenders to close him down.

Vogts had also replaced Gary Caldwell, the so-called "holding" midfielder, with the Rangers forward, Steven Thompson, at the start of the second half, presumably with the intention of swarming around the visitors’ goal area.

It resulted merely in a sometimes desperate lack of cover in defence, with the Hungarians breaking at pace and making Scotland defenders look like trees with alarming ease. This was typified by the third goal, Peter Simek bolting clear on the right and producing a wicked, low centre which Pressley, trying to intercept, simply drove against Marshall, from whom it bounced over the line.

Scotland: Marshall, Gary Caldwell (Thompson 45), Webster, Pressley, Naysmith, Holt, Fletcher (Pearson 74), Ferguson (Severin 71), Quashie, McFadden, Kenny Miller (Crawford 58).
Subs Not Used: Gallacher, McNamee, Anderson, Gray, Gordon.

Booked: Webster.

Hungary: Kiraly, Juhasz (Gyepes 83), Stark, Andras Toth, Bodnar, Molnar, Feher (Rosa 63), Simek, Huszti (Bodor 86), Torghelle (Kovacs 25), Gera (Leandro 76).
Subs Not Used: Babos.

Goals: Huszti 45 pen, 53, Marshall 73 og.

Att: 15,933

Ref: Laurent Duhamel (France).
 

Woeful Scots just get worse
 

GLENN GIBBONSAT HAMPDEN PARK

BLUSTER and evasion were, predictably and pathetically, the platform on which Berti Vogts built his defence of a performance at Hampden Park last night that brought Scotland’s heaviest home defeat in 31 years.

The 3-0 victory by a palpably unexceptional Hungarian side left the national team manager’s latest selection daubed with the ignominy of losing on their own turf by the widest margin since England won 5-0 at Hampden in the SFA’s centenary celebration match in 1973.

Although clearly distressed by events which exposed the Scots as seriously wanting in every area of the field, Vogts adhered to his familiar policy of insisting that he is blessed with good players. With the first World Cup qualifier against Slovenia due in Glasgow in less than three weeks’ time, perhaps Vogts’s most shocking retort to the inevitable media interrogation was that "we need time".

"This is a new team, and one or two players were in unfamiliar positions tonight," said the beleaguered German. "Gary Holt, for example, was at right-back, where he doesn’t normally play. We need time to build a new team, for the players to gel."

When it was pointed out that it seemed incongruous for the manager to be claiming that "we need time" after two-and-a-half years in the job and with the World Cup so close, Vogts became especially animated, bordering on anger. "Please, did you not see passion and organisation in the first half of the match tonight?" he said. "It was in the second half that we played badly. The boys did very well in the last two friendlies [against Estonia and the tourists of Trinidad and Tobago] but tonight they did not play well in the second half."

Vogts also made the jolting observation that set-backs such as last night’s would have no effect on the players’ morale. "No, this is not damaging for the players," he said. "We had defeats in friendlies during the European Championship qualifying and came back with wins."

On this point, the manager body-swerved the fact that Scotland failed to qualify for Portugal. What he did almost admit was that his claim to be in charge of around 28 "quality" players with "very good cover" in all positions was made to look quite sick.

"You’re right, it did not look that way tonight," he said, but followed up with another excuse that seemed hardly credible: "But it is a new team."

Vogts has become expert on these occasions (he has had too much practice to be comfortable) in pinpointing flaws which anyone would have thought should have been addressed in preparation for the match. "The organisation was bad, especially in the second half," he said.

"We have to work harder and stay closer to our opponents. If you lose the ball, you have to work very hard and be organised. We were bad at that. But I have to look at the positives, like the return of Barry Ferguson, Nigel Quashie in midfield and David Marshall in goal."

When questioned about his future as manager of Scotland, Vogts re-emphasised his intention to remain in the position through the World Cup qualifying series. In doing so, he seemed not to have been affected by the jeering from the small crowd inside the stadium.

"Why should it affect my position? We lost a friendly, that’s all. Yes, I can understand the fans not being happy at the end, but they have to understand our position, too. That was a lesson for us tonight. I told my players we need clear answers from them."