Scotland join the also-rans
 

Nicholson and Stepanovs fight for the ball   Dejected young fans can only watch in horror as Latvia take an early lead   Freedman skips past Stepanovs   ~ Freedman celebrates his equalising goal with Dailly   Frustration shows on the faces of the Scotland bench   Booth sinks to the ground after another wasted opportunity   Craig Burley, Scotland's captain, surveys an already half-empty Hampden Park at the end of their World Cup campaign

The great American sportswriter, Red Smith, having had a particularly bad night at the track while covering harness racing, began his report on the event with one sentence that said it all: "Never trust a horse that pulls a cart."

It is a line that is entirely appropriate to the squad that Craig Brown has just left behind. With each successive outing, the impression grows that Scotland’s international players should not be in the control of a football coach, but a drayman.

Excepting truly diminutive countries such as San Marino, Liechtenstein or Andorra, it is hard to imagine another in Europe so starkly lacking in pace as the Scots.

They are constant reminders of another old joke, about the two partners in ownership of a greyhound whose slowness is an insult to its breed.

Thoroughly fed up with doing the rent money every time it races, they begin discussing the most humane way of ridding themselves of the accursed animal.

"I know what we’ll do," says one, the solution suddenly dawning. "We’ll just let him off the leash and run away from him."

This latest pedestrian performance, improbably producing a result that was neither encouraging nor deserved, was something of a relief only because it brought to a merciful close a World Cup qualifying series that has been, with one exception, a trial from start to finish.

The 1-1 draw against Croatia in Zagreb last October was the solitary gratifying occasion, and even that was a tribute to tenacity rather than inspiration.

There was never any likelihood of a change of script for the last act, despite the laughable attempts in some quarters to make victory by six or seven goals - and a simultaneous win for Belgium in Croatia - seem feasible.

This was the objective of a Scotland team which had struggled to score four at home to San Marino and which, in their two most recent games, had not come remotely close to scoring once.

In addition, the San Marino match was played at a time when their prospects of finishing in the top two of Group 6 seemed as sound as anybody’s.

Now, in desperation, they were supposed to bury Latvia under an avalanche of goals? Hardly.

No group of players utterly bereft of explosiveness, the ability to fill space in threatening areas as quickly and as menacingly as, say, Marian Pahars, can be relied upon even to justify the monstrously long odds-on attached to Brown’s side, far less by a wide margin.

It was Pahars, and other team-mates such as Andrejs Rubins, Maris Verpakovskis and Vitalis Astafjevs, who were distinguished by briskness.

When, in the first half, Matt Elliott was dispossessed near the halfway line, Pahars carried the ball at pace into the Scots penalty area on the right, suddenly swivelled past Christian Dailly and the back-tracking Elliott and forced Neil Sullivan to deflect his goal-bound shot with a desperate stretch of his left leg.

It was, in that moment, impossible to imagine a Scottish player capable of emulating Pahars. It was similar quickness of thought and execution which gave Latvia their early lead.

As Dailly gathered a seemingly over-hit pass towards the edge of his area, he was run down by Verpakovskis, who simply took the ball from him and cut it back for the unmarked Rubins to slip wide of Sullivan.

Verpakovskis, Astafjevs, Rubins and Pahars play for Skonto Riga, Bristol Rovers, Crystal Palace and Southampton respectively, hardly among Europe’s most formidable clubs.

Scotland’s own Crystal Palace man, Dougie Freedman, had the satisfaction of scoring on his international debut, but he still looked, when compared to his clubmate, as though he was running through molasses.

Freedman’s goal, like David Weir’s winner, came from a set-piece, a corner kick from the left that Christian Dailly managed to touch towards goal and that Freedman finished with another header from about two yards’ range, and which clipped the head of Rubins on its way over the line.

Weir’s goal was a clean header from Craig Burley’s free-kick on the left.

It was no surprise that the Scots goals should come from the dead ball, as Brown’s last selection looked incapable of troubling their visitors with either inventiveness or incisiveness.

Latvia were contrastingly dangerous, frequently exposing Sullivan with slick movement and accurate passing, although they were foiled at times by their own poor finishing and, on two occasions, by good defensive work from Sullivan and Callum Davidson.

Scotland’s lumbering play was personified by Don Hutchison, who, from the earliest moments, appeared lethargic, ponderous, even uninterested.

In his least effective international performance, Hutchison was finally replaced by Scott Severin of Hearts 13 minutes from the finish.

In truth, Brown could have replaced anyone in his team without effecting an appreciable improvement in the standard of their play.

It is a popular fallacy that you can’t fatten a thoroughbred, but no myth that you can’t quicken a slowcoach.

Scotland: Sullivan, Weir, Davidson, Elliott (Rae 71), Cameron, Nicholson (Booth 63), Burley, Freedman, Hutchison (Severin 77), McCann. Subs not used: Douglas, Naysmith, Holt, Crawford.

Latvia: Kolinko, Stepanov, Astafyevs, Zakresevskis, Laizans, J Blagonadezhdin, Isakovs, Bleidis (Kolesnicenko 76), Pahars, Ruboms (Dobrecovs 84), Verpakovskis. Subs not used: Piedels, Lukaseviks, Zemlinksi, Lobanov, Pucinsks.

Referee: T Hauge