Third Place but far from Third Rate

SO much for received wisdom that the World Cup's Third-Place Play-Off is the match nobody wants. I was hoping that last kick Diego Forlan free kick would go in, to ensure another half hour of a game I was really enjoying.

Once again we saw how far off the pace we are in Scotland. The one-pass, one-touch, give-and-go football from both sides was nothing more than the classic along the ground Scottish style - but brought right up into the 21st century. The top four sides in South Africa all play a high-tempo passing game: in Scotland we play a high-tempo kick and rush game, that's the difference. And I don't see us changing any time soon.

Some years ago, in an article on rugby, that one-man media empire Alan Massie came up with the reason why Scotland struggles at that sport. He named it "Aye Beenism", as in the answer given to anyone advocating change or the adoption of a new idea: "Naw, naw son, it's aye been done that way."

Lots of things in Scottish football have aye been done that way - big lumpen centre halves, goalies recruited from the Dracula Goalkeeping Academy, midfielders (who used to be called wing halves and inside forwards) who can run all day, tackle and bring down a runaway rhino, but cannot trap a bag of cement or pass the ball more than five yards and centre forwards who would run through a brick wall, but only score if the ball hits them mid-run.

That's why we've always cherished the few diamonds who've emerged from our dross at home. The likes of the Blessed Baxter, who maybe never knew how or why he was so-talented, but who certainly knew, in retirement that he hadn't put in the work to do his talent justice. 'Jinky' Johnstone, who was too fond of a laugh to be as good as he might have been, Davie Cooper, who maybe lacked the belief in how wonderful he was.

We were lucky too in that those rough diamonds who were plucked from our bosoms as teenagers and cut and polished in the harsher school of English football: Denis Law, Billy Bremner, Graeme Souness, thrived and flourished - while those who couldn't take it came back up the road and settled for the mediocrity of our lower divisions and junior teams.

Today, as we watch the Germans and Uruguayans, far less the Spanish and Dutch, play a game which was once, but is no longer ours, we wonder if we will ever get back to the top.

Not with the current SFA Council we won't. As an untalented, self-perpetuating elite, with their noses firmly in the feeding trough and little regard for the good of the country they're ruling, the SFA makes the unelected House of Lords look like a Utopian society.

In ten years' time, the McLeish Report will in all probability be gathering dust in a Hampden cupboard, alongside the musings of the Rinus Michaels/Ernie Walker think tank, we'll be celebrating a gritty away draw with Luxembourg in a European Championships pre-qualifying qualifying game, but Rangers and Celtic will still be dominant, seeking admission to the English Conference and moaning that Scottish football is still holding them back.

Or just maybe: the Old Firm are playing in the new European Super League; Edinburgh United are filling Murrayfield to capacity with their push for the British League title, and their season-long three-way battle at the top with Aberdeen Oilers and Tayside Tornadoes; while in the Scottish Division of the British Club Conference the upcoming top of the table clash between St Mirren and Motherwell will be shown live on the Football Channel, after all 35,000 tickets for the meeting at the expanded Paisley Arena were snapped-up within an hour of going on sale.

We live in hope - the alternative is to be cast into a pit of despair by watching games like Saturday night's and realising, we won't see football that good when the new Scottish season kicks off.