'Scottish National Team' thread

[shaun.lawson]

Isn't 'the manager is mercenary and the players know it' true at club level too?  Managers move around an manage teams that pay them, they don't have a list of 'soft spot' clubs that they'll consider.  Guardiola at Man City, Merinho at Man U, Klopp at Liverpool - they're not boyhood clubs yet they're achieving to expectation or beyond. Why do you see that as different?

Because it is. I've seen plenty of club sides - where many players are mercenaries too, of course - win things despite all sorts of cliques, egos etc. At international level, if a squad doesn't subvert its egos in the name of the collective, it almost always goes very wrong.

Hence Holland, for example, collapsing in a heap at Euro 96 despite having almost the entire Ajax side. Or France descending into absolute chaos in South Africa. There's a much greater media focus on national sides during major tournaments than any club sides at any point. The tiniest issue will be pounced on and blown up by most national media.

Conversely: remember Ronaldo exhorting his teammates from the touchline during the Euro 2016 final, practically to the point of becoming joint manager? It's different. Passion, unity, "dying for your country" all become a lot more important.  

Or to put it another way, as Gareth Southgate memorably put it about Eriksson at half time against Brazil in 2002: "We needed Winston Churchill. We got Iain Duncan Smith".