Friendly fire bodes well

GEORGE Burley is the first Scotland manager since Berti Vogts to have been handed something which might once have been regarded as a poisoned chalice – a friendly for a debut. Wednesday night's 1-1 draw with Croatia saw Burley kick off his tenure in circumstances that in the recent past have often proved damaging to Scotland, with non-competitive fixtures rarely bringing out the best in the team.

Walter Smith and Alex McLeish were able to get their hands dirty straightaway with qualifiers against Italy and Georgia respectively. Vogts, it might be recalled, was given an assignment that anticipated nothing but ill. Not only was it a friendly, but one against the then world champions. In their home stadium. The subsequent 5-0 defeat by France in the Stade de France set the tone for a torrid three-year ride.

In private moments ahead of Wednesday night's fixture, Burley may have wished for a more meaningful way to kick off his reign. In addition, he would, without question, have wished for more favourable scheduling, which translates as anytime other than prior to a critical Old Firm league fixture.

In the end, however, he was well served by the choice of opponents, and the nature of a game which allowed him to run the rule over 17 players. If the main point of the exercise was to inform, then it proved a more than worthwhile outing against a team who were industrious as well as stylish, and had their own points to prove in the run-up to this summer's European Championship finals.

The controversies regarding withdrawals from the squad were briefly set aside as Scotland managed to overcome the loss of seven key players, four of whom came from the same club – Rangers. If the whole point of a friendly clash is to attempt to mirror authentic match-day conditions, then Wednesday served its purpose.

Scotland managers before Burley have had to cope with mass call-offs and it is unlikely to be any different when Scotland fly to Prague to take on Czech Republic at the end of May in another friendly. With the domestic season set to officially end on 24 May, Celtic are considering plans to head to the Far East on tour and Burley might be forced once again to accentuate the positives of being able to monitor more fringe players, as he did on Wednesday night with the likes of Steven Fletcher and Gavin Rae.

Croatia, too, helped provide Burley with gainful insight. His team fared well against potent opponents, although Slaven Bilic's side did not possess the weapons required to pulverise Scotland in the way France managed in 2002. Then Vogts fielded a Scotland team which alarmed observers, since it appeared designed to play a 4-3-3 formation. All Vogts learned from the subsequent debacle was what players could not do.

Those selected in the wide attacking positions that night had been meant to back-track. Vogts recalled asking Dougie Freedman to do this. "I found out, of course, that it's not one of his strengths," he conceded the following day.

Burley's discoveries were of a more positive sort. His players proved more alert to the orders issued by their manager and Fletcher and Shaun Maloney, playing in those same wide positions, were comfortable with the task of dropping back when required. 4-3-3 quickly became a 4-5-1 as Scotland reverted to type, although there was evidence that Burley might be preparing to embark on a more attractive game-plan in the months and years to come.

Gary Caldwell, who made his Scotland debut in the Stade de France in 2002, has now played under four Scotland managers, and was asked about Burley's approach. He even suggested that Scotland's default-setting could change from obdurate to expansive.

"He has obviously got different ideas," said Caldwell when asked about Burley. "The shape was different to what we have had before. I thought we were very attacking and it worked well. We caused them problems when we had the ball and I am sure the more we work at it, the better it will get.

"We tried to pass it, to get in the areas where we could hurt them and we did that pretty well on a few occasions," the Celtic defender continued. "They had the ball at times, too, so we had to be defensively minded as well.

"I think in the past we have been hard to beat and tried to build a foundation from there. Now, hopefully, we are good enough to go on and give teams more problems defensively than we have done. In the past we've not had positive results against teams like Croatia, but we showed we have come on a lot in a few years. To get a 1-1 result and play the way we did is a great start for him (Burley]."

Every player used contributed to a performance which raised optimism levels after a week when it was feared Scotland might be set for a return to those dark old days defined by mass call-offs and underwhelming results. The conditions seemed prepared to help cultivate a dispiriting occasion, with the match played out in a constant downpour and the Hampden turf quick to cut up.

Croatia's start added to this sense of trepidation as they transported the ball around the tricky Hampden surface with pace and purpose. But Scotland survived and ultimately produced a performance which augurs well for a World Cup qualifying campaign that carries such high significance to Scots who will have endured a decade without major finals involvement by the time this summer's European Championship finals kick-off.

Hope was drawn from a level of Scottish performance which, as much as could reasonably be expected, appeared to continue from where it left off against Italy, when the stakes provided a motivation source that could never be replicated in front of a crowd that was more than 20,000 below capacity.

Also presenting the Tartan Army with succour ahead of fresh adventures was news of a result from the shore of the Adriatic sea.

Norway, reckoned, along with Holland, to be Scotland's main rivals in the bid to qualify for the 2010 World Cup from Group Nine, went down to the type of result Scotland once always seemed capable of posting when they lost 3-1 to Montenegro, ranked 175th in the world by Fifa.