Football: All Berti's done is given himself a bit more time

WE SHOULD be thankful for small mercies. We came to bury Berti. Instead we owe him some praise. It would be churlish not to do so now. However, let's face the facts. Winning in Iceland is a bit like avoiding the indignity of being savaged by a dead sheep. This is not triumph. This is breathing space, no more than that. Iceland, who have won only a single game in the last eight, would have been dismissed as no-hopers in the days when there was fire in all our bellies. Nowadays, though, there is no such thing and, after taking the lead in Iceland, we just sat and hoped we could turn it into gold.

Thankfully, we did. But we cannot now claim to have discovered the Midas touch by beating an island which has only 25 full professionals to choose from. Iceland's amateurish defence would have been decimated by previous Scottish teams. This plodding side were simply quite awful. In some quarters, no doubt, there will be much hand- wringing and perhaps some admission of guilt for expressing doubts about Vogts before this match. There shouldn't be. He has bought some time. That's all.

Let us not forget that the anxiety which everybody felt prior to this game was as a result of Vogts' incomprehensible selection decisions and lack of team spirit, which resulted in one senior professional deciding to quit. Yes, there was more evidence of that latter factor yesterday. There WAS fight and passion in much of their play and that is the very ingredient which has to compensate for the lack of real quality in the side. But we have known that for years. Vogts, himself, should have known about that even as he surveyed the sand-dunes of Kuwait.

His ridiculous assertion that he would push Scotland up to the top 20 in the world within two years will haunt him for the rest of his time in this post. There is a long way to go before we play a quality side to put our abilities to a real test.

Denmark humbled us recently andthat was a team playing in low gear. So let us divide the responsibility for all of this as we did for Craig Brown. With one or two notable exceptions most of the Scottish players are simply of average ability and should carry the can for some of the past performances. You need something special in a manager to get the very best out of them.

I am not sold on the notion that Vogts has this quality, even though he will make much of this result. Of course he is entitled to bare his teeth at his critics. Hopefully with a smile not a sneer. I suspect what really inspired the Scots yesterday was the sheer fear of public humiliation, which means this man is still on trial. Of course in the roller-coaster of emotions which is a feature of our national support, Berti will be accorded hero status - at least until the next match.

I have already heard of how much we improved from our last international. But we played the Faroe Islands for heaven's sake. Too often our supporters' grip on reality is decidedly slippy. Adulation is not appropriate for this victory. We should settle only for guarded satisfaction.

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