'Proxy Scots' show the way forward

On the face of it, we've been here many times before. A battling Scottish football team, playing against the odds, self-destructs before threatening to provide a different conclusion. The spectre of earlier football calamities and misfortunes might sweep through our collective memory: Uruguay in 1954, Brazil in 1974, Peru and Iran in 1978, Costa Rica in 1990, Morocco in 1998, England, too often to mention Yet whatever this dubious tradition might insist to us, this week's matches against England have had a rather different feel to them, mainly because of the social and political changes within Scottish society. We have been through a lot since the days of Ally's Army.

We have lived through all the Anglo humour about "premature ejockulation" in sport and politics - meaning that we never penetrate the nether reaches of a foreign football tournament, nor maturate ourselves into statehood. We have debated the complaints of intellectual critics that, as "90 minute patriots", our sports are self-defeating distractions from the mission of nationalism. We have thrashed out those early 1990's discussions about European regionalism, casting Scotland as Lombardy or Catalonia in tartan dress. And we have chewed upon the press editorials that bemoaned our caricature anti-Englishness, and we have sought more inclusive, confident variants of Scottish identity.

But now we have a semi-autonomous parliament and a greater sense of political and economic self-confidence, to go with our long history of cultural difference - whether in football, law, religion, education...you know the team. So, where next for the national team and the nation itself?

Due to an academic commitment I watched the Hampden match in Oslo. A day later, I took in the Norway-Germany friendly that the home team were very unlucky to lose.

To the Scots, Norway has tended to represent something of an ideal scenario for greater autonomy. Norwegians share with us a small population, but its oil-centred economy safeguards prosperity. Unemployment is negligible, social democracy is strong, and inequalities are blunted by genuine state assistance. Education, health services and environmentalism are properly resourced, while the Norwegian role in international aid is near evangelical. Involvement in sport and leisure is valued in more than economic or consumer terms. As for most Scots, English is spoken by all Norwegians, but only as a second language. They even share our tobacco addiction and winter weather, but are more adept at surviving both.

On the football field too, we might see the Norwegians as proxy Scots who realise their potential. Their players are particularly suited to the high-tempo British leagues and the disciplined professionalism preferred by our more traditional managers. The Norwegian national team is no prisoner to climate, demographics or a history of failure. Currently ranked seventh in Europe, Norway strolled to Euro 2000; they temper their earlier 'long-ball' tactics with a more pleasing passing game. Sporting successes, and real social development ,tend to go hand-in-hand.

When Allan Taylor took over as SFA supremo, he declared that the Norwegian model was there to be followed. That may be plausible in terms of training, pragmatic tactics and some early player development, but not without proper public sector assistance for the sporting infrastructure, or a serious reconstruction of football's institutional pyramid.

Our current free market model challenges the interests of the national team and its players. It has been a domestic failure for most professional clubs and a European cul-de-sac for the Old Firm. At club level, the successes of Rosenborg, a little Norwegian club, in the Champions League afford a sobering alternative.

It would be ironic indeed if the nationalist argument comes full circle to proclaim that a state-centred independence would improve the national team - there are too many competing club interests to make that work. But Norwegian-style sport successes, or quality of life, will not be achieved through mere political sound-bites or a play-off struggle against England. Glorious though it was.

Dr Richard Giulianotti is a senior lecturer in Sociology at Aberdeen University, with a specialist interest in sports studies.

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