SHAUN MALONEY could write the book on opportunities missed by the Scotland team. He retains hopes such a memoir can have a happy ending.
There is something missing from the Maloney cv. He would dearly love that blank sheet to be filled with the words 'played in a major finals'. Although if it makes him feel any better, there is not a single active player that can boast such an achievement, which is some thought.
Winning in Malta was a decent start. Taking six points from Lithuania at Hampden on Saturday and then in Slovakia on Tuesday would get us all dreaming again ahead of the November jaunt to Wembley.
Scotland’s problems are many but one of the biggest is dropping points on the road from games where a win should be mandatory. Maloney believes, and here’s hoping he is right, that the players are now available that can change this.
He said: “I think there are individual players that offer things that we haven’t had in a while, I think there’s a lot more pace in the side particularly in the wide areas and the front three that we haven’t had for quite a while.
“That would be the biggest thing that I would look at the squad and that would give me hope, particularly away from home. Playing counter-attack and things like that we haven’t been able to do that really for quite some time. I think the dynamic of the squad is a lot different from previous ones.
“It’s a confident group. I know the game was against Malta who will probably be the weakest side in the group but it still has to be done. I think before the game, although I was out of it, it just felt like there was a nervousness about the Malta game. We got to a point against Gibraltar where it was 1-1 at Hampden and there was probably a similar feeling at half-time against Malta.”
Maloney is the perfect example of someone who demands others do what he does rather than what he says.
Even at the grand old age of 33, a father of the Scotland squad, his quiet demeanour has hardly changed since this polite well-educated young man, with a slightly posh voice, burst on to the scene some 16 years ago now.
Maloney has never been one to rant or rave; rather he expresses himself in training, he remains the best player according to Gordon Strachan, and in the games themselves. The younger members of the international set-up would do well to follow his example.
There is plenty of football to come from a player who has been a wonderful servant to Scotland – he is three short of 50 caps – and while he will have things to say to his team-mates, he’s hardly a wall-flower, his role is to lead the rest by how he handles himself with a ball at his feet.
“Although I am pretty quiet off the park I can be pretty vocal on it, even during training,” said Maloney. “I think you just have to set a certain tone in training.
“Obviously the captain, Darren Fletcher, is very experienced and I think when you are one of the more senior players you probably take on a bit more of a vocal role in training than you would do at a younger age.
“It probably does come naturally to me on the training pitch. I don’t know if that’s a generational thing, you were definitely encouraged to be vocal on the training pitch from a young age. When it comes to matches I don’t obviously shout and scream but when it’s needed I’ve got no problem with that.”
Maloney won everything with Celtic, played in a European final and won an FA Cup with Wigan Athletic. He’s had more than his fair share of injuries and yet his career has been a fine one, littered with wonderful moments which few other Scots of his generation could hope to replicate.
Those little legs have been through a lot, his knees must be in some state, and yet there was no way he was going to knock back Strachan even when he was left out of the squad for the Malta match last month.
“It’s nice to be back,” he admitted. “We trained on Monday and it was all pretty familiar. It was only in June the last time I was here but I’m pretty happy to be back in the squad.
“I was a pundit for Sky Sports for our last game. It was the first time I’d done something like that in that size of studio, it was different. I was pretty envious watching the team. It was a new experience.
“I just always felt that for me at some point you don’t get picked and that’s just the way I saw my international career going and that hasn’t changed.”
An unexpected win, the France games of now too many years ago spring to mind, are a must if even second place and a go at a play-off is to be achieved.
“I think it’s definitely possible when you’ve got that much pace in the side, you can go away from home in games and you might not have the ball for long periods,” said Maloney.
“Some of them are quite young so it’s difficult to try to really pile all the pressure on them but I think away from home we should be a lot more dangerous than we have been in previous campaigns. So I think that gives us more of a chance.”
And more than a chance is the one thing every Scotland supporters wants.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here