The Debatable Land

Today's Question

Why has the United States never produced a great darts player?

The Fall of the Yankees

Ross Douthat has a fine post  - from a Red Sox perspective, no less - on the decline and fall of the New York Yankees. For the first time in what seems like a generation the Pinstripers won't be playing in the post-season. Buster Olney explains why in terms of trades and drafts here. Messrs Douthat and Olney make some very pertinent points.

But, as I dare to suggest, in a piece I wrote for the New Republic last year, can it really be a coincidence that the age of Bush has coincided with eight years of Yankee failure (ie, no world Series triumphs)? I think not. The Bush administration's bad karma has leaked into the Bronx and somehow turned the Bombers into a baseball version of Bush's presidency...

The Clinton-era Yankee dynasty was remarkable for one thing above all: These were Yankees you could love. Or at least not hate. They had a mixture of suave youngsters and scrappy veterans that sportswriters love. Four titles were added between 1996 and 2000. These were happy, innocent years of fat--so much so in New York, in fact, that providence even permitted the Mets to participate in a Subway Series in 2000. The doyen of baseball writers, Roger Angell, was not alone in setting aside his "long-standing coolness toward the club", concluding that "The Yankees--who'd have thought it--had become lovable".

But that was before the excesses of the Bush years. In 1996, the Yankee payroll was $66 million; this year it was $195 million--a spending splurge even the federal government might admire.

The parallels continue. As the United States has squandered goodwill internationally, so have the Yankees domestically. And one can see why.

In fact if Americans could apply their understanding of baseball to the country's relations with the rest of the world, then perhaps they would be better placed to understand how the United States came to have an image problem. After all, the New York Yankees are to Major League Baseball what America is to the rest of the countries of the world. The Evil Empire indeed.

The Yankees are a sporting hegemon; a "rogue franchise" doing--we're often told--great and possibly irreparable damage to the game. No other franchise has won more than ten World Series titles; the Yanks have hauled in no fewer than 26. Baseball is unipolar.

No wonder baseball deemed the Yankees are hyper-power in need of taming. Baseball's luxury tax--the millions of dollars paid by the Yankees to small market also-rans such as Kansas City and Pittsburgh--represents, in an American era marked by conspicuous tax giveaways to the already wealthy, a collectivist move to meet Karl Marx's famous demand: "from each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs." It's Gulliver brought low by baseball's Lilliputians, just as, conservatives like to remind us, the United Nations desires to tame the United States.

Like the United States, the Yanks are immensely rich, accustomed to getting their own way, suspicious of those who did not appreciate their point of view, and not always especially diplomatic in dealing with their friends and rivals alike. George Steinbrenner's attitude to free agents--if we want him, we'll take him--is paralleled by the Bush administration's disdain for international institutions: Laws, or market realities, that apply to lesser nations don't apply to us...

Sure, the Yanks might have more fans than any other side--like the United States, perhaps--but amongst baseball fans collectively, the Yankees are a minority taste, just as admitting to an admiration for the United States has become a risky proposition at dinner parties around the world.

In the circles I move in, it's considered poor form to admit to a fascination with, let a alone a liking for, the Bronx Bombers. Doing so is akin to supporting the school bully or admitting that you voted for George W. Bush in both the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections. It's not the sort of thing you mention in polite society. The Yankees are my sordid little American League secret and, to borrow from Yeats, my own "terrible beauty."

Oh, and there's one other thing for Massachuestts and the Red Sox Nation to consider before they vote for Barack Obama in November:

Maybe the Republican Party itself is bad for the Yankees. After all, the Bronx Bombers haven't won a World Series under a Republican president since the Eisenhower administration. Just seven of their 26 titles have been won while the GOP possessed the White House.

There you have it: if McCain really is a third Bush term, then the curse will continue. On the other hand, if Obama wins perhaps the good times will roll again in the Bronx.

Lance Armstrong: A Sceptic Writes...

More Culture11: I've a piece arguing that no-one should be terribly happy about Lance Armstrong's decision to come out of retirement next season. Snippet:

Unlike fans in other sports, such as baseball or track and field, many cycling fans simply don't see doping as a criminal or ethical offense. In its way, then, cycling is the purest distillation of the logic behind elite sport: Super-human performance demands supra-human resources. It is the cost of doing business.

We might more profitably ask why our attitudes to drug-use have changed. Everyone has known for decades that the peloton has been a pharmacy on wheels. Until recently, this bothered few people. These days, the cycling controversies say more about society's wider drug-related hysteria than they do about the ethics and mechanics of professional cycling itself. Paradoxically, Armstrong's inability to fail a drug test exacerbates rather than alleviates this problem.

So, hate me people, I'm a Lance-sceptic. One thing I didn't mention in the piece is how Armstrong destroyed his chance of being considered the greatest cyclist of all time. Sure, he has seven Tour victories, but he never even attempted, let alone achieved, the Giro-Tour double. That remains the greatest feat any grand tour rider can aspire to achieve. Not everyone has managed it - indeed it's only been done 12 times - but all the great riders have at least ridden both races and most have won both tours, even if not always in the same year. All, that is, with the exception of Armstrong.

It's this failure  - a failure of ambition, a failure of romance and a failure to honour the past - that in my view ensures Armstrong doesn't, despite everything, rank alongside Eddy Merckx (Giro-tour doubles in 1970, 72 and 74), Fausto Coppi (the first to do it, in 1949 and 52) and Bernard Hinault (1982, 85). Heck, even Miguel Indurain won a brace of Giro titles to go alongside his five victories around the Hexagon. To fail is one thing, but to not even attempt it is quite another...

Sports for people who don't like sport

At Culture11, Michael Brendan Dougherty has a fine piece on how the people who run sports are more interested in catering to people who don't like sport than for those who, like, actually do. He's writing about the modern baseball experience but everything he says also, of course, applies to cricket. Especially Twenty20 cricket:

Like so many modern stadiums, the Nationals Ballpark experience doesn't trust the show it is ostensibly putting on: a baseball game. It partakes in the sensibility the brain-zapped sensibility that's come to dominate live sports. That's perfect for the jerks who don't care for the sport. For the rest of us, though, it's disheartening. The operating philosophy is that no one could possibly enjoy our national pastime without slathering it in techno-pizazz. Gone are the little moments that make the game unique: the superstitious gestures, the punch of the ball into an outstretched glove, the strange diction of the umpire, the din of a crowd punctured by cotton-mouthed vendors. Instead the game is merely the occasion for a larger and more comprehensive "event".

Rugby union is trying something similar, mind you, what with all these new "experimental" laws that are designed to turn the game into some tedious facsimile of rugby league just so a few more Australians can be persuaded to follow the sport. Never mind the millions of people who like the game as it is and see no need for change. Of course, liking the game as it is means you're part of the problem. People who have no interest in the sport are the future and the solution my friends...

For God and Ulster and Michigan...

As readers may know by now, I'm hopelessly in love with college football. Within that realm, I follow the University of Michigan. Today, the Wolverines travel to South Bend, Indiana to face Notre Dame. The two most successful programs in college football history go face to face in what is, given their respective recent travails, a Cripple Fight for the ages. UPDATE: Well, that didn't go as well as it might have did it? Always tough to win when you give the opposition a three touchdown start...

I think I've said before that I don't care for the Fighting Irish:

It's often said that the definition of intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing opinions simultaneously. Perhaps so. But the Notre Dame fanbase specialises in clinging to a brace of emotions, namely paranoia and entitlement. This is a caustic and unhealthy mix prejudicial to sound mental health.

Sadly, even shamefully, I've never actually attended a UM-ND game. I was supposed to go a few years ago, but work or something equally foolish intervened. Working on the doubtless juvenile presumption that sport is enlivened not diminished by good-natured sectarianism, my contribution to the festivities was limited to suggesting that my Wolverine pals fly this flag at the tailgate:

I don't know how many Notre Dame fans got the joke. (That's the Red Hand of Ulster, in case you didn't recognise the flag.)

Bonus coverage: here's a piece I wrote last year for the Sunday Business Post in Dublin on "The Decline and Fall of the Fighting Irish".

Also, below the fold, evidence emerges that John McCain is no friend to the Irish...

Wolverines!

Matt Zeitlin, a Cal golden Bear soon, I understand, to become a Northwestern Wildcat, is kind enough to say some nice things about my piece on college football.  Nonetheless Mr Zeitlin also says this:

There’s only [one] glaring problem with Massie’s piece - the love for Michigan. I mean, I guess as a Scotsman, he has free ground to pick a team, and one could do worse with Michigan, but one of the most annoying things about college football is how sycophantic the media is toward old, established, mostly Midwestern teams. Michigan isn’t the best example, Notre Dame is.

This is true. In 1996 I was a student at Trinity College, Dublin when Notre Dame played Navy at Croke Park. I supported Navy that day (though I didn't go to the game) and nothing I have learnt about Notre Dame since has persuaded me that I backed the wrong horse back then. As one of my Michigan-minded friends would put it, "I respect Ohio State; I hate Notre Dame". Me too.

I've never actually seen a Michigan-Notre Dame game in person, alas. I was supposed to go to the 2005 edition but work commitments (or something) prevented it, ensuring that my only contribution to the festivities was to suggest that the Red Hand of Ulster should be flown at my pals' tailgate. Ah, sporting sectarianism, how sweet it can be! Alas, few of the visiting "Irish" got the joke.

It's often said that the definition of intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing opinions simultaneously. Perhaps so. But the Notre Dame fanbase specialises in clinging to a brace of emotions, namely paranoia and entitlement. This is a caustic and unhealthy mix prejudicial to sound mental health. Also, their "Touchdown Jesus" schtick has always seemed blasphemous to this lapsed presbyterian...

Not that Michigan is perfect. Indeed not. the Wolverines have flattered only to deceive too often. One national championship in 60 years tells its own story. (And that shared thanks to Phil Fuckin' Fulmer's aberrant voting). Ditto the repeated Rose Bowl let-downs. But what can I say? As Johnny puts it, "Some people are prone to self-loathing, nostalgia, and hopeless, mythic romanticism." That's the Michigan way. An under-performing powerhouse. That's possibly also why, when it comes to Scottish football, I'm a Hearts fan. (And, in England, a Spurs supporter). When my friend Mike recruited me to the Wolverine cause, I had no idea that it would prove such a good fit.

When you're a Michigan fan, even in the good times, you kind of always suspect that fate is lurking around the corner, armed with the lead piping. Even worse, you often kind of think the resultant clunking is sort of deserved.

The other thing about college football, of course, is that it is parceled out in four or five year doses. My time in America more or less coincided with Chad Henne, Jake Long and, most especially, Mike Hart's time at Michigan. And we parcel our live out - or at least I do mine - in four to five year packages: high school, university, first job etc etc. In that sense, perhaps we also parcel out our lives in tune with the college football cycle. There's a natural rhythm to these things and I wonder if there's anything to this. Perhaps not; perhaps this is balderdash. I don't know.

What I do know is that Saturday's loss to Utah was neither unexpected nor the end of the world. Growing pains are inevitable when you lose your top two quarterbacks, your best pair of receivers, your running back and most of the offensive line and you're trying to implement an entirely new philosopical concept as to how football should be played.... Patience will be required. Growing pains. Just, please god, beat Notre Dame in a fortnight's time...

The Lithuanian Conundrum

Matt Yglesias wants to know why Lithuania (population 3.8million) is so good at basketball:

As everyone knows, to succeed at basketball you need tall people. Not only do even your backcourt players need to be tall, but you need to be able to pull several freakishly tall big men together. It seems inconceivable that such a tiny country could manage to field so many quality basketball players consistently over an extended period of time no matter how basketball-mad the country may be. Is Vilnius just full of people 6′8″ and taller?

I don't know very much about basketball, let alone eastern european basketball, but I'd guess that these factors (some of which Matt alludes to) probably have something to do with it:

1. Basketball is Lithuania's national sport and has been for a long time. As Matt notes, most of the best Soviet players were Lithuanian. Culture matters.
2. They Soviet system identified promising athletes at a very young age and educated them in special sports schools. I'd guess this practice continues with respect to Lithuanian basketball. I suspect they probably excel at a) identifying talent and then b) coaching it rigorously, extracting maximum potential. Small countries cannot afford to waste resources.
3. That means that a tall Lithuanian teenager is much more likely to be shepherded into playing basketball than a tall teenager in Britain who might, for example, be persuaded to play rugby. The Lithuanians may not divide their eggs between so many baskets. If every tall person plays basketball, you don't need as big a population base.
4. A basketball tradition creates powerful incentives to maintain that tradition of excellence. Eventually, as one can see from other sports in which small countries punch above their weight, that creates a momentum all of its own. Success breeds success etc etc.
5. Even allowing for other factors, small countries should find it easier to compete in basketball than in other sports: you only need five players! Soccer, by contrast, needs 11. 
6. Lithuanians may also be unusually tall anyway.

But what do you chaps say? Are there any euro-basketball experts out there?

Sport and the arts

A reader asks Megan if she supports government spending on the arts and sport. She has a pithy answer: "No". And of course I have some sympathy for her point of view. In an ideal world this might indeed seem like frippery and even in the world we endure it can often be a transfer from poor to rich. In other words, in the UK, lottery funding for Olympic rowing or the Royal Opera House is to some extent a tax on the poor and/or the gullible for the benefit of the already better-off-than-most.

But looked at differently, I'd wonder if these monies are really so very different from the state spending cash on the artistic and physical education of school kids, with the difference, of course, that the fruits of this expenditure are not limited to children, even if part of the price of this is that people who could afford to pay more to support sport or the arts do not have to. But to the extent that we agree that a healthy population is a net good, there seems a decent argument for the state, if it chooses, to make generous provision for the mental and physical health of the populace. And of course it's very wrong to presume, as some do, that opera or classical music is beyond the wit, ken and interest of working class folk. (Of course Megan doesn't make that argument. She doesn't write for The Guardian.) But since, for a number of reasons, we don't enjoy the American culture of philanthropy, it's not altogether unreasonable for the state to offer some assistance. (Might we enjoy American levels of philanthropy if we abolished, say, the Arts Council? Perhaps, but I fear not. The evidence from sport, which has, whether one approves of this or not, benefitted enormously from lottery funding, suggests that the private sector was not capable of fulfilling this role.)

This assistance is, in any case,  often pretty modest; almost every Scottish author I can think of, from JK Rowling (Scottish-based) to Alasdair Gray or William McIlvanney has been assisted by the Scottish Arts Council at some point. That means they've been given, at the start of their careers, a couple of thousand quid to help them finish a book. Yes, this is public money and it might be nice if there were more private patronage available, but as used to be said if ifs and ands were pots and pans there'd be no call for tinkers... The public has, in any case, been pretty well served by this allocation of taxpayers cash. And it's not as though state sponsorship of the arts is anything new. No public patronage no Aeneid.

Or, to put it another way, if you asked me whether more good would come from spending an additional £250m on the arts and sport or on the National Health Service I'd have no hesitation in plumping for the former. It is vastly more likely to do some good.

Granted, I'm biased in favour of sport and the arts but it's still hard to think of a more harmless example of public spending. On a theoretical level I suppose Megan has a someway compelling point and I doubt the NEA would be her first spending target but this is still one area where though we may lose a little according to one line of principle the collective gain is rather greater and, in any case, comes at a pretty low and more than affordable price.

Latin America's Under-Performance

Tyler Cowen is generously soliciting questions: here's mine, asked knowing that Tyler is keen on South America and capable of answering almost anything...

Why do Latin American countries perform so poorly at the Olympic Games?

The Republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia win medals in sports such as wrestling and weight-lifting, West Africa has produced sprinters while East Africans dominate distance running. So it can't just be poverty, right?

Is Latin America's comparative failure explained by a combination of poverty and physiological factors? That is to say, do Latin American countries with high Indian populations suffer from an in-built disadvantage? If so, does this help explain why Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, three countries with greater European and, in the case of Brazil, African immigration are also the dominant (historically and currently) soccer powers on the continent?

But then you might also think Argentina and Brazil would do better in the Olympics than they do, wouldn't you? Argentina waited decades before winning golds in basketball and soccer in Athens. This is a poor return, surely, for a country with such a european-gened population. True, polo is no longer an Olympic sport and this disadvantages them, but why are there so few Argentine eventers or show jumpers?

Alternative theory: soccer is so popular that it crowds out the marketplace for other sports across the continent. (And, in Argentina, rugby which is an elite sport that draws wealthy athletes away from Olympic sports?) But really, I don't know. How would you explain it?

Relatedly, is it just the absence of rugby and cricket from the Olympics that explains South Africa's woeful performance?

War Minus the Shooting is Not Actually War

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the pundit seeking heft to support his argument must eventually turn to George Orwell. This is, for sure, often a wise decision since much the most remarkable aspect of Orwell's writing is how much of it remains vivid and even valid today. But not all of it since Eric Blair was as capable of talking through his hat as the next intellectual. Thus John Quiggin, writing about the Olympic torch's travels across Australia, cites Orwell's view that:

Even if one didn’t know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles.

There's a missing "can" there whose omission condemns Orwell. To observe that Situation A can lead to Situation B is far from the same thing as claiming that it must. True, we can all cite examples that might seem to confirm, albeit on a superficial level, Orwell's thesis: the Soccer War, football hooliganism and so on... but these are, in point of fact, rarities. Sport can be illused but that says more about the users than it does about sport or competition itself.

In his essay, The Sporting Spirit, Orwell suggests that:

If you wanted to add to the vast fund of ill-will existing in the world at this moment, you could hardly do it better than by a series of football matches between Jews and Arabs, Germans and Czechs, Indians and British, Russians and Poles, and Italians and Jugoslavs, each match to be watched by a mixed audience of 100,000 spectators. I do not, of course, suggest that sport is one of the main causes of international rivalry; big-scale sport is itself, I think, merely another effect of the causes that have produced nationalism. Still, you do make things worse by sending forth a team of eleven men, labelled as national champions, to do battle against some rival team, and allowing it to be felt on all sides that whichever nation is defeated will "lose face".

It's true that Olympic-partisans make too much of the idea that the games represent some glorious global festival in which we celebrate our common humanity and all the rest of it. Much, perhaps even most, of this is humbug. But not all of it. Orwell complains that even a game as supposedly genteel as cricket can unleash fierce passions. He cites the threat to UK-Australian diplomatic relations by the 1932-33 Bodyline Series to support this point. But this is precisely wrong: such a threat, like the other occasions in which politics intrude, is a diversion from the main point, not an example supporting Orwell's contention.

How to fix Formula One?

It's years since I was last much of a petrol-head, but I see that at least Patrick Head is thinking of ways to reinvigorate Formula One and win back lapsed fans:

A radical idea to improve the spectacle of Formula One and make overtaking easier has been proposed by Williams team co-owner Patrick Head.

The veteran says races can be boring and wants the fastest cars to start at the back and the slowest at the front.

"I would like to see the grids in reverse order of championship position," Head told BBC Sport.

"It's the same for everybody, and over a whole season the right guy would still win the championship."

Head, who has been involved in F1 for more than 30 years and is one of the most respected engineers in the sport, feels his idea will "very much upset the purists".

But he said current proposals to facilitate overtaking and improve the spectacle were unlikely to work and urged the FIA, the sport's governing body, to "be a bit more adventurous".

I actually proposed something very similar to this in an op-ed for Scotland on Sunday six or seven years ago (can;t find it online, alas). The idea is neat and compelling save for one problem: how would you ensure that teams went as fast as they could in qualifying when there was no incentive - indeed, quite the reverse - to go quickly? No, the way to fix Formula One is to have a random draw for starting positions.

This would obviously introduce an additional slice of random fortune to the season but, over the course of 16 or more races, the chances are that drivers are going to enjoy as many starts near the front of the grid as at the back. There'd be no need for qualifying sessions, of course, but at least the racing would be more exciting...

Tiger vs Roger?

Ah, the great Tiger Woods vs Roger Federer debate continues. Muttblog suggests most scribblers taking part in this Slam-Fest plump for Woods as, comparatively speaking, the greater of the two. He highlights this Steve Sailor post which makes some salient points.

The fact that each sport contains four majors each year allows for superficial but misleading comparisons. Take this Michael Wilbon column for instance:

Excuse me, but Roger Federer's recent stretch of dominance, impressive by any historical standard for tennis, doesn't come close to Tiger's. Winning a tennis tournament requires beating six opponents, not the field. Tiger doesn't ever have the luxury of having another opponent take out, say, Mickelson and Sergio Garcia. It's up to Tiger alone.

This isn't bad, but it misses the point. It is, in fact, possible to measure Woods against Federer in as close to a like-for-like comparison as we are likely to find. In stroke play golf Woods must defeat 127 opponents cumulatively over the course of four days, he need not be the best golfer - ie, shooting the lowest round - on any one of those days. By contrast Federer, like any tennis player, must defeat his given opponent every day.

Equally, there's very little  - though the extent to which this is true is also a tribute to his mental strength - that Woods' opponents can do to make him play worse. However Woods also knows that if any of his rivals produce the round of their lives on the opening day, he still has three rounds left in which to overhaul them. Federer, by contrast, could be out of the tournament. And remember that in both sports it's entirely possible for the 100th best player in the world to defeat the planet's best player. Asking them to do so for four conseutive days however  - or, in tennis terms, asking them to win more games or sets than Federer over the course of four matches - is a very different proposition however. In that respect, then, Woods has a margin for error denied Federer.

(On the other side of the coin: Woods has won 13 of his 52 Grand Slam tournaments, as opposed to Federer's 12 wins from 35. But that highlights the differences between golf and tennis more than anything else. As a comparison, Rafael Nadal has won 3 of 14 Grand Slams.)

So to measure how Woods matches up against Federer it's best to abandon stroke play and the Majors and look to Matchplay golf. That's where the best comparison lies, especially since in matchplay golf a player competes against his opponent, not against the course. Now even this isn't a perfect comparison since, after all, there's only one major matchplay tournament each year - the WGC World Matchplay that Woods won again this week.

Still, it's a real tournament (though with a field of 64, rather than the 128 in tennis slams) and as good a comparison as we can find. Woods is the only player to have won the title in its ten year existence, lifting the trophy on three occasions. (He was also runner-up to Darren Clarke in 2000. Davis Love III. Geoff Ogilvy are the only players, bar Woods, to have reached the final more than once). That's impressive and good indicator of the distance between Woods and his competitors.

But... it's also imperfect. Woods' Ryder Cup record of 3-1-1 is also an indicator that, in matchplay, he's not likely to match Federer's career 80% winning mark. In 2005 and 2006 Federer did even better, winning 95% of his matches. (We're dealing with small samples in Woods' matchplay career of course: a useful, even necessary, caveat.)

Of course this also is due to the differences in the two sports. Though physique and power matter in golf, they're not as important as movement and athleticism are in tennis. Equally, even in matchplay golf there is less a golfer can do to force an error than is the case in tennis. Still, as I say, it's as close a comparison as we can realistically have. But even then it only really demonstrates that golf and tennis are different sports.

None of this is to say that Tiger isn't greater than Roger, merely that these sorts of parlour games, though entertaining, are pretty pointless. why isn't it enough to just acknowledge that Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer of the modern game and Roger Federer  is probably the finest tennis player of them all (or, at least the finest since Rod Laver)?

Who needs TV writers anyway?

At last! A new TV "reality" show worth watching:                                                                                      

Move over American Idol and make room for Rockstar Curling, a reality television show that may indeed have a rock-star connection.

NBC confirmed yesterday it has an exclusive option to air a 10-episode sports reality show that will give the winners a shot at competing in the U.S. championships and even going to the 2010 Olympics.

And one aspect that would make this a draw to the button for NBC is a plan to land closet curlers Bruce Springsteen or Jon Bon Jovi as part of the show, assuming the rockers aren't worried what being connected to a sport with brooms might do to their images.

According to sources, the two rock stars are among a group of entertainment types who rent arena time on occasion to pick up brooms instead of guitars.

But what's this about "closet curlers"? Curl with pride, man. With pride.

There'll Always Be an England...

Not to intrude into private grief or anything, but how can you children not be amused by this?

Croatia rose to the occasion in their crucial Euro 2008 defeat of England - after an apparent X-rated gaffe by an English opera singer at Wembley.

Tony Henry belted out a version of the Croat anthem before the 80,000 crowd, but made a blunder at the end.

He should have sung 'Mila kuda si planina' (which roughly means 'You know my dear how we love your mountains').

But he instead sang 'Mila kura si planina' which can be interpreted as 'My dear, my penis is a mountain.'

UPDATE: Commenter Damir suggests a more accurate translation is:

"Mila kuda si planina" means "You (Croatia) are dear to us where you are mountainous." The preceding line is "You (Croatia) are dear to us where you are a flat plain."

"Mila kurac si planina" would render closer to "Dear penis, you're a mountain."

In related news*:

TRIBUTES are being paid to Scotland this morning after the entire country laughed itself to death.

Small groups of volunteers from Berwick-Upon-Tweed and Carlisle ventured north just after midnight only to find houses full of dead people gathered around still blaring television sets.

By dawn, as RAF helicopters flew over deserted city streets, it was clear that the whole country had suffered a catastrophic abdominal rupture...

Moving tributes are already being placed along the Scotland-England border with many mourners opting to leave a simple bag of chips or a deep fried bunch of flowers.

Yes, not proud. I actually felt  - and, so long as I don't spend too much time thinking about it - still do feel rather sorry for the poor old English. Their newspapers and television pundits deserve every misery of course, but the average English football fan is a decent, if somewhat lugubrious, cove who knows full-well that England are not an especially good football team. They deserve better from their players and leaders.

For what little it's worth I'd hire Fabio Capello to take over. He at least knows what he's doing and has a better track record than any of the other plausible candidates. I offer this advice in a constructive spirit, unlike Alan Hansen who, I assume, must be working undercover for England's enemies since he seems to think Alan shearer is a sensible choice.

[*Thanks to old college pal GT for the tip.]

We'll Always Have Paris

Well, that's that. So close to glory, yet so far.

If ever anyone asks you to explain the quintessence of the Scottish footballing experience you need merely point them towards this afternoon's game at Hampden Park. Every essential element was duly present. Hope. Fear. Calamity. Melodrama. Passion. Joy. Purgatory. Glory. And finally, that familiar friend Disaster. As it always seems to be, watching Scotland play football was to hop on a switchback that would take you to the top of the highest mountain - with just a momentary pause to admire the splendour of the view and the freshness of the air - before plunging back into the deepest, darkest valleys of despair. And then repeat the process just for fun. Whatever else it might be, it's one hell of a ride.

To begin with there was the agony of hope. As kick-off loomed and the rain lashed down in Glasgow we managed to forget that we were playing the world champions. Italy? Well, why not? Common sense - and the memories of so many disappointments over so many years - predicted doom, yet optimism stubbornly refused to lie down, rearing its insistent head to the point where we could kid ourselves that today might actually be the day for a footballing miracle.

Yet the miracle, in retrospect, was that we were even in this position. The draw for next summer's European Championship qualifiers was a matter for dark mirth. Throwing Scotland into a group with Italy and France (who contested the 2006 World Cup final after all) and Ukraine (who merely made the quarter-finals) seemed like overkill. This was a country, after all, that had slipped behind Burkina Faso in the FIFA World Rankings. Even gallows humour, the traditional lager-laced antidote to calamity, couldn't make up for that indignity.

So to find ourselves still alive in this, Scotland's final match of the qualifying campaign, was itself preposterous. To hell with common sense: if we could make it this far, why not one match further? Victory against Italy would guarantee passage to Austria and Switzerland next summer; a draw would keep hope alive, so long as the Ukraine defeated France on Wednesday. There we were then: Irrational enthusiasm wrestling the nagging suspicion that providence was lying in wait, armed with the lead piping.

In other words, it's fair to say that the nation was in a state of acute psychological distress before the game even started.

And then it did.

And Italy scored after 90 seconds.

Playground defending gifted Luca Toni a goal Craig Gordon was hapless to prevent. Deflation. Resignation. Time to draw comfort for the stirring run so far and draw consolation from the twin victories against France. A shame it had to end this way, of course, but the boys have given their all.

For the first twenty minutes we were third in a two horse race. Italy should have scored a second and could consider themselves unlucky to have had a goal chalked off for a marginal off-side. 3-0 to the visitors wouldn't have been an entirely unfair reflection of the first 30 minutes. Turns out the World Champions are still a pretty useful side after all.

You could deal with that, appreciating that class will tell and it's unreasonable to suppose that Scotland - even a much improved Scotland - could hope to win three of four matches against the clearly superior French and Italians. Order was being restored to the footballing universe and if all wasn't exactly right with the world it had at least a certain grim and recognisable reality to it.

Enter Scotland once again. No side in the world is better than Italy at defending a 1-0 lead than Italy. Yet there's something in the Scottish way of playing this game that responds to the call of the pipes and the sound of the charge. As the first-half ended a David Weir header was cleared off the line - though for one blissful, misleading moment, it looked as though it had crossed the goal-line. Still, set pieces were causing the Italians problems. Hope may have been battered but she had not sunk yet.

Roared on by the Tartan army in full and great voice, Scotland clawed their way back into the game in the second half. The longer the game endured, the greater the belief that seemed to course through Scottish veins. There was a poise and on occasion even a finesse to their play. At long last Alan Hutton found space to rampage forward and now it was the men in dark blue jerseys winning most of the 50-50 confrontations in midfield. Something was stirring.

That Barry Ferguson's goal, when it came in the 65th minute, was an awkward squib of a thing mattered not a jot. Nor could allowing that there was a hint of offside to proceedings in any way diminish the beauty of the moment. After the frenzy subsided, you could afford a wry smile and quip how typical it was of Scotland to toy with our emotions like this. The impossible dream was alive again. Bloody hope was prevailing.

Momentum was with the home side by now and for a moment you could even afford the luxury of putting your paranoia to rest. Scotland were rampant and deservedly so. They weren't just riding their emotions either, they were playing proper football. This was no mere hump and hope; rather a thrilling alliance of pace and passion. Half chances were teased open. With 15 minutes left a neutral observer would have been forced to admit that the home side looked the likelier to score.

Which made McFadden's miss at the end of the best footballing move in the match all the more agonising. It was cruel fortune that the player - as modest off the pitch as he is impish on it - who'd done more than most to raise Scotland to these unfamiliar, nose-bleeding heights should be the one to miss the chance that would have sealed an astonishing and, at that point entirely merited, victory. Hope took a dent then, only to be rallied by the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, the Ukrainians might rise above their station and defeat the French. Still, deep down you knew that it was tempting fate to miss that sort of opportunity. The gods like punishing profligacy.

But that was no excuse for what happened next. We're inside the final minute now and Hutton is clattered by Giorgio Chiellini. The Scot is sent flying and the ball runs out of play. The one decision the referee - Manuel Enrique Mejuto Gonzalez - can't give is a free-kick to Italy. That, of course, is the decision he comes to. It is inexplicable. Baffling. Sheer incredulity abounds. The pub is silenced by the wonder of it. This makes no sense.

Which makes it inevitable  - as you knew it would - that Andrea Pirlo chips the ball into the box and Christian Panucci gets a head to it to send it past poor Gordon for the goal that sends us out and confirms that France and Italy progress to the finals.

There's losing and then there's losing like this. It's a blow that leaves you breathless. The Scotland players are stunned. The fans are stunned. It's a shocking, absurd way to crash out the tournament.

The rage will pass of course. It's only momentary anyway. Right now everyone's just standing around with a comical look on their faces because each and every one of the poor sods has been kicked in the guts. In time you hope you'll be able to laugh at the nonsensical way this has ended. But right now there's just that familiar crushing emptiness.

And yet there's also something else in the air tonight. For once - McFadden's missed chance and a moment of terrible defending notwithstanding - we've given it our best shot and it's not been quite enough. On nights like these, you can never entirely banish the sense of what might have been and sure enough, this can be added to 1958, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1992, 1998 and 2000 as a year in which Scotland came close to finding glory only to be denied at the last minute*. At least this time, mind you, we didn't throw it away ourselves.

So, yes, it is as it always is: Disaster for Scotland. But that's not quite the story. Not this time. There's a defiant, resilient pride too. They can take our dreams but they can't deny us that. Not this time. This crop of unheralded players have done something significant. God forgive them - and us - but they've made the country believe again. Today's loss isn't terminal. In fact it feels as much the beginning of something as its end. Aye, there's the rub, failure doesn't come much more glorious than this. Not when it comes with honour attached. The boys did their best and it was mighty, even if it wasn't, at the end, quite enough.

Or at least - since we're on this couch - that's what your inner-shrink is saying. These young lads have time on their side. McManus, Gordon, Hutton, Fletcher, Brown and McFadden will be the spine of the team for years yet. Hope lives. There's no need for the traditional lament, Can We No Anything Right?

Who needs Europe anyway, when you can raise your eyes to loftier peaks? Bring on the World! One song ended tonight, but there's another tune to be played once the World Cup qualifying draw is made later this month and, for better or for worse, the whole thrilling, gut-shredding, ghastly beauty starts up all over again.

God help us all.

*UPDATE for clarity's sake: not always literally at the last minute. And it's not a question of blaming fate or supposing that there's some sort of curse. Rather a frustration at our inability to take our own chances. We haven't achieved what we'd want because, in the end, we haven't been good enough. The frustration comes from knowing that several of these Scotland sides were good enough that they should have done better but that, for one reason or another, they' bloody didn't.