Kevin Ralston, University of Edinburgh, 2016
Embed from Getty Images(Gordon Strachan, Scotland manager and scorer against Germany in 1986 World Cup Finals)
Introduction
This article considers the most important issue facing science today. Scotland has not qualified for a men’s senior football tournament since France 1998. On Saturday the 8th and Tuesday 11th of October 2016 Scotland played Lithuania and Slovakia respectively. Scotland drew 1-1 at home to Lithuania (a team ranked 117 in the World at the time) and lost 3-0 to Slovakia, a team which had not scored in their previous 4 competitive internationals. Recent results, coming after failure to qualify for the 2016 European Championships, have led to discussion as to whether Scotland’s manager, Gordon Strachan, should be replaced. To help answer the question of whether Strachan should be given his jotters I took a look at the long run trend in Scotland’s football ranking. As a Scotland fan, who recently gave up membership of the supporters club, due to a 40% price increase, the question I was interested in answering is whether Strachan is actually doing any worse than his predecessors, given that Scotland has not qualified for a competition in 18 years!
Data used in the analysis is in the public domain. FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) publish international ranking information. How the rankings are recorded varies over time, therefore ranking scores do not compare like with like. In this respect the comparison of ranking across years is indicative only, and the analysis is presented in fun reflection on the sad performance of Scotland’s national men’s football team. Between 1993 and 1998 teams were simply given 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw and listed accordingly. In 1999 the system was changed to reflect a number of factors including goals scored and conceded, whether a match was home or away, the importance of the match and regional strength. From 2006 the system was changed again, the 1999-2006 system took account of matches played over an 8 year period, with matches from previous years receiving less weighting. The latest system includes only the previous 4 years, making this a more accurate reflection of recent form. The rankings are updated several times a year.
Ranking by year-end was taken from the official rankings provided by FIFA and the tenure periods of managers from a website which combines ranking information with other statistics on Scottish football. This information is used to calculate mean ranking position of managers and trends in performance over time. The managers are Craig Brown, 1993-2001, Berti Vogts 2002-2004, Walter Smith (WS) and his successor Alex McLeish (AM) (Smith/McLeish) 2005-2007, George Burley (GB) and Craig Levein (CL) (Burley/Levein) 2008-2012 and Gordon Strachan (2013-present).
| Table 1, Mean ranking position by manager, highest year end ranking and lowest year end ranking, and starting ranking, which is the last ranking at year end of the previous manager*. Win percentage is also reported. | ||||||
| Manager | Mean | Highest year end ranking | Lowest year end ranking | Starting Ranking | Range | Win % |
| Craig Brown | 31 | 20 | 50 | 20 | 30 | 45 |
| Berti Vogts | 66 | 54 | 89 | 50 | 35 | 28 |
| Smith/McLeish | 33 | 14 | 60 | 86 | 46 | WS 44,AM 70 |
| Burley/Levein | 50 | 33 | 72 | 14 | 39 | GB 21,CL 42 |
| Gordon Strachan | 41 | 34 | 54 | 72 | 20 | 50 |
| Source: Scotlandfootballstats.co.uk/history/
*except Craig Brown, here it is the year end ranking for 1993 |
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Analysis
Table 1 shows the mean ranking of the managers across their tenure period. It can be seen that, in terms of mean ranking, Strachan is doing better than the Vogts period and the Burley/Levein period but worse than the Brown and Smith/McLeish time. The range of the end of year rankings associated with Strachan is smaller than any of the others and this arguably relates to a consistency in his management. The large range in the Smith/McLeish era was caused by a meteoric rise in rankings. Strachan too has substantially improved the ranking from its starting point at the beginning of his tenure period. The overall trend can be seen in Figure 1.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 1 shows the international ranking of Scotland from their position in December 1993 to September 2016, the rankings for all other years are reported as at year end. Scotland ended 1993 ranked 24 in the world, they are currently 44th in the world, they held their highest end of year position at 14, in 2007, and recorded their lowest year end position at 86, in 2004. Figure 1 includes linear and quadratic fit lines. The linear fit suggests an overall downward trend in the ranking. The quadratic suggests a fall and a levelling out with a slight upturn in form from 2013. Of the two fits, the quadratic seems better as it makes some allowance for the huge drop to 86 in 2004 and massive recovery, to 14, by 2008. Figure 2 includes the trend estimated by a median spline. This appears to be an even better fit to the data as it more adequately reflects the drop in ranking. The linear trend suggests Gordon Strachan to be part of a long running slide in the team’s international ranking. The quadratic trend suggests that Strachan is managing an upturn and the median spline suggests things to have levelled out under Strachan.
Figure 3 graphs trends by manager showing quadratic trends. These trends approximate the actual data very well, although a linear trend is also a reasonable fit (not shown). It is apparent a general fall in ranking was managed by Craig Brown. The catastrophic drop associated with the Vogts era is plain to see. An absolutely stunning recovery of ranking across the Smith/McLeish era is also obvious, followed by a sharp decline during the Burley/Levein period. Strachan appears to have steadied things following the poor performance during the Burley/Levein time in charge. Overall it appears that Strachan is operating at a level above his immediate predecessors and certainly above the level of Vogts. Apart from Smith/McLeish, Strachan is the only manager not to be managing an general decline inranking, however, two friendly defeats in the summer and a draw and defeat in this World Cup qualifying campaign will be likely to change this to a downward trend in end of year rankings for 2016.
Figure 3
Conclusion
In failing to qualify for the last major tournament, the European Championship, Strachan is doing no worse than any of the other managers of Scotland over the last 18 years. This downplays the fact that qualifying standards changed, and far more teams qualified for the 2016 European Championship finals. If Scotland could have produced the type of form they did during Smith and McLeish time in charge they may well have made these finals too. On the other hand Strachan has a win ratio, across 30 games, higher than any of the other managers except Alex McLeish (who only held the post for 10 games). The median spline and quadratic trends in Figures 1 and 2, along with the trend whilst Strachan has been in charge, in Figure 3, support the an argument that Strachan has been a consistent manager, who has so far been capable of preventing Scotland sliding towards their poorer ranking positions. A current run of poor results means that Scotland will drop in the year end ranking for 2016. It is possible Strachan could turn this around over the course of the following year.
Is Gordon Strachan any worse than his predecessors? On average ranking Strachan is almost exactly as ‘poor’ as his predecessors. Since 2006, when the current ranking system was established, the mean position is 39. The mean end of year ranking for all years is 41.46, Strachan’s mean ranking is 41.5 and the mean end of year ranking not including Strachan’s is 41.45. Before recent poor results Strachan was at around the average level of the last 23 years. Until this autumns games the win ratio and rankings were arguably in Strachan’s favour. Following recent poor performance there will be ground to make up. If the team can beat England at Wembley he will probably get more time in charge, assuming he wants it. Indeed, in the past, wins at Wembley were the gold standard of Scottish international football. A big loss to England and he may not have the fight within him or the backing of the fans, media and management, that would give him a chance to recover the lost ground.
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