Do Fans Want To Win.. Or Lose Playing The Beautiful Game?

Dec 16 2007 Gordon Waddell

Too often beauty comes before a beasting

ANOTHER game against the Old Firm another patronising pat on the head for Falkirk.

Four times this season they've played Rangers and Celtic. Four times they've knocked the ball around beautifully and been gushed over afterwards.

They play the game "the right way" apparently. Three up top, come hell or high water. A treat to watch.

Punters from both sides have told me they wish more teams would come to their patch and play like that.

Of course they bloody do. Because in those four games Falkirk have coughed up 18 goals. Meanwhile, St Mirren come and park a bus at Parkhead three days earlier and take a point.

Who's right and who's wrong? Is it about aesthetics or is it about achievement? Looking good or taking points?

Most managers want to do both - in their dreams. Unless your name starts with Sir or Arse that's all it will ever be.

Yogi Hughes says he will never sacrifice his principles but if that earns him a set of heavy defeats to the Old Firm should he suck it up half-a-dozen times a season? Or should he play and be damned?

And ultimately whose fans will have gone home happier? What a barney that question started in the office.

Throw in the Rangers game and it has been a week's worth of debate about systems and what you need to do to win.

The realists against the romantics. The ones who think Scotland should have played with two up against Italy, who think Walter Smith should have gone two up against Lyon. Who think 4-5-1 is killing the game, killing fans' interest. And who think attack is the only form of defence.

Who can't understand why, when the country has a player like James McFadden who's scoring international goals at a faster rate than Kenny Dalglish, we're having any debate over whether he should play or not because of the system.

Who can't understand why, when a goalscorer like Kris Boyd can't play unless he has someone beside him, they don't just put someone beside him and let him flourish. Ditto Stevie Naismith.

And who think it's a travesty for football that Greece are the European Champions.

Arguing for all they were worth against the side that says you do whatever it takes no matter what it looks like.

See, the thing is, the romantics use Rangers and Scotland as examples of why being pragmatic never pays off. They insist both sides would have been as well going for it as setting out to stifle and failing.

But look at those games. The difference between Rangers going through and going out wasn't three goals - it was three inches. Jean-Claude Darcheville scores, 10 minutes of throwing yourself on a grenade to save the battalion and you're through.

Same with Scotland. Faddy slides in a foot quicker to that chance at the back post? The game goes another 90 seconds without that howling decision?

Or take Celtic at Benfica. The one game where they've maybe sacrificed their style for substance in a bid to end that abysmal away run. Again, a couple of minutes away from a happy ending.

The margins are so slim between success and failure. If they go the other way then suddenly everyone forgets about the decisions the manager made to get there.

All that matters is they did. Yet when they fall on the wrong side of the fence the carcass is picked to its bones.

Me? I love watching a team who play like they love football as much as I do. Seeing Barcelona beat Rangers in the Nou Camp was a privilege and an education.

But I love winning more. And I don't give a monkey's how my team does it.

Falkirk's Parkhead defeat last week was a classic example. Sure, they were denied a stonewall penalty and should have been playing most of the game against 10 men.

But the point was the Bairns thought because they had scored eight in their two previous games they could go to Celtic and play the same way.

Hughes is absolutely unequivocal about it. And it's great in theory. The difference is, in practice, it's suicide nine times out of 10 if a team like Celtic are on their game.

Don't get me wrong. Against anyone else in the league give me what the Bairns do any day of the week ahead of the Buds.

I've backed Yogi to the hilt when plenty of others have turned on him. But sometimes getting the job done is more important than how you do it. I'd have taken St Mirren's point ahead of our pats on the back any day of the week.

email: g.waddell@sundaymail.co.uk