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Not Scotland, but Bigi started for Burundi yesterday in their draw with Gabon as part of the African Cup of Nations qualifiers.

I'm not trying to defend McLeish here, but losing a friendly to a team that looked good value for being best in the world, isn't exactly a disaster. We'll see where he stands when the competitive games kick off. I'm not expecting to be overly excited, but I think he'll be competent. McLeish's biggest failings in domestic football were his dealings in the transfer market and inability to assemble or refresh a team. If Martinez was the Scotland boss we'd still see the same problems because of the raw materials at the manager's disposal. The faults in our game run very deep and nobody cares enough to fix them.

It's well worth remembering that Belgium had been in the footballing wilderness since the 70s until quite recently, when they revolutionised their footballing development with a visionary programme. Before that they had been a spent force, like Hungary, and much worse off even than us. Unfortunately, the words "revolutionised" and "visionary programme" are concepts beyond the ken of the blazers and the Scottish footballing establishment. I was particularly disgruntled today listening to Ian Gordon trying to smooth over last night's humiliation: a circling of the wagons around McLeish, the establishment place-man who certainly won't rock the boat too much. Certainly, the genius who decided that playing the third-best team in the world was a good idea just before an important qualifying game, should be "reassigned" to other duties. If the motive was financial then it clearly failed.