Andy's Sting In The Tale (28/11/25) "Struggling In Europe"
- Andy Smith
- Nov 28
- 8 min read
Well done Celtic for a good away win at troubled Feyenoord but no pass marks for Rangers or Aberdeen.
Maybe our worst European season ever and the bad news is our coefficient is tumbling the wrong way and damage to our game as a whole is inevitable.
One harsh reality is our league may forever struggle to get any team into the Champions League and that will affect our top league.
Our ‘mercenaries’ are not working for our game.
This week Celtic fielded 4 Scots in their starting 11, Rangers just 1 and Aberdeen 4.
So our top clubs are buying in talent, paying good money and the players are not delivering.
What is happening to our player conveyor belt, I hear you think.
It's been buggered for years.
I’m of an age that watched and cheered on Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen and Dundee United teams full of young Scots who were indeed good enough at home and in Europe and at the very top.
I get that football’s biggest problem is that games come up and fly by thick and fast. A relentless hurricane of micro issues and needs for our clubs and administrators deal with the todays .
They never seem to have the time or the wherewithal’s to deal with the real tomorrows.
Scottish football really needs to deal with the real tomorrows and the answer is not more ‘mercenaries’.
This Week’s Sting
1. More Equal than Others
2. More Equal Than Others
3. 2 Venues North of the Wall for Now
4. United Sign Pele’s Nephew
5. Clear Out Complete, for Now
6. £15 or £85 for Your Replica Shirt
1. Friends in High Places
Puir wee Ronaldo was said to be a sad wee soul after he got sent off for ‘violent conduct’ in the defeat by Ireland and had an automatic 3 match ban that would carry into the World Cup in the land of the free.
After 226 internationals this was his first red card, probably because his various ‘simulations’ over the years were never deemed anything other than just the man trying to win.
But when you are deemed as an ‘A lister’ by Fifa alongside Snr Messi and when you have friends in very high places then you get looked after.
Things like first being flown in to the White House to have dinner with King Donald, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Gianni Infantino and their billionaire friends.
And then surprise, surprise out of the ether, Fifa quoting Article 27 pontificate.
“Ronaldo will serve a one match ban and then the next two will be ‘suspended’ under a 1 year Probationary Period”.
How do you explain stuff like this to kids?
2. Over Seeded Nonsense
Less than 200 days to go in the World Cup countdown.
‘Sting’ will be on suspenders and on line late next Friday till sometime after the draw from The Kennedy Center, A Performing Arts Venue in Wintry Washington.
King Donald awarded them the prestigious gig and there is seemingly a political stooshie over there about who is doing who any favors and whether it is just some ‘Good Ol’ Backscratching’ King Donald style.
(It's almost certainly all about favors and never mentioned reciprocals).
The World Cup Draw is already a bollocks.
Our known knowns are:
It will happen on Friday and be uber controlled.
We’re in pot three and so far only six countries in the mix are below us in the Fifa World Rankings so we will be rabbits and could conceivably be in a pool with three higher ranked nations, and I’d bet on that.
Friday’s draw is not for venues – that gets finagled/fixed by those wonderful people at Fifa in the 24 hours after the draw has been made.
The coefficient-overdriven seeding has exceeded anything ever done before to keep the top 4 seeds apart till the semis.
Outbloodyrageous.
Next Friday’s ‘Special’ Award
It would be remiss of me not to tell you about a very special award that football’s very own Gianni Infantino will announce as part of his presentation.
Next Friday December 5th , sees the inaugural “Fifa Peace Prize”.
(Mr Infantino made friends with the Donald back in Davos in 2020).
You may also not know it but Gianni has been in the Oval Office more in King Donald’s second term than any head of state including the more deserving Zelensky and last week at The American Business Forum in Florida said, “Mr Trump is a man who says what others think. I don’t understand the negative comments”.
A Prediction from Andy
And the winner of Fifa’s Worldwide Inaugural Peace Prize is.....
Donald Trump
Cue “Canned audience cheering and general mayhem from a genuinely ‘surprised’ watching world.
And maybe if he can winkle Gazprom back into the frame as generous ‘sponsors’ after he and King Donald have really screwed these ‘Ukrainian Nazis’ and stolen as much land as possible, just maybe next year we can head east and have a joint award to Netanyahu and Putin.
Just maybe.
3. 2035 Women’s World Cup Heading Our Way?
You have to play the game(s) to play the game(s).
Without an intense training course or three, I’d be rubbish in dealing with both Fifa and Uefa because I’d demand honesty, fairness, transparency and long term thinking.
But fair play to whoever in the UK, I’d guess The FA, has got the UK bid in the frame for the Fifa Women’s World Cup in 2035.
There are currently 22 venues on the initial plan which will be cut back to 16 and for now include Easter Road and Hampden.
I also think behind the scenes that we’re getting better as a nation at understanding the politics and playing the right game to get them to work for us.
So credit where it is due and keep me away from the politics of World Football.
4. Pele Will Be Proud
From Elgin to Old Trafford with Derby, Aberdeen, Peterhead, and Alloa in between.
I must have seen Kyle Macaulay make his unremarkable debut for Aberdeen against Hearts at Tynie 20 years ago.
His Uncle Steve Paterson had signed him but his real strength wasn’t with the ball but with player data analysis and a growing network of people who know and trust him.
Kyle Macaulay is said to be Old Trafford bound to become their Head of Scouting and you know how good he is because he would be welcomed back to Ostersunds FK, Swansea, Brighton, Chelsea and even West Ham where he is just leaving.
The days of big Malcolm, Ron, and dare I say Jock valuing players by the size and scale of the expected ‘bung’ are long gone and the real skill nowadays is not the capturing of data, but the knowing what to do with it.
I bet Steve Clarke knows this guy.
5. Do They Know What They’re Doing?
A chant heading for Govan?
This week saw the very sudden departure of CEO Patrick Stewart and Sporting Director Kevin Thelwell without the club having replacements lined up.
We can all see that there is a scenario of a majority, just, new ownership who have a sporting pyramid and plan where Rangers is probably not their primary focus.
So far the fans have not been impressed and are by nature vociferous.
The real issue may simply be that the current and planned business model doesn’t work.
We all know that the fans feel let down are wary and won’t ever take being treated as second strings by anyone.
Trouble ahead.
6. What Would I Do?
Thanks to the BBC and their scam week for a snippet about criminality and football tops, and I don’t mean criminal design.
I think pricing of replica tops has been criminal for a long time.
I get that football is a business and that clubs want to make a margin on merchandise.
But when it’s £85 for a legit shirt and £15 for an identical replica possibly made in the same factory, then I personally have a tough but easy choice.
The Beeb rightly tell us that there is often criminality behind the fake tops.
But for many there is also the profiteering behind the current high street pricing where tops that cost less than $10 to make get sold for 10 times that.
And clubs change them too often anyway.
Sting Is
A weekly blog that springs from the ether and tries to see beyond the gossip that fills most sporting news.
Always plenty to write about too.
Made easy because football sometimes forgets that fans are its core stakeholders.
It’s not badness, it’s just the rut the game has slid into over the years.
The Scottish Football Union of which I am proud to be chair, is a fast growing band of fans whose voice is already making a difference because collectively we see the bigger picture.
The game needs us more than it ever realised and we are making a difference.
But we need your voice too.
Please Join Us, We are a broad church, our mantra is what fans think and membership will always be free.
And as always feel free to write to me about anything in football or beyond.
Andy’s Album of the Week
Various: Woodstock
Music from the Chaos
In a ‘Thanksgiving’, week when America is the focus of the world politically and for the football draw next Friday, I have bathed in the warmth and nostalgia of my first ever triple vinyl album. A collection that cost me a fortune back in the day (3 weeks full time summer dishwasher wages at the local Wimpy bar).
I’d seen the film, twice that Spring and it introduced young Andy to a new world and a wide variety of music I’d never heard before.
Music that wasn’t much available then on Radio 1.
Stuff like:
Country Joe Macdonald’s ‘Fixin to die rag’ which is still raw as an anti-war anthem and I’d never even heard of him.
Arlo Guthrie’s ‘Coming into Los Angeles’, (Bringing in a couple of Keys, I had to be told what ‘Keys’ were)
But that song led me to his Alices Restaurant Album and the wonderful off beat film.
Joan Baez, her stark politics, and her version of Gram Parsons and Roger McGuinn’s ‘Drug store truck driving man’. That got me into both Dylan, and Gram Parsons man who died far too young.
Crosby Stills and Nash introduction to the crowd, by, I think David Crosby, who said, from my memory,
“This is our second gig. This is the second time we’ve played in front of people, man, and we’re scared shitless’.
The Who with now deaf, Daltrey an unbelievable front man and whose manager Kit Lambert had wisely refused to let them go on stage till they were paid up front.
Santana who apart from the most boring drum solo in the world shine a light on early fusion of jazz, salsa, rock and amazing guitar and gave me a lifetime of pleasure.
The whole Woodstock festival was/is a complex mix of classic American contradictions.
It wasn’t actually held in Woodstock but at Bethel some 60 miles south west of the original planned site.
(Many tourists still visit Woodstock and ask where Yasgur’s Farm is even today, including me)!
Woodstock was a national disaster when too many people turned up and the infrastructure was unable to cope.
It had to become a ‘Free Festival’ to avoid real crowd issues.
There were 2 births and 2 deaths including one unfortunate called Raymond Misza who got run over by a tractor while he slept.
And the farmer, Max Yasgur, only got $10,000, not even enough to repair his fields.
The festival also lost $1.3 Million at the time but retrospectively got bailed out by the film and recording rights.
hence the three weeks wages for the triple album.
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