Levein eyes lessons for World Cup bid

Scotland boss Craig Levein has urged his players to learn from their Euro 2012 failure and build towards qualifying for the 2014 World Cup.

Scotland narrowly missed out on a playoff spot after a 3-1 loss to world and European champions Spain on Tuesday consigned them to third in Group I behind their opponents and the Czech Republic.

Scotland needed only to match the Czech Republic’s result in Lithuania in the last round of Euro 2012 qualifiers to assure a playoff spot, but a David Silva double for Spain paired with the Czech Republic’s 4-1 victory in Kaunas put an end to those hopes.

Levein, however, refused to be downcast, despite seeing Scotland extend their absence from the finals of a major tournament to at least 16 years by the time of the 2014 World Cup.

“The result is disappointing. We don’t like to lose but as I said to the players after the game, this is as hard as it gets,” Levein said.

“To come to the home of the European and world champions, play them in their own backyard, is an extremely difficult thing to do.”

“We knew we had to be at the top of our game and they maybe would come down 10 or 15 per cent – well, unfortunately for us they played pretty close to maximum tonight. When they are like that they are very difficult to play against.”

“I have to give credit to our guys though, they stuck at it in the second half and on another night could have had three or four goals.”

Levein stuck steadfastly to his 4-5-1 formation until Scotland found themselves three goals down early in the second half, at which point he switched to a 4-4-2 following the introduction of Blackburn Rovers striker David Goodwillie – who scored a penalty with his first touch.

But the manager batted away any suggestion that he could have employed a more attacking strategy from the start.

“It is easy to say that in hindsight,” said Levein. “I made the changes because we had nothing to lose.”

“We set out in a pattern that we have played in and played well recently and it is something that I’ll stick by.”

“It is good to know that if we need to change the game then we can put two strikers on.”

“But we learn every game. I believe we’re improving all the time, including in this game, where I thought we did some things exceptionally well. There are some greatly encouraging signs to come out of this for me.”