In the days leading up to Sebastien Pocognoli’s Hampden bow last night, the new boss spoke at great length regarding the myriad emotions he was expecting to feel on the touchline.
Excitement, anxiety, pride. You get the general idea.
It took all of about 10 minutes for those feelings to be replaced by one sadly all too familiar with every single member of the Tartan Army.
What’s Belgian for ‘ragin’?
Pocognoli certainly looked it as Jack Hendry trudged past him shortly after being given his marching orders for a clumsy last-man foul on Dan Ndoye on the edge of the area as the Nottingham Forest hitman was set to pull the trigger. In truth, clumsy is putting it kindly.
There was an air of inevitability when Ricardo Rodriguez sized things up from 20 yards. The veteran — and Torino team-mate of Nathan Patterson — duly obliged to stick it in the far corner.
Jack Hendry brings down Swiss forward Dan Ndoye as he races through on goal
Picking up a result was always going to be tall order against a side that went toe to toe with Argentina in the World Cup quarter-finals not too long ago. Doing it a goal and a man down? Aye, right.
There has been a lot of talk of late regarding Scotland’s decades-long search for a penalty box predator. But as was the case in the good ol’ US of A over the summer, this awful habit of cocking up at the other end is every bit as much of a problem for Pocognoli to contend with.
It cost us against Morocco. And Brazil. And now Switzerland.
Lapses in concentration kill Scotland time and time again, particularly against top-quality opposition. Hendry was skinned by Ndoye initially, and never had a hope in hell of making up for it.
He wasn’t the only one to blame, mind you. They guys in front of him were torn apart with alarming ease in the build-up before Hendry’s intervention. Calamitous all round.
The defender is shown red after a VAR check confirmed the foul began outside the box
The funny thing is, this didn’t turn into a defensive horror show by any stretch. In fact, Pocognoli’s men stood up well to the task facing them. There’s only so much they could have been expected to do against the world’s 14th-ranked nation.
Debutant Luis Binks put in a couple of crunching early challenges to settle any nerves he may have been feeling, and he did OK for the most part.
Although that perhaps shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise considering that he is a regular at Brondby. He barely missed a game for Coventry or Como before moving to Denmark either.
That being said, he might just regret not doing a little more to stop Ndoye firing in a low ball from the right-hand side which was finished off by Nico Elvedi 10 minutes after the restart. But it’s hard to be too critical of his overall display given the circumstances.
We may only be a couple of games into Pocognoli’s reign, but one thing is crystal clear: he isn’t going to accept any passengers in his side. Everyone will be expected to put in a shift.
Ricardo Rodriguez curls home the resulting free-kick to seal a nightmare start for the Scots
And to their credit, every one of them did. You suspect it would have been a far more intriguing watch with 11 v 11.
It would have been nice to see more of Billy Gilmour playing on the front foot too. The Napoli midfielder was the standout performer in Slovenia on Saturday, and the omens were good early on here for a repeat performance.
His delightful turn on halfway seven minutes in took two Swiss players out the game completely as he released Kieron Bowie down the line in what was the only glimpse we got of the Sassuolo forward before he was sacrificed following Hendry’s dismissal.
Not the way he would have envisaged his first start for his country playing out.
Gilmour’s nimble feet to evade a tackle on 20 minutes created the opportunity for skipper Andy Robertson — earning his 99th cap — to scamper down the left. His dangerous ball was cut out at the near post.
Pocognoli can barely watch as his home debut as manager goes up in smoke
Pocognoli hinted this week that he would like to see the diminutive midfielder play further up the pitch. It’s an exciting prospect. Unfortunately, he didn’t get much of a chance last night.
Nor did we see what the partnership of Oli McBurnie and Bowie could do. For what it’s worth, the former led the line well. There were no glimpses of goal to speak of, but his link-up play was decent and wasn’t afraid to put himself about. There was just nothing in the way of support.
Pocognoli — booked in the first half for dissent — is going to need time to get his ideas across. However, this defeat had nothing to do with any sort of fancy new system or tactical setup. It was simply a case of the better team taking full advantage of the gift placed right on their lap.
If his full complement of players can stay on the pitch against North Macedonia and Slovenia next week, there’s every reason to think a six-point haul is possible.
