When members of a team’s coaching staff, or even sometimes the players, express their devastation at a disappointing result, the sentiment can often ring hollow in the ears of supporters.
For all the problems with and failures of Scotland’s European Championship campaign though, not caring sufficiently is a charge that cannot be laid at the door of the squad or the backroom team.
Anyone who spoke to John Carver this week ahead of the Nations League tie on Thursday night against Poland could testify to that. There is the hope of turning over a new leaf this week, but the coals of the recent past are still being raked over.
The Scotland assistant manager is still visibly smarting from what turned out to be a bruising experience in Germany, and he went as far as to say that it was the lowest moment of his long life in football. And there have been some lows, alright.
Carver said: “I've got to be honest, in my career - bear in mind I've lost my job at Newcastle twice, Leeds, Sheffield United - wherever I've been this was the biggest disappointment, because I had so much excitement going into the tournament on what we had with the players and the staff and how we prepared.
“It was devastating, and I found it really difficult to recover.
“Even going on holiday, it was still in my thoughts and believe it or not, it started changing when we actually arrived [back here] watching games. When I came up to Scotland, you start forgetting about it.
“I know it's different for players because they have a short holiday, they go back to clubs and prepare for their seasons, but for me it's been very, very difficult and getting out there [on Monday], although there was only eight players, was like a breath of fresh air and I got my spark back, if you can say that.
“I was down, I was as low as anybody, disappointed.”
Carver, of course, isn’t Scottish, but as evidence of where his loyalties now lie, he couldn’t muster a scintilla of interest in England’s run to the final, or much else of the rest of the tournament at all for that matter.
“I found it extremely difficult, really difficult watching the games,” he said.
“Bear in mind how far England went in it. I wasn't interested. I've got to be honest, I wasn't.
“I watched the final, I watched it on holiday, but I wasn't interested, really wasn't. Because I wanted to be in that next part of the tournament, and we weren’t.”
What sickened the Tartan Army more after the rather meek exit of the Scots was watching similarly sized countries attacking the tournament with real gusto.
Even the likes of Georgia, who Scotland finished well clear of in their qualifying section, put up a better showing than Steve Clarke’s side. They approached games on the front foot, gave their supporters some real moments to remember and eventually exited the competition as national heroes at the knockout stage.
That wasn’t lost on Carver either, who admitted that being outperformed by such teams made Scotland’s showings all the more galling.
“I think it did,” he said.
“The fact that they were in our group, along with Norway, which was an extremely tough group as we know.”
Carver’s explanation for it though is one that the Tartan Army has heard before, with the lack of a ‘Gareth Bale’ a lamentation straight from the Gordon Strachan canon of Scotland post-mortems.
“If you look at, with all due respect, what Georgia had, they had two outstanding attack minded players,” he said.
“I remember going back years when Gareth Bale was coming through the system, and he got into Tottenham's team. Gareth Bale was winning games on his own, playing for Tottenham Hotspur. Bale, like these two guys, were outstanding.
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“They were very well organised Georgia, as you know, but these two guys in particular were two top - and I'm not going to try and pronounce their names [Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Georges Mikautadze] - but they were two top individuals, and they showed that in the games.
“All the good teams have got them and need them, but we have to do the best with what we've got. There's no papering over there, you have to just get on with it, which is why I think I'm right to say that the SFA are looking into the future of young players coming through and how they're trying to adjust it.
“I haven't seen the report, but I've heard the news, and I think it's the only way forward. I've been up for two or three weeks now watching the games and there’s not many Scottish guys playing in the games, which I find absolutely staggering.
“So, we have to find a way of getting young players to come through. I know there's pressures on managers to play and stay in the division, I get that, but we have to find a way of these young players being allowed to develop and flourish.”
Scotland fans may argue though that we do now have such players, or certainly a core group playing at the highest level, that we failed to get the most out of in the summer.
John McGinn, for example, so often the hero for his country, was nowhere near his best. And Carver believes fatigue may have played a part.
“Maybe it's because John had an awfully long season,” he said.
“You think about. Villa got to the last stages of the European competition, and I've been involved with Newcastle on a number of occasions, and I'll give you a great example.
“We got to the quarter finals against Benfica, funnily enough, in Lisbon, in the quarter-finals of the Europa League. We played something like an extra 12 to 14 games to get to that stage. We almost got relegated from the Premier League because the amount of football these players were playing.
“I think John is 100mph every game, he gives everything, and very rarely were Villa bringing him off. Maybe he just had a long, hard season. Maybe that was one of the reasons. I don't know, but that's just what I'm seeing with my eyes.
“But it wasn't just John, it was every one of us, the whole lot of us, were disappointing. And we’re disappointed.”
