Burley's goal keeps Scottish hopes alive

If it weren't for the fact that you'd probably have to give a bookie the deeds on your house to win the price of a pint, you'd start to suspect that each of these teams have a few quid on themselves not to make it to the next stage of the World Cup.

Yesterday each enhanced their reputation as masters of non-qualification - and in the style which we have become accustomed. to. Scotland dominated but were, inevitably, unlucky. Norway, unbeaten in something approaching living memory, appeared once again to have forgotten how to win now that they are playing in the finals.

Both sides, of course, knew that a victory was vital if they were to break their second-phase duck and what resulted was certainly exciting to watch. But pretty? Oh no. If the streets of Marseille offered us a generous helping of the English disease in the preceding days, Lescure Stadium gave us a double-sized dollop of the English game. Each, we have been reminded, needs to be stamped out for the good of the sport.

What football there was here came courtesy of the Scots but Craig Brown's decision to stick with the personnel and positioning that opened their campaign last Wednesday quickly started to look like a miscalculation, even if his side did have comfortably the better of the opening exchanges. Coming away with pride from games with highly polished sides is one thing; coming away with points from scraps against rugged ones something altogether different.

In the circumstances Brown could blame nobody as much as himself when, at the end of the first 20 minutes, his men had not turned their clear-cut superiority into something a little more tangible in terms of the qualification process.

Craig Burley contributed little from the right wing back position, Darren Jackson nothing from behind the strikers while Christian Dailly, Kevin Gallacher and Colin Calderwood were all peripheral figures through the opening half.

Worst of all, Norway, as their manager Egil Olsen admitted afterwards, invited trouble on themselves by defending poorly and too close to their own goal. But unlike the Moroccans, their opponents yesterday were lacking a player with an instinct for how to make them pay.

That changed after the break, but only in the wake of the game's opening goal, which Havard Flo headed home within 40 seconds or so of the start of the second half. The Scots may still have been slightly shell-shocked after the half-time team talk, but whatever the problem they did little more than stand and watch as Vidar Riseth floated a ball in from the right which Flo, having left Dailly somewhere in no man's land, turned home from a yard or two at the far post.

Brown stalled for another 15 minutes before finally bringing on Davie Weir and Jackie McNamara, to reorganise the defence and release Burley into midfield. The effect was immediately obvious, with the Scots regaining control of the centre of the pitch and, with it, the game.

Within eight minutes of the second change, Weir carved a disorganised Norwegian defence apart with a well-weighted through-ball and Burley timed his shot to perfection. Caught, just as he moved forward to narrow the angle, Frode Grodas could do nothing except stand and watch as the ball floated over his head and into the net.

That, Brown conceded after the final whistle, wasn't where it should have ended. "I thought we did enough during the game as a whole, but especially during the closing 20 minutes to take all three points and when you think back on the amount of possession we've had over the course of the two games, to have just one point is deeply disappointing. Still," he added, "we're still there and we'll be fighting to the end."

The remaining battle, though, could have been a good deal more straight-forward. Burley forced a fine stop from Grodas with a quarter of an hour to go while his corner from the left moments earlier had been headed just the wrong side of the post by Dailly. Had either attempt hit the net then Norway would have been more or less assured of their usual fate going into next Tuesday's last round of Group A matches.

Having held out, though, Olsen's men can at least be sure that a win over Brazil will put them through to the second round. That may not be as far-fetched as it sounds for the Scandinavians beat the world champions 4-2 last year, the first time Brazil had been beaten since USA '94. All that's needed now is for Olsen and his men to remember just how it was they did it.