ThewolfDefender absolved of blame as warm Hampden welcome leaves new boss ‘a little bid sad’
Sebastien Pocognoli reflected on a “deeply frustrating” night as his Hampden debut as manager was ruined by an early red card and clinical Swiss finishing.
Murat Yakin’s talented Switzerland side ran out 3-0 winners in the Nations League group B1 fixture, with the opener scored from a free kick conceded after Jack Hendry felled Dan Ndoye when the Nottingham Forest player was straight though on goal.
The centre-half was originally yellow carded though referee Nenad Minakovic also awarded a penalty. The Serb was informed that Hendry’s offence was outside the box following a VAR check. He gave a free kick instead, upgrading the defender’s booking to a red in the process.
Ricardo Rodriguez added to Scotland’s woes by scoring directly from the free-kick. Nico Elvedi and Zeki Amdouni added second-half goals.
Pocognoli accentuated the positives, focusing on Scotland’s reaction to going down to ten men after just 11 minutes. He hoped that enduring such challenging circumstances might help in the long run. He absolved Hendry of blame though the Belgian was unhappy with Scotland losing possession so high up the pitch in the run-up to the opening goal.
“The red card of Jack is all of our red card,” said Pocognoli. “We stay together. We put this moment in our DNA today and hopefully it can be helpful for the future.
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“We started quite aggressively and on the front foot. After eight minutes, the game-plan had to be put to the side. I wanted to see if the team reacted well or not with 10 men and they did their best. They had a great attitude to stick together, trying to have a moment in transition or with a set piece. It never happened because Switzerland is a good side and they did not give anything away.
“I watched the attitude of the player,” he added. “I wanted to see if anyone dropped and that did not happen. I have nothing bad to say about the team. They did their best. They had a great attitude to stick together. With 10 men, naturally given the quality of Switzerland we were more about defending. The effort with one man less, the way that they communicated, fought and tried to close the passing down. They shifted the line defensively. They were resilient in that moment and hopefully it can help us to be stronger.”
Scotland don’t have long to wait to try to put things right. They face North Macedonia on Saturday night having gone four successive games without scoring for the first time since 1971. They then return to Hampden next Tuesday night for a clash against Slovenia, who held Pocognoli’s side to a 0-0 draw in his first match in charge last weekend.
“It is important to have a result to give a boost to the staff, not only for me but all the people who work so hard and so well,” he said. “Also for the players. We had a good second half in Slovenia and eight minutes we can analyse here with some good moments but we need a good performance in Macedonia and the result is important.”
Asked to reflect on his debut match at Hampden, he stressed it was difficult to dwell too much on the emotional aspect given the way the game panned out. His national stadium bow quickly became a salvage job.
“I had a warm welcome and that made me a little bit sad because we wanted to give something back and we could not,” he said. “You want to give something to analyse, some direction about where we want to go and we didn’t have the chance to show that so that frustrates me.”
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