A steady if not spectacular start.
That’s most likely how new Scotland boss Sebastien Pocognoli will regard the start of his tenure, after a low-key goalless draw away at Slovenia in their Nations League opener.
The Scots shaded the contest but a much-welcomed clean sheet is a solid enough base to start from for Pocognoli.
Former Middlesbrough striker Andraz Sporar thought he had fired the hosts into an early lead only for the offside flag to be raised after a run was made too early in the build-up.
Sporar was then involved in another incident in the first half, as he failed to get enough contact on a ball just a few yards out and poked it wide of goal.
Robbie Ure was on debut for Scotland and he almost capped off a dream maiden start when he cut inside and drilled an effort against the right-hand post right at the end of the first half.
After a sluggish first 45 minutes Scotland were much-improved after the break and Oli McBurnie – making his first appearance for his country in five years – fluffed a glorious chance when put through on goal only to be outfoxed by Jan Oblak who rushed out of his net and smothered at the feet of the Hull City man.
Aaron Hickey headed wide from a corner whilst Kieron Bowie drew a good save from Oblak as the visitors pushed late on. Bowie then missed an even better chance as he was put clean through only to slot wide of goal with Oblak, to his credit, rushing out in a move that potentially put off his opposite number.
Pocognoli reflected afterwards: “I think we had two games in the same game, but you can analyse in a positive way both of them.
“First half, was not what we expected in terms of structure, we were in between for the press, actually we were a little bit surprised about the formation of Slovenia, but at half-time we fixed this and you can see that the second half was much better.
“We produced what we wanted to show every minute, but first half we learned to stick together, to defend the box, to be resilient and to be patient to change the game.
“We were also challenging about set-pieces, after five minutes we had many set-pieces to defend in, so that’s the positive way to look at the first half, it was not always positive, but in the second half we had a game on the ball against a low block.
“So we had a lot of good movement through the side, through the lines and we should have scored to be honest, but the counter-press was good, the high [line] of the defence was good, just because the position of the players was better. We got a clean sheet, that’s also positive, but we want to win, but I think we can take this positively.”
Scotland welcome Switzerland to Hampden Park on Tuesday night for Pocognoli’s first home game in charge.
