Ian Maxwell has warned the Tartan Army that a change of approach is coming under new Scotland boss Sebastien Pocognoli - and they better get ready for it.
The Hampden chief has taken the bold decision to appoint the 39-year-old Belgian coach as Steve Clarke’s replacement as national team gaffer. Clarke quit on the back of a hugely deflating World Cup campaign, with results in the US prompting fans to demand a move away from the cautious style of play that took us to three tournaments out of four under the 62-year-old - yet failed to deliver once we got there.
Maxwell: Fans must back new boss
After listening to punters’ wishes, Maxwell has now turned to former Union Saint-Gilloise and Monaco boss Pocognoli in the hope his modern thinking can finally fulfil Scotland’s ambition of reaching the knock-out stages at a major finals. But having urged the SFA chief exec to be daring with his search for a new Scotland manager, Maxwell says the fans now have their own role to play as he pleaded with them to get behind the new man in charge.
Asked if he felt the country was ready for the kind of change he was pushing for under Pocognoli, Maxwell declared: “They better be ready for it — because it's coming. We're not going to stop him.
“I think in a lot of aspects, Scottish football needs to modernise itself. We need to think differently about how we do things across a range of areas.
“Some guys have said: ‘Oh, it's a gamble, no international experience’. It doesn't matter. There's no correlation between international experience and success.
“There's no correlation between the age-old: ‘Oh, an international manager has a long, distinguished club career, and then when he gets to an age, he goes and works in international football’.
“The game's not like that anymore. Obviously he’s young, he’s fresh, he's enthusiastic, he's energetic, he's dynamic.
"He's talked a lot about being engaged with the younger age groups and making sure he's around the country and going to games and being a presence.
"He's just got a different outlook, a younger outlook on it. He's come from a club where he had a sporting director.
“They have a specific model in terms of player signings and he wasn't really involved in the signings.
“But he was coaching the players that were given to him, so it's just a different way of doing it.
“Football's evolving. Modern football's very different from the way we deal with it as a country — and we need to we need to kind of drag ourselves forward in that respect.”
Departure from Clarke era
The decision to push on with Pocognoli is an about turn to the philosophical direction Scotland were heading in under Clarke. Yet it comes less than three months since Maxwell decided to hand the former boss an extended four-year deal ahead of the World Cup. Only the dreadful displays at the tournament, which saw the Scots eliminated having managed just a slender 1-0 win over unfancied bottom seeds Haiti, prompted a parting of the ways.
“We are where we are,” said Maxwell. “It doesn’t matter how you get there. Let’s not get too hung up on the whys and the what-ifs.
“It has given us an opportunity to look at things again, and we are really comfortable, really confident with where we've got to.”
Cost and Under-21 role
When Pocognoli moved to Monaco last year, he agreed to a relatively cheap salary of just £130,000 a year. And Maxwell hinted the SFA haven’t had to break the bank either to land the former West Brom and Brighton defender.
He said: “It is a package that we were willing to pay and he was willing to accept. It’s not really about the numbers, it’s just about making sure everything was the right fit.”
As well as hiring a new national team gaffer, Maxwell and chief football officer Craig Mulholland have also been busying looking through candidates for the vacant Under-21 post, with former Rangers caretaker Graeme Murty understood to be the leading contender.
And Maxwell says Pocognoli is keen to have an input on that appointment too.
He said: “Yeah, we're getting there. We've had a few conversations over the last couple of days to try and get things sorted. We'll get there as soon as we can with that.
“It has been a really busy period. Seb has been bombarding us with questions about this one, that one and the next one in terms of the players.
“Which is brilliant. He’s so enthusiastic about it all. This is a big move for him as well. He’s young and he wants to do well.
“He has his own style of play. I think a lot of the players are used to playing that way any way for their club sides and adapting to different formations and systems.
“In terms of him having an influence in that side, there will certainly be a conversation as to who we select and why.
“They are more association appointments to be fair. Again, that’s something we haven’t done well enough as a country.
“I think managers in Scotland are too involved in all those things that happen further down the club.
“It should be the club or the association that sets the strategy. The head coach comes in and does the job of a head coach.”
