Alex McLeish has strenuously denied suggestions that Scotland are playing without confidence in an inspirational press conference punctuated by bursts of sobbing and wheezing.
In a bruising week, Scotland lost to Israel in the UEFA Nations League before being outplayed by Portugal in a friendly, but a bullish McLeish showed no signs of losing faith in his team, except for occasional wails of dismay and lengthy nose-blowing sessions between questions from the press.
“There are a lot of positives to take from our performances,” McLeish told FourFourTwo, biting his lip hard, eyes oddly watery.
“The mood in the camp is [sighs loudly], completely [sighs loudly] fine and nobody stayed up until the early hours of yesterday morning trying to work out if they had a grandparent from somewhere else, anywhere else.
“The first question the lads asked after the Portugal game was, ‘When is the next game?’ When I said it was Albania away, the next question they asked was, ‘When is the next game after that?’
“After that they started consulting their diaries and found a surprisingly large number of prior engagements on those dates, but we’re dying to get back out there and to play [sighs loudly, sniffs a little, wipes eyes] more games.”
Bless you
McLeish then proceeded to blow his nose heartily, a process that lasted nearly six minutes, exhausted an entire box of tissues but ultimately didn’t seem to have any great effect on the manager’s nasal passage.
“I mean, obviously we wouldn’t be devastated if the Albania game was postponed or abandoned,” the Big Eck clarified.
“Nobody really genuinely likes international football, do they? Or any kind of football for that matter.
“Oh, God, I’ve wasted my life. I’m a fraud. I’ve spent decades making no appreciable impact on the fortunes of average football teams.
“I’m no[t] even that big. I’m just about over average height. I shouldn’t even be called the Big Eck; more like the Medium-Sized Eck or the Proportionate Eck.”
McLeish then proceeded, between long, snotty sniffs, to hypothesise about a number of alternative professions he may have been better served taking up, concluding that snooker club bouncer was the vocation that slipped away.
“So, to conclude, we’re all confident we’ll start getting the results we deserve if we keep working at it,” McLeish concluded, with his face more wrinkled and puffy than usual; cheeks mottled and wet with tears.
Please note: This story is satirical. Obviously.
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