Scotland encouraged despite Spanish lesson

11 April 2012

Gary Caldwell insists Scotland can take nothing but encouragement from their comprehensive 3-1 defeat by Spain in the Rico Perez stadium in Alicante last night which brought an emphatic end to their Euro 2012 hopes.

The Scots needed an unlikely win against the world and European champions in their last Group I fixture to guarantee them a play-off spot or at least match Czech Republic's result in Lithuania, but a first-half double from David Silva brought a sober reality to the Scots' task.

David Villa notched a third in the 54th minute before Scotland substitute David Goodwillie, on for Charlie Adam, scored a consolation from the spot after Spanish keeper Victor Valdes had fouled Craig Mackail-Smith.

And with the Czechs winning in Lithuania, it was all over for the Scots who have not made the finals of a major tournament since the 1998 World Cup in France.

However, Wigan defender Caldwell believes there were positives to take from the game which will stand them in good stead for the World Cup qualifying campaign which starts next year.

"Some of the football they played was exceptional," he said. "It was very difficult to deal with.

"But nights like last night are encouraging, we were up against the best team in the world and many teams would have folded but we never did and that was very encouraging.

"We showed we can compete and we are going to be playing lesser teams in the next competition and hopefully we will do a bit better. Craig Levein was a new manager at the start of the campaign and he had to find out things about the players and what formation he was going to play and we have got to a level now where the manager knows he can go forward and we can be successful."

The Scotland boss insists he was hamstrung in this campaign because he was still trying to assemble his squad in its early stages.

"I am disappointed that we didn't take any points but the harsh reality is that Spain were better," said Levein.

"It doesn't get much harder than playing the European and world champions at their ground. But I feel we have improved and if we had three or four games before we started the campaign we could have got a better start.

"But I didn't know my best team then. It has taken me over a year to feel we have a strong squad. The campaign started slowly as we tried to establish who were our best players, trying to pull it all together but the second part was better. We missed out this time but we are determined not to miss out the next time.

"For the World Cup we will start from a better position, with a solid base.

"We have a fair idea who our best players and we are looking to increase our pool of players. So I have a great deal of confidence and look forward to the World Cup qualifiers. We will use everything we have learned in the last eight games for them."

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