Fitba Hell

Back in the mid-1980s, Aberdeen and Everton won the European Cup Winners' Cup within two years of each other. Both teams had a period where they could justifably lay claim to being the best side in Europe: Aberdeen beat then-European champions Hamburg in December 1983 to win the Super Cup; a superb Everton side won the English league twice in two years, but were denied the chance to lift the European Cup in the aftermath of the Heysel disaster.

A few weeks ago, Aberdeen were hammered 8-1 on aggregate by Sigma Olomouc, the heaviest European defeat for a Scottish side in nearly 50 years. Earlier this week, Everton swatted aside the same Czech outfit 4-0 - and that on the back of their 6-1 thrashing by Arsenal days earlier. On Saturday, their threadbare squad stretched to the limit, Aberdeen gave a debut to 16-year-old Fraser Fyvie, the youngest player to play for the first team in the club's 106-year history. Everton, meanwhile, are expecting to rake in £22million from Manchester City for a middle-of-the-road central defender, Joleon Lescott. The chasm in resources between English and Scottish football has reached unprecedented proportions.

Part of the appeal of football is that, because of the low-scoring, just about any side can beat any other side with the right combination of organisation, guts and luck. But the charm of the underdog is fast fading into memory. An ever-smaller number of clubs is dominating European football; an ever-smaller number of clubs is dominating football in England, home to the world's richest league. The sheer spending power of the bigger teams is eliminating the unpredictability of football, one of its biggest assets. The biggest clubs, of course, want to rule out any chance of smaller teams preventing them from gorging on the wealth of the Champions' League by cutting ties with the small fry and forming a European league. The day that happens is the day the lights go out.

Barry Ferguson comes out before a crucial Scotland game and whinges about the way the SFA made him persona non grata. A few days earlier, Darren Fletcher had said representing Scotland at the World Cup would surpass anything he's achieved with Manchester United. Fletcher's reverence for the World Cup reveals an intelligent mind and an understanding of football history. Ferguson, in stark contrast, always found it far easier to get motivated about Scottish football's domestic baubles; playing for Scotland often looked a chore for him.

International football is frequently run down these days, but it's at the World Cup that indelible reputations are made. Salvatore 'Toto' Schillaci's name is fresh in the memory of anyone who had even a passing interest in Italia '90, like my wife or my mum, to whom more talented Italian strikers of the 1990s such as Enrico Chiesa, Pierluigi Casiraghi and Guiseppe Signori are unkowns. It's at the World Cup that the greatest - Maradona, Pele, Cruyff - rubberstamp their talent before the watching world. But overachieving journeymen can leave legacies, too. Who'd have thought a diminutive, balding Scot would score one of the best World Cup goals of all time? How many people would remember Archie Gemmill if he hadn't?

Decades from now, when Ferguson is forgotten, the exploits of Schillaci and Gemmill will still be revered. Missed your chance, Barry.

Even some of the more sensible media pundits - Richard Gordon, for one - have been getting stuck into George Burley. It's all just a bit too easy, and a bit of historical perspective is required.

A few decades ago, Norway and the Netherlands were footballing backwaters. Norway have been at least on a par with us for a long time, and the Netherlands long ago left us in their slipstream, Archie Gemmil notwithstanding.

There was a lack of foresight shown about the development of the Scottish game, back when Burley was still in short troosers. This is the country that only sent 13 players to the 1954 World Cup when we were allowed to take 22, because the powers-at-be didn't think it was worth putting up a full squad; we lost 7-0 Uruguay. The country that only recently has realised that putting skinny wee boys out to play on full-size pitches might not be the best idea, that the Dutch were onto something with their small-sided matches and focus on youngsters' skills over winning trophies.

Burley might have done a better job, but we should be looking to the history books for the root cause of Wednesday's humiliation.

So Real Madrid have bought Xabi Alonso for a mere £30million, the latest blow in their tit-for-tat with Manchester City to see who can spend the most grotesque amount of money this summer. It's like watching rival pantomime dames stuff their bras with ever more ludicrous amounts of tissue.

Football's big boys may blithely carry on paying no heed to the world around them, but the economic realities we're all dealing with are going to hit them sooner or later.