Since all great conquests have to start somewhere

Although I suppose this actually started back on the copy desk of a newspaper in Northern Illinois, but we'll gloss over that.

I've had a little more time today than I planned to rehash the USMNT performance against Colombia on Tuesday. Verdict: still not impressed. The complacency on display was astounding but that's about it. The only individual performance I could praise was that of Eric Lichaj, the young Villa reserve. He seemed the only player with a concept of width and how to exploit it, a pretty good first appearance for the 21 year old.

As for the rest, fuck-all nothing. Bob, I get the whole "experiment" concept, but you drew 2-2 against an underwhelming Poland in Chicago at the weekend, you owed your fans some kind of performance in Philly, and instead they got 90 minutes of Jones and Bradley trying to decide who was going to occupy the exact same single square yard of the pitch. It was awful to watch, like watching a fly struggle in vain, oblivious to the concept of a window screen. Bad bad football made worse by John Harkes ramblings.

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And then there was Scotland. That was a real kick in the nuts. Down 2-0 to Villa and Iniesta (and really, how does one complain about that?), fight back to 2-2 only to have Stephen McManus make Misjudgment on Ball: Mid-flight v.143.1.6 and allow Llorente to nip in at the back post for his sixth international goal, with what I believe was his first touch after coming off the bench. Do I think McGregor could've made a better (any) effort to claim the ball? Yeah, but he'd put in an exceptional performance to that point. No complaints for the keeper; plenty for a back four who looked shaky all night despite getting loads of cover from the midfield.

It's incredible to me how less organized the Scottish NT look compared to Rangers in matches of a similar stature. Walter's teams sit in drilled formation with rarely more than five yards depth between the players in a given bank. Levein's side still looked disjointed at times. The performance on its own was nothing to worry about: coming back from 2-0 down to level the reigning world and European champs is no small feat. When the other three results of this campaign are taken into consideration it just looked more of the same.

But this is a man with a larger vision for Scottish football, and another knee-jerk reaction by the pundits and fans alike will do us no good. Levein needs time--He's not George Burley, and for that we should be thankful--and I've got belief that if he's allowed to work with the younger talent that's coming through that the results will follow. At least we know Chris Maguire has a scorer's touch. Now all we need is ten more to go with him.