Dailly sees beyond the wounds of friendly fire

The Faroe Islands were once a Danish protectorate, though their robust collection of fishermen who double as footballers hardly look in need of a minder.

The same could not be said of Scotland right now. Berti Vogts' boys took such a pummelling last Wednesday night at Hampden, that, to use the old Bill Shankly cliché, they were "lucky to get nil" from the 1-0 friendly defeat at the hands of the Danes.

As a final warm-up game before the European Championship qualifying campaign, there could hardly have been a less auspicious occasion. Next up, it's the Faroes, in an outcrop called Torshavn, on 7 September.

The Danish streak runs right through Faroes football. They played their first-ever international on Danish soil – when they famously defeated Austria in a European Championship match in 1990 – and their current manager, Henrik Larsen, was in the Denmark side who became European Champions in 1992.

Barely had the dust settled on the lesson dished out in Glasgow by Larsen's former team-mate, Morten Olsen, the Danish coach, than the prospect of big brother showing little brother the ropes became an alarming thought for Vogts. "I'm not worried," insisted the embattled coach, after a fifth successive defeat saw him enter the record books for being in charge of the worst run in Scotland's 130 years of playing internationals.

"We were poor but I have a week together with my players to get things right. I think we will play better in the Faroes – however, we need to get three points."

Vogts has used more than 30 players in his short spell, but more importantly now seems to have used up his goodwill. The jeers cascaded around Hampden as the Danes toyed with Scotland.

The perennial problem of goalscoring is haunting the new manager, just as it did his predecessors. However, even Craig Brown and Andy Roxburgh were never so starved for choice that they had to use a Sunderland reserve (Kevin Kyle) and a Dundee United forward (Steven Thompson) who is not even top marksman at his own club.

Coincidentally, it was a former Tannadice player who could boast more Scotland goals than anyone else on the pitch on Wednesday. Christian Dailly, however, is a defender and slightly embarrassed that his three international goals carry such weight. "We had to go back to the drawing board when the new manager took over," said the West Ham player. "There are a lot of young lads and some new faces coming in, so it's not going to gel overnight.

"We're trying to rebuild. I think the Danish team were a good side – they're not ranked 12th in the world for nothing. We battled so hard just to keep them out. For us to get up to that level, we have a lot of work to do."

Perhaps Vogts might have chosen a less gruelling introduction to his Scotland era than to play five teams – France, Nigeria, South Africa, South Korea and Denmark – who reached the World Cup finals. Dailly smiled: "The manager doesn't shy away from it, does he? We're just playing as many good teams as we possibly can.

"It's fine playing lesser teams and winning games, with everyone saying the record is great. But, as he says, you have to play teams that are better than you if you want to improve. Everyone gets to see the level we have to get to in order to compete. Hopefully everyone will go away, including the kids who are watching, and see that you have to put it in if you want to get to that level."

However, if the Faroes are little more than ground zero in European football, Scotland know they have failed to scale even that hurdle before. The 1-1 draw in Torshavn in 1999 was an ignominy in itself, long before Matt Elliott was sent off for fighting.

"We know it can be very awkward there. There are no mugs any more, but we have to go there and expect to win it. We have to show that level of confidence and arrogance and go and do it," Dailly said.