Vogts ready to gamble on youth against Danes

Friendly Internationals: Scotland's coach wants his players to take the field armed with 'the confidence of the English'

Let nobody accuse Berti Vogts of lacking thoroughness in his preparations for Scotland's European Championship qualifying campaign. Not only is tonight's friendly with Denmark at Hampden Park their sixth match in as many months since he became manager, but he has also ordered two reports from Europe's big match: the Faroe Islands against Liechtenstein.

The meeting of the minnows in the fishing port of Torshavn is of particular interest since the Faroes is where Scotland launch their quest to reach Portugal in 2004 on 7 September. Not for Vogts the cavalier attitude of one of his predecessors, Ally MacLeod, whose admission that he did not watch Peru before a World Cup finals fixture came back to haunt him. As well as sending Jim Sinclair, the Scottish FA's acting head of football development, the German will also seek the assessment of his compatriot Ralf Losse, Liechtenstein's coach.

The visit of Denmark's stars of the Premiership, Bundesliga and Serie A – 12th in Fifa's world rankings compared with Scotland's 60th and the Faroes' 123rd – is a rehearsal for the North Atlantic amateurs and part-timers only in that it allows Vogts to see something close to his first-choice XI. Long-term casualties like Don Hutchison and Craig Burley have yet to play for him, but of the side he envisaged in his first game at the national stadium, only Dominic Matteo has pulled out.

Most encouragingly, Barry Ferguson's rapid recovery from a foot injury sustained on Sunday means that Vogts can unite the Rangers midfielder with Celtic's Paul Lambert for the first time in more than two years. On that occasion, a 2-1 win in the Republic of Ireland, their understanding gave Craig Brown hope that Scotland might, after all, reach this year's World Cup finals. The partnership was stillborn because injuries repeatedly prompted Rangers to withdraw their most prized asset.

A total of only 10 caps in three years led sceptics to suggest that Ferguson was more concerned with his club than his country (although he was also reputed to be leaving Ibrox for Leeds or Arsenal in a £12m deal). "I was desperate to get back in and prove people wrong," he said yesterday. "People were saying I didn't want to play for Scotland, but that's nonsense."

Vogts, still searching for a win after losses to France, Nigeria, South Korea and South Africa, and a hollow victory over a Hong Kong select, no doubt had Ferguson in mind when he spoke of the need for more goals from midfield. A few from the front players would not go amiss, either; it is a sobering commentary on Scotland's resources that neither of the strikers who are likely to start, Kevin Kyle and Scott Dobie, has scored in top-flight football.

The mere mention of Kyle, a brawny 21-year-old from Sunderland's reserves, lights up Vogts' dour countenance. The former baggage-handler on the Stranraer ferry impressed him on Scotland's summer tour to the Far East, to the extent that he has seemingly become his country's principal forward.

Apart from the engine-room axis, the only real experience is in central defence where Christian Dailly, thrown to the lions at Newcastle with West Ham on Monday, is set to partner David Weir. The demotion of Neil Sullivan to substitute keeper at Tottenham makes it likely Rab Douglas (three caps) will be in goal, both tonight and in the Faroes, while the quartet pencilled in at full-back and in the wide-midfield roles have 13 caps between them.

For Vogts, these "young ones" fuel his optimism for Euro 2004. All they lacked was the Tartan Army's "passion" (a surprising criticism of a Scotland team) and greater self-belief. "We need the confidence of the English," he said, venturing where Brown might have deemed it foolish to tread. "Their young players say: 'I'm an English player and I'm the best in the world'."

They were certainly too good for Denmark in Japan. Morten Olsen has brought most of his World Cup squad, including Rivaldo's new colleague at AC Milan, Jon Dahl Tomasson. Vogts, who was in charge of Germany when the Brian Laudrup-inspired Danes destroyed them in the final of Euro 92, believes the time has come to put results before performances, but must be hoping the two need not be mutually exclusive.

SCOTLAND (4-4-2; probable): Douglas (Celtic); Stockdale (Middlesbrough), Weir (Everton), Dailly (West Ham), Naysmith (Everton); McNaughton (Aberdeen), Lambert (Celtic), Ferguson (Rangers), Wilkie (Dundee); Kyle (Sunderland), Dobie (West Bromwich Albion).