In your view, which of the three Scottish clubs had the poorest result in the Europa League on Thursday night?
And why, in your opinion, was their result the worst?
On a dire night for Scottish clubs, how do you gauge how poor, or otherwise, a performance was?
Should you compare the relative size and wealth of the opposition?
Should you look at factors like population and footballing tradition?
Hearts suffered the ignominy of being beaten by the second biggest scoreline of the night.
Only Italian giants Lazio's 6-0 thrashing of Rabotnicki of Macedonia was bigger.
Not only did Hearts look puny on the field in terms of athletic prowess and general sharpness and fitness, but off the pitch they are weaklings financially compared to their North London opponents, Spurs.
The White Hart Lane outfit have a turnover around �120m a year compared to Hearts' �10m per annum. That gulf in money equals a giant gulf in class.
And so it proved on the night, with Hearts being outclassed in every department of the game.
What about the Old Firm, though?
Rangers, cruising against Maribor, who hail from a city of around 140,000 souls and a country of just two million people, managed to grab defeat from the jaws of victory.
By any definition, the Ibrox side are a huge club by comparison to Maribor yet now face the very real and humiliating prospect of heading out of the Europa League at this early stage.
Last Saturday, I was at Celtic Park as the home team gave Dundee United a master class in finishing, yet not once could Celtic stir the back of the net of Swiss side Sion.
Again, Celtic who need top-flight European football on a regular scale to satisfy their financial needs, are a huge club by comparison to their Swiss opponents.
Yet Celtic also face a real possibility of a European exit.
Are we in Scotland guilty of misguided expectations, or are our top sides under-performing on the European stage?
In Finland, football comes behind ice hockey and basketball in the nation's affections, yet Helsinki managed to beat German side Schalke 2-0.
The German club are hugely resourced by comparison to the Finns. So how can Helsinki achieve that kind of result against much bigger opposition when both halves of the Old Firm can't beat much smaller clubs?
There was a time when Scottish sides held their heads high in Europe. Aberdeen, Dundee United, Dundee, Hibs, Dunfermline and Kilmarnock have all on occasion had great nights on the European stage.
What has changed since those days and how do we ever go about recreating them?
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/jimspence/2011/08/is_success_relative_or_are_we.html
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