Beleaguered Berti decides his heart is with the Scots

Popularity is something Berti Vogts is struggling to find right now – in any language. Ridiculed in newspapers he understands, and those he doesn't. Scotland's national coach would have needed a little help translating the back page of one tabloid on Friday morning, which had a Valentine's Day message – with Berti mocked up as Cupid – giving him the phone number of the Berlin dole office.

Not that there was much tea and sympathy back home. Only schadenfreude. Germany is taking a gleeful pleasure in the failure of the man who guided it to glory at Euro 96. The laughing stock of Europe is what the German press are calling Vogts now.

Someone who has just suffered his seventh defeat in 10 games, Ireland's mastery in the 2-0 success at Hampden severely damaging morale ahead of next month's Euro 2004 qualifier against Iceland, would be entitled to dust down a few old friendships as an insurance policy against any change in the job market.

Instead, Vogts insists on being stubbornly Scottish. He has turned down a plea from his former German team-mate Felix Magath for information ahead of Celtic's Uefa Cup tie with Vfb Stuttgart. Vogts will meet manager Magath after Thursday night's fourth-round first leg at Parkhead, but during it his heart will belong with 60,000 Glaswegians.

"I don't want to help Felix," he said. "We are all Scottish and it is good for our game if Celtic got far in Europe. It won't be easy, without Henrik Larsson, but the Celtic fans can help in the first 30 minutes because Stuttgart have a lot of young players and they won't have faced this kind of atmosphere before."

It was the Irish who were the raucous ones at Hampden, helped out by a large number of local Celtic fans who preferred to remain in the green party. Barry Ferguson, as befits a Rangers captain, was jeered at every touch, and Paul Lambert must be the first player ever to be cheered by the opposition crowd.

The Celtic captain only played 45 minutes. Unlike Neil Sullivan and Don Hutchison, whose nights also ended early, Lambert's limited contribution was planned: "Berti had an agreement with Martin O'Neill that I would only play one half, because of the hectic schedule Celtic have."

Germany is as much a home from home for Lambert as it is for Vogts. He played for Borussia Dortmund and won the Champions' League for them in 1997, but the midfielder did not need any old friends to inform him of the threat that Stuttgart, second in the Bundesliga, will pose.

"I saw them on television last weekend beating Dortmund, and they looked impressive," said Lambert. "They have a lot of young players and the only defeat they have suffered this season is to Bayern Munich, so that tells you what a difficult game it'll be.

"Ideally, we don't want to lose a goal at home. We have managed to get through against Blackburn Rovers and Celta Vigo on the back of 1-0 wins at Parkhead and we feel we always have a chance of scoring away from home."

But that was when Larsson was around. The double fracture of the jaw suffered by the prolific Swede last Sunday has dealt a huge blow to O'Neill's plans. "You can be sure Stutt-gart won't be thinking we're easy because Henrik is out," Lambert said. "That is not the German mentality."

Larsson's absence will be compounded by the suspension of John Hartson, which means that Shaun Maloney will get his chance alongside Chris Sutton. The diminutive teenager was also on Scotland duty in midweek, though only for the Under-21s, but he scored a free-kick which drew the description of "Beckhamesque" from O'Neill.

Perhaps Maloney might also earn promotion from Vogts? "That's up to the manager," said Lambert. "I was surprised by the criticism he got. Competitive games are the one that count and we'll prove that against Iceland."