for Italy. After narrowly failing to qualify for Euro 2008, McLeish resigned to take the manager's job at Birmingham City. George Burley Scotland's improved results in the last two campaigns meant the team were seeded second for 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying, and they were drawn with the Netherlands, Norway, Macedonia and Iceland. Southampton manager George Burley was hired as the new manager, but the team failed to win three preparatory friendlies against Croatia, Czech Republic and Northern Ireland. Burley came in for criticism from the media after the team lost their first qualifier against Macedonia, but they recovered to win 2–1 in Iceland. The next match was a goalless draw at home against Norway, during which debutant Chris Iwelumo missed an open goal from three yards. Scotland lost their fourth match 3–0 away to the Netherlands. captain Barry Ferguson and goalkeeper Allan McGregor, who had both played in that match, were dropped for the following match against Iceland due to a "breach of discipline". George Burley made five changes in all for the match, which ended in a 2–1 win for Scotland, with Ross McCormack and Steven Fletcher both scoring on their competitive home debuts. A terrible 4–0 defeat by Norway in the following qualifier, however, left Scotland effectively needing to win their last two games to have a realistic chance of making the qualifying play-offs. Scotland defeated Macedonia 2–0 in the first of those two games at Hampden, but were eliminated by a 1–0 loss to the Netherlands in the second game. Nonetheless, Burley was allowed to continue in his post after a review by the SFA board. Soon afterwards, joint assistant coach Steven Pressley stood down from his role to concentrate on his commitments with Falkirk. Speaking after the campaign, Kenny Miller criticised the fixture schedule that had been agreed for the group, describing it as a "shambles". Burley came under further pressure after a 3–0 friendly defeat by Wales, as he conceded that it was a "very poor" performance, while the Tartan Army "showed their disgruntlement with Burley and the SFA" during the match. The SFA sacked Burley on 16 November 2009. 2010s Craig Levein The SFA appointed Craig Levein as Scotland manager in December 2009. In UEFA Euro 2012 qualification, Scotland were grouped with Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Czech Republic and world champions Spain. They took just four points from the first four games, leaving the team