Dan's the man?

It seems that the SFA supremo Gordon Smith has cancelled a meeting with Dan Petrescu's agent to discuss the vacant Scotland manager's role.

The Unirea Urziceni manager's application was a surprise. As an ambitious young manager enjoying a first season in the Champion's League, the Scotland job would appear to be a less than glittering prize.

The SFA are, however, perfectly right to seek further information from the Romanian's agent Frances de Souza before moving the candidacy forward.

That Smith has now cancelled the meeting is also understandable given the de Souza's apparent leaking of the details. Such indiscretion does not fit in with Smith's preferred timescale or the cloak of privacy that remains the SFA's favoured modus operandi.

All that aside I can't quite get my head round Petrescu's initial interest. Other than fond memories of his trip to Ibrox this season I can't see any particular connection between him and Scotland. At 41 and with more successes than failures on his CV he is too young to be wanting to join the travelling circus of international managers who traverse the globe to fill odd positions.

Maybe his candidacy is genuine and Gordon Smith is right to want to investigate it further away from the glare of publicity. But I am sure that the SFA will also be considering the possibility that they are being used in Petrescu's and de Souza's long term game.

Sending his CV to Glasgow was Petrescu saying he wanted the Scotland job. His agent leaking the news was Petrescu doing his best John Inman impression and bellowing "I'm free" to clubs and countrys across Europe.

If that is the case then it is further evidence that our national job is not quite the attractive vacancy that we would like it to be.