YOUR correspondent Peter A Russell (Letters, July 18) rightly intuits that I am often mistaken. As a good husband, I am reminded of this fact on at least a daily basis. In football terms, it may be one of my mistakes that I support Alloa Athletic rather than Real Madrid, but, as that sage of the football park, Scott Brown, might put it, "it is what it is".

On the subject of Croatia's success, however, I have run Mr Russell's theory about Croatia's World Cup success arising from its being a member of a larger union past a couple of my Croatian colleagues. Their initial bemusement is followed by remarks which I will spare Mr Russell's blushes by not repeating – and hilarity. One tends to agree with your football experts that the team derives its core playing qualities, leave aside the special case of Luka Modric, from initially experiencing the somewhat chaotic, but clearly in this case effective, Dinamo Zagreb system, before honing those skills in the marketplace.

Pace Mr Russell, being in a marketplace is not the same as being in a union. Otherwise, all the footballers from non-European countries who play in Europe would be bringing African, American, Australasian and Asian countries into the EU, as they patently do not.

I know it's fashionable these days to drag independence/unionism perspectives into every debate, but my point was focused on the power, even beauty, of Schumacher's dictum that small is beautiful. To avoid unrelated responses, though, I should confirm this is a different person from Schumacher the Grand Prix driver – unless I am again mistaken.

Ian Brown,

34 Dalmeny Avenue, Giffnock.