How good are/were Scotland?

[Carnoustie Young Guvnor]

3 hours ago, ewan14 said:

As has been said John McGovern could not get a cap !

Aye two time European Cup winner, was he not captain as well.  Incredible to think, we're falling ourselves to have one player like that these days.

[John Lambies Doos]

Souness was a great player, fucking heart of Liverpool early 80s
Anyway saying he's a coward must have clearly missed this video. Not many chaps with balls as big as that.

[BFTD]

Not particularly interested in the issue of Souness' bravery/cowardice, but he literally says he only did it to wind up some club director, noticed the opposition fans weren't happy, so shat it and ran behind the police for safety.

[KingRocketman II]

13 hours ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

Aye, Euro 96. Not sure about elsewhere, and it wasn't a one-off either.

No idea if he was just ingratiating himself with a panel of other people supporting England, or if he's a big Unionist who genuinely thinks of all the home nations as 'us', but I found it a bit surprising, to say the least.

don't know why this is bothering me as am not Hansen's biggest fan but I really do think this is an urban myth. given I have little else to do today, I will check a few Euro 96 clips. 

First one here - 

 

pre tournament and he refers to England as "England" and they. He does though state that England have the easiest of groups cpmpared to the other main contenders - ha

maybe as the tournament goes on and the jingoism builds up in the studio he gets caught up in at so will see if I can find anything.....

Worth pointing out that this was coverage for the whole of the UK and not one reference to Scotland in this discussion. Presumably a throw away "plucky" reference at the end of the programme was deemed sufficient. 

 

[ICTChris]

In a tournament a few years ago thre was in studio footage of England scoring and Linekar and Shearer celebrated, as you'd expect, but Hansen just sat there.

Eta, I see someone else said this earlier.

Edited August 19, 2020 by ICTChris

[KingRocketman II]

35 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

In a tournament a few years ago thre was in studio footage of England scoring and Linekar and Shearer celebrated, as you'd expect, but Hansen just sat there.

Eta, I see someone else said this earlier.

that was part of my defence of him....

[Carnoustie Young Guvnor]

12 hours ago, John Lambies Doos said:

Souness was a great player, fucking heart of Liverpool early 80s
Anyway saying he's a coward must have clearly missed this video. Not many chaps with balls as big as that.
 

 

Bollocks see stuff like that its like acting the hardman outside a nightclub when there's forty polis standing around. Nothing's gonna happen, what are they going to do run onto the pitch and chin him?  Past three million security guards and loads of mad Turkish polis with guns?  Would you have a go?  There's no doubt Souness is mental but he isn't a hardman.

[Carnoustie Young Guvnor]

I mean imagine the gauntlet you'd have to run for a hundred yards to even swing a punch at him there getting chased by half of Istanbul with the other half running to shield him and you think its a bold thing to do.  I know some Turks, they're utterly mental, and they didn't have a go cause its ridiculous.

[Carnoustie Young Guvnor]

43 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

In a tournament a few years ago thre was in studio footage of England scoring and Linekar and Shearer celebrated, as you'd expect, but Hansen just sat there.

Eta, I see someone else said this earlier.

Aye I think this 'we' thing is pish tbh.  Hansen is a good lad, and I've never seen any evidence of it.  Sounds like something someone just made up.  Quality player btw.

[Savage Henry]

On 13/08/2020 at 14:43, Carnoustie Young Guvnor said:

My dad played football to a pretty good level and he's generally bang on when he talks football. 

Presented without comment.

[ewan14]

Just heard on Sportsound  , whatever.

Willie Miller confirming why Scotland did not go further in World Cups etc

The '' dirty cheat '' refusing to cover for our central defenders. WTF ?

No wonder teams could walk through us

[Marlow]

The 82 squad should have done better.

Someone asked if giving away two stupid goals to New Zealand in 82 was Stein's fault (which got us knocked out), and I'd argue it was, actually. He had his favourite and was a wilful man but could also pick people because of media pressure at times. Alan Rough was clearly outclassed by Leighton at the time, but Stein could not acknowledge that yet. Alan Evans should never have been parachuted in to the central defence with effectively zero experience of playing with the rest of the squad, but got a greenlight from Stein and it's maybe also arguable it was also becoming clear that McGrain was not up to the challenges of that heat at that level. There were calls for McLeish and Miller to be the central defenders, even before that World Cup, but Hansen, despite never having been much cop for us in the four years before was always Stein's golden boy at the time.

 

Stein was also not always the best man manager, strangely enough, he did always allow Souness to get away with anything yet also tended to antagonise Dalglish. His favouritism also meant Steve Archibald got to play in every game as lead striker despite not having scored once in the qualifying matches.

 

 

[greenockraver]

Im really looking forward to the summer. and hopeful we can do the czechs again. maybe even sneak a draw against the sassenach with a free hit against croatia 

Edited November 21, 2020 by greenockraver

[DA Baracus]

'Free hit'

Yuck. Might as well not bother if that's the attitude.

[John Lambies Doos]

'Free hit'
Yuck. Might as well not bother if that's the attitude.

This, Croatia are there for the taking at Hampden. Nowhere near the heights they were at in 2018..
I'd fancy us at home against both the Czechs and Croatia.

[velo army]

I'm gonna assume that GR had his tongue firmly in his cheek. 

Slovakia and then Israel brought us back down to earth a bit. I reckon with a full team (Fraser in for Christie, Forrest in for O'Donnell) we can give each of these teams a game, but we need to magic a goalscorer from somewhere.....

[Lurkst]

1 hour ago, John Lambies Doos said:

I'd fancy us at home against both the Czechs and Croatia.

Neither of them have won at Hampden before, either under their current incarnations or as part of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. 

 

[ewan14]

18 hours ago, Marlow said:

The 82 squad should have done better.

Someone asked if giving away two stupid goals to New Zealand in 82 was Stein's fault (which got us knocked out), and I'd argue it was, actually. He had his favourite and was a wilful man but could also pick people because of media pressure at times. Alan Rough was clearly outclassed by Leighton at the time, but Stein could not acknowledge that yet. Alan Evans should never have been parachuted in to the central defence with effectively zero experience of playing with the rest of the squad, but got a greenlight from Stein and it's maybe also arguable it was also becoming clear that McGrain was not up to the challenges of that heat at that level. There were calls for McLeish and Miller to be the central defenders, even before that World Cup, but Hansen, despite never having been much cop for us in the four years before was always Stein's golden boy at the time.

 

Stein was also not always the best man manager, strangely enough, he did always allow Souness to get away with anything yet also tended to antagonise Dalglish. His favouritism also meant Steve Archibald got to play in every game as lead striker despite not having scored once in the qualifying matches.

 

 

Interesting

Evans won the European Cup with Aston Villa but still managed to mess up for us

Had Archibad won the Spanish League with Barcelona ?

He did not do much for us either

You have to remember against the Soviet Union we were one nil up but , one midfielder especially , allowed them to walk the ball into our net for the equaliser

 

Edited November 22, 2020 by ewan14

[GordonD]

1 hour ago, ewan14 said:

You have to remember against the Soviet Union we were one nil up but , one midfielder especially , allowed them to walk the ball into our net for the equaliser

Wasn't that for them to go 2-1 up? Or am I remembering it wrong/thinking of a different midfielder?

[Marlow]

3 hours ago, ewan14 said:

Interesting

Evans won the European Cup with Aston Villa but still managed to mess up for us

Had Archibad won the Spanish League with Barcelona ?

He did not do much for us either

You have to remember against the Soviet Union we were one nil up but , one midfielder especially , allowed them to walk the ball into our net for the equaliser

 

Although a mistake by him led to one of the New Zealand goals, I do not really blame Evans as I never thought he should have been playing at all.

Evans had not ever even been in squads, let alone played, in any of the qualifying games for the 82 World Cup. He was brought into the setup for a friendly and a couple of home internationals in the weeks before the world cup. He had effectively played the equivalent of one game alongside each of the rest of the defenders across three matches before we kicked off against New Zealand.

Archibald's time at Barcelona came later by a few years.

I do remember us leading the USSR for a long spell until they equalised in the second half. Souness was the guilty man ISTR, though everyone remembers Hansen clattering into Miller later for their second goal.