How good are/were Scotland?

[Lurkst]

Watching the recent replays of games from 82 and 86 reminded me how infuriating Souness could be, strutting about the middle, leaving players to run past him as that was someone else's job. Tremendous player in possession though.

 

[ewan14]

3 hours ago, GordonD said:

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

You are thinking of two defenders not that near our goal

[ewan14]

33 minutes ago, Lurkst said:

Watching the recent replays of games from 82 and 86 reminded me how infuriating Souness could be, strutting about the middle, leaving players to run past him as that was someone else's job. Tremendous player in possession though.

 

Hi Willie !

[HibeeJibee]

I wonder what fans in other countries make of us qualifying.

Will it be a bit like 4 years ago when Hungary and Northern Ireland made it back after decades in the wilderness? Are some classing us more like a Macedonia: we qualified through some special slots reserved for little teams? (Afterall we 'only' had to finish above Israel / Albania then beat Israel and Serbia on penalties).


As regards progressing at tournaments: there has hardly been a finals we've gone to where we haven't sufferred heartbreak? Our game v CIS in Euro 92 is only occasion we've gone into a deadrubber.

Of course we missed-out on GD at WC 1974, at WC 1978, at WC 1982 and GF at Euro 96. We were 1 of 2 worst-3rd-place not to progress at WC 1990.


EDIT: Interestingly we've never been seeded such that we'd have been expected to progress.

(WC 1958 and WC 1974 were seeded solely by geography; Euro 96 was largely unseeded; WC 1998 was a mixture of seeding and geography but we were ranked 23rd overall before geographical redistribution).

This time around the draw was constrained by hosting requirements but we were officially-speaking Pot 4.

Edited November 22, 2020 by HibeeJibee

[Lurkst]

11 hours ago, HibeeJibee said:

EDIT: Interestingly we've never been seeded such that we'd have been expected to progress.

(WC 1958 and WC 1974 were seeded solely by geography; Euro 96 was largely unseeded; WC 1998 was a mixture of seeding and geography but we were ranked 23rd overall before geographical redistribution).

This time around the draw was constrained by hosting requirements but we were officially-speaking Pot 4.

I know the world rankings for the time have been back dated, but surely we were expected to progress ahead of Peru and Iran in 78?

 

[HibeeJibee]

2 hours ago, Lurkst said:

I know the world rankings for the time have been back dated, but surely we were expected to progress ahead of Peru and Iran in 78?

Nope... Peru were Pot 2... we were Pot 3.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_FIFA_World_Cup#Seeding

EDIT: They were afterall reigning Copa America champions.


It's always puzzled me why we expected to easily beat them in 1978. Was it just part of the general hysteria that we were going to win?

Alternatively did it actually help fuel that hysteria? They were non-Europeans but not Argentina, Brazil or Uruguay - so must be rubbish?

We'd actually played Peru at Hampden in 1972 and only beat them 2-0.

Also our all-time record against non-Europeans was pretty bad:
* Argentina ... drew 1-1 (friendly 1977)
* Brazil ... drew 1-1 (friendly 1966), lost 0-1 (friendly 1972), lost 0-1 (friendly 1973), drew 0-0 (WC 1974), lost 0-2 (friendly 1977)
* Chile ... won 4-2 (friendly 1977)
* Paraguay ... lost 2-3 (WC 1958)
* Peru ... won 2-0 (friendly 1972)
* Uruguay ... lost 2-3 (friendly 1962), lost 0-7 (WC 1954)
* Turkey ... lost 4-2 (friendly 1960)
* Zaire ... won 2-0 (WC 1974)

Was it just misplaced "wha's like us" arrogance?

Edited November 23, 2020 by HibeeJibee

[craigkillie]

On 21/11/2020 at 21:20, DA Baracus said:

'Free hit'

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

In his post he said that we would beat the Czechs and draw with England, which would mean that we'd already be through prior to playing Croatia, hence the "free hit".

[Lurkst]

1 hour ago, HibeeJibee said:

Nope... Peru were Pot 2... we were Pot 3.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_FIFA_World_Cup#Seeding

EDIT: They were afterall reigning Copa America champions.


It's always puzzled me why we expected to easily beat them in 1978. Was it just part of the general hysteria that we were going to win?

Alternatively did it actually help fuel that hysteria? They were non-Europeans but not Argentina, Brazil or Uruguay - so must be rubbish?

We'd actually played Peru at Hampden in 1972 and only beat them 2-0.

Also our all-time record against non-Europeans was pretty bad:
* Argentina ... drew 1-1 (friendly 1977)
* Brazil ... drew 1-1 (friendly 1966), lost 0-1 (friendly 1972), lost 0-1 (friendly 1973), drew 0-0 (WC 1974), lost 0-2 (friendly 1977)
* Chile ... won 4-2 (friendly 1977)
* Paraguay ... lost 2-3 (WC 1958)
* Peru ... won 2-0 (friendly 1972)
* Uruguay ... lost 2-3 (friendly 1962), lost 0-7 (WC 1954)
* Turkey ... lost 4-2 (friendly 1960)
* Zaire ... won 2-0 (WC 1974)

Was it just misplaced "wha's like us" arrogance?

Interesting cheers, who were the other 2nd seeds we could've got?

Edit... I see now the page wasn't displayed right on my phone. Sweden would probably have been a better draw for us.

Mexico, don't recall them being great shakes, in fact I remember the Germans absolutely horsing them. Not to say we wouldn't have slipped up there too!

Surprised for once we avoided Holland and Italy in a group of death, maybe that's why everyone was so happy with Peru?

There's no doubt we criminally underrated the Peruvians, in particular Cubillas, possibly as a result of the relatively successful South American tour in 77.

 

Edited November 23, 2020 by Lurkst

[HibeeJibee]

52 minutes ago, Lurkst said:

Interesting cheers, who were the other 2nd seeds we could've got?

Edit... I see now the page wasn't displayed right on my phone. Sweden would probably have been a better draw for us.

Mexico, don't recall them being great shakes, in fact I remember the Germans absolutely horsing them. Not to say we wouldn't have slipped up there too!

Surprised for once we avoided Holland and Italy in a group of death, maybe that's why everyone was so happy with Peru?

There's no doubt we criminally underrated the Peruvians, in particular Cubillas, possibly as a result of the relatively successful South American tour in 77.

I'm sure Mexico or Sweden would have been better draws than Peru. Mexico as you say got batterred 6-0 by West Germany and lost 3-1 to Poland and even Tunisia.

Iran was a good draw from Pot 4.

It's just surprising to me that people thought Peru - the champions of South America - should have been a gimme. We were hardly world beaters. Qualification entailed finishing above Czechoslovakia and Wales which was strong (Czechs were European champions, won homes, lost aways: difference was we beat Wales home and in Liverpool)... but we'd only finished 3rd in Home Nations month before tournament - W0 D2 L1 - despite 3 home games (due to insecurity in Ulster).

Edited November 23, 2020 by HibeeJibee

[Lurkst]

12 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said:

Iran was a good draw from Pot 4.

Not half when you look at it! Could've had France with Platini, or a very good Austria side.

Could 4 European teams have been drawn together?

You can really see why there was so much post draw exuberance!

Regarding over-confidence, I don't know how much was a GIRUY because England had again failed to qualify. We did have some great players though and our star man had just scored the winner in the European Cup final.

 

[HibeeJibee]

24 minutes ago, Lurkst said:

Not half when you look at it! Could've had France with Platini, or a very good Austria side.

Could 4 European teams have been drawn together?

You can really see why there was so much post draw exuberance!

There may have been some regulation preventing that... previous 2 editions there was no seeding and the draw was entirely geographic (admittedly Europe was subdivided to a Pot 1 and Pot 2 for 1970); oddly enough this saw Romania in 1970 and Sweden in 1974 classed as Rest of the World!

It could have happened in 1986 but only Denmark were in Pot 3 and didn't come to pass.

While we're talking about seedings: another "what might have been" was WC 1982 in Spain. Only geographic stipulation was no South Americans could share a group. Blatter and Neuberger forgot and drew Belgium into Group A and us into C. When they noticed Belgium went into C and us into F - we got Brazil, USSR, NZ instead of Argentina, Hungary, El Salvador.

[Lurkst]

2 hours ago, HibeeJibee said:

While we're talking about seedings: another "what might have been" was WC 1982 in Spain. Only geographic stipulation was no South Americans could share a group. Blatter and Neuberger forgot and drew Belgium into Group A and us into C. When they noticed Belgium went into C and us into F - we got Brazil, USSR, NZ instead of Argentina, Hungary, El Salvador.

I do remember that we were drawn to play Argentina in the opening game. Would've been interesting just a few weeks after the Falklands war!

I didn't realise the reason for the error, who would've been in Brazil's group, Chile?

That draw was an arse up even the SFA couldn't have achieved, with not just the one ball bursting open in the pots.

 

Edited November 23, 2020 by Lurkst

[HibeeJibee]

They rightly started Pot 3 without Chile and Peru. They were supposed to place the first pair drawn into groups C and F, with Argentina and Brazil. Then add Chile and Peru. Then draw out against A, B , D and E. They started out... wrongly put Belgium in A... realised and put Scotland in C... then had to correct as this was wrong, plus left F open.

[ewan14]

11 hours ago, Lurkst said:

I know the world rankings for the time have been back dated, but surely we were expected to progress ahead of Peru and Iran in 78?

 

Iran definitely , somebody said Peru were S. American champions