Scotland at the Euros - A Retrospective

[ewan14]

On 04/04/2021 at 18:53, TheJTS98 said:

Euros #3 on the horizon, so why not take a look back at our previous efforts.

Who's old enough to remember both of our previous punts at it?

Euro 92

A tough draw, Germany (World Champions), Holland (European Champions) and the CIS (Euro 88 runners-up in all but name).

Game 1 - Holland 0-1

A bright start against a side containing Rijkard, Gullit, Koeman, Van Basten, Bergkamp, and Van Breukelen, but unfortunately our best chance falls to Dave McPherson. Became a bit backs to the wall and our lack of firepower put us under pressure, but ultimately only went down to a late-ish goal at a time when the Dutch looked to have run out of ideas.

Game 2 - Germany 0-2

Sucker-punched after a bright opening against a really good side. Again, unlucky in our best chances falling to defenders. Second goal for the Germans an unfortunate deflection. A good effort and no shame in it. Could easily have had a result here.

Game 3 - CIS 3-0

An absolute belter of a win against a good side who still had a chance of making the semis. They had qualified ahead of Italy, and had been leading the Germans in injury time and drew with the Dutch, and we were the only side to beat them in the whole process from qualification to the finals. A serious result.

Overall, a pretty decent effort in a tough group. If we'd got the breaks against the Germans, who knows? And, if we'd been in the other group (which was utter dugshite), I think we'd have made the semis. Perhaps could have showed more ambition in the first game, but top marks that aside. Paul McStay had a good tournament and Gary McAllister's bursting runs were fun.

 

Euro 96

Game  1 - Holland 0-0

Pretty backs-to-the-wall and a good point well earned. Maybe a bit lucky to get away with this, but in the context of England not looking great, it was a good point and left us looking ok.

Game 2 - Cancelled

Game 3 - Switzerland 1-0

No idea how we only won this 1-0. At the time an immensely frustrating night, and on re-watching it gets worse. You lose count of the chances and it's a tough watch knowing that we only needed one more goal. If we'd scored one more, we'd have had more or less a home game at Anfield against France in the quarters. Who knows?

Overall, let down by UEFA only allowing us to play two games in the group stages. Had we played three like the other teams, I think we'd have gone through.

 

Did anybody attend these previous efforts? I was an ever-present at the home Euro 96 qualifiers and am still raging that my dad, uncle, and cousin went to Villa Park for the Holland game without me.  Any particular memories or views on performances? Am I remembering any of it wrongly?

Euro 92

Memory poor , but I do remember thinking 

Pat Nevin did well when he was on the field

and I remember one of Gary's runs. Unfortunately he had to turn back due to lack of support ! ( when Paul Lamber picked his all time 11 McAllister was the only Scot / non German ( league ) player in the team ! )

I also thought Gough contributed to Denmark winning the tournament !

McLair on the left wing , NO !

Edited April 7, 2021 by ewan14

[ewan14]

20 hours ago, velo army said:

Aye, 1994 was the first world cup where they gave 3 points for a win iirc. Utterly ridiculous that we went out in 1974 and 1978 having a win and a draw. That's enough to qualify from any group these days.

78 was #### though !

[ewan14]

On 04/04/2021 at 22:26, Ian38018 said:

Yes, but we all know that was Uri Geller.

Destroy Craigleith ?

Mmmm no !

[Snobot]

9 hours ago, Lurkst said:

Charlie Nicholas' goal here was probably the highlight of our first 20 years of attempting to qualify for the Euros...

 

Edit...I forgot the win at Wembley in 67 was a European Championship game too 

 

I remember spending hours trying to recreate that goal, left foot then right foot. It was in the credits for Scotsport back in the day.He was some player, seems like a wasted talent despite his decent career

Edited April 7, 2021 by Snobot

[Ian38018]

9 minutes ago, Snobot said:

I remember spending hours trying to recreate that goal, left foot then right foot. He was some player, seems like a wasted talent despite his decent career

I was at that game.  I can remember me and my mates mocking the Swiss fans' non-stop singing of "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain, When She Comes."

"A song for babies", we laughed.

The last time I was at Hampden, I skulked in my seat as the Tartan Army were invited to all sit up nicely, and sing-a-long to "Doh-A-Deer"   FFS

 

[ewan14]

On 05/04/2021 at 22:25, HalfCutNinja said:

I watched Scotland-Brazil from 1974 last year when they showed it. 

I tell you what Scotland were decent like, pretty much every bit as good as them in every department on and off the ball a match for them. And they were reigning world champions it must be remembered. Changed days from now.

Also what's his name the wee b*****d.......Billy Bremner he was fuckin brilliant. I always thought he was just a wee hatchet man but he could really play like. Technically excellent, easily our best player imo.

Also he had no chance with the chance he missed, it wasn't a bad miss. It just came at him a bit too quickly and he couldn't close his foot in time, nothing he could do about it.

Watching games like that you always notice how fat and unfit and especially slow the players look compared to today. With one exception, the boy Jairzinho was electric. He looked like you could just pluck him out of that team and drop him straight into Man City's front three right now and he wouldn't look even slightly out of place. Fantastic player.

My first memory of watching Scotland at a tournament was 1990. Costa Rica and all that. Painful. We were spoiled back then though when we just expected to qualify for things and usually did, I also remember the goal McCoist scored against France the year before to get us there, big lob over the keeper at Hampden.  

Could be a long time before we're back at a WC as the qualifying is deeply unfair to smaller European countries, they are heavily discriminated against with the way its set up. Watching Scotland against Brazil in 1998 was amazing, just an incredible day. Opening the WC in Paris against the world champions  the most famous national side on earth with about a billion people watching bright sunny day it was just astonishing. Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, Cafu. And we really gave them a game. Ach well maybe one day.

Billy Bremner was a brilliant player !!!

See. YT

[Snobot]

This is a good thread - yer auld da at the Euros, a retrospective. I’m definitely in team yer da these days. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing tbh

[Ian38018]

2 minutes ago, ewan14 said:

My first memory of watching Scotland at a tournament was 1990. Costa Rica and all that. Painful. We were spoiled back then though when we just expected to qualify for things and usually did, I also remember the goal McCoist scored against France Norway the year before to get us there, big lob over the keeper at Hampden.  

Could be a long time before we're back at a WC as the qualifying is deeply unfair to smaller European countries, they are heavily discriminated against with the way its set up. Watching Scotland against Brazil in 1998 was amazing, just an incredible day. Opening the WC in Paris against the world champions  the most famous national side on earth with about a billion people watching bright sunny day it was just astonishing. Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, Cafu. And we really gave them a game. Ach well maybe one day.

MoJo scored the goals which beat France.

[ewan14]

21 hours ago, HalfCutNinja said:

Aye but Ireland got to the quarters in 90 without winning a single game. Four draws, one penalty shoot-out. Scotland have gone out with five points twice, I believe the only team ever to do that or were for a long time. 

So its not as simple as saying they qualified and we didnae, there's a bit more to it than that.

NI lost two games won one, that got them out of the group. We've done that too and gone out, so again you have to look at the actual results before just saying they did great we did shite, its not actually the case.

 

Edited to add

 

NI qualified losing two games and winning one in 2016.

92 we lost two and won one went out. 96 we drew one, won one and lost one went out.

So we actually did better than them, and it was harder to qualify in those days too. Luck plays a large part.

ROI got out of their group in 90 with 3 points, having not won a game. We went out in 90 having won a game, went out in 82 with a win and a draw, went out in 78 with a win and a draw, and went out in 74 with a win and two draws.

ROI went through in 94 with a win and a draw.

So our results are actually significantly better than ROI and NI, we were just a bit unlucky a few times.

Ireland playing to their strengths

I think they have had better defenders than us

 

[ewan14]

3 minutes ago, Ian38018 said:

MoJo scored the goals which beat France.

#### !

[Ian38018]

19 minutes ago, ewan14 said:

#### !

Cannae mind what I had for breakfast this mornin'  -  but other things are indelibly printed.  

[Monkey Tennis]

9 hours ago, Lurkst said:

 

Edit...I forgot the win at Wembley in 67 was a European Championship game too 

 

I don't know if there was really much sense of that being the case at the time though.  It sounds nuts now, but I think the Home International Championship was probably seen at the time as a bigger deal in its own right.  

Because the tournament has existed since 1960, it's kind of overlooked that it only really became a finals tournament in the way we recognise in 1980, then expanded to 16 teams for 1996. 

That was necessary due to how the map of Europe had changed.  The move to 24 is a mistake though.  Teams shouldn't be able to qualify for the next stage by finishing 3rd of 4, but several now do.

[ewan14]

2 minutes ago, Ian38018 said:

Cannae mind what I had for breakfast this mornin'  -  but other things are indelibly printed.  

He turned his back on Scotland because Roxburgh rested him against San Marino ?

[Monkey Tennis]

1 hour ago, Snobot said:

I remember spending hours trying to recreate that goal, left foot then right foot. 

It was right foot then left foot.

Seriously, could people stop getting...

[HalfCutNinja]

2 hours ago, Ian38018 said:

MoJo scored the goals which beat France.

Aye that's right two in a 2-0 win. Then he was away to Nantes, or maybe he was already there.

Another tremendous player, top drawer striker. Such a long time since we've had one of those. These days he'd be starting for Man City or something.  Quite like Aguero actually.

[Monkey Tennis]

8 hours ago, HalfCutNinja said:

Aye that's right two in a 2-0 win. Then he was away to Nantes, or maybe he was already there.

He was already there and had been a while.

In fact, he was only a couple of months from 'signing' for Celtic, and a few weeks more from joining Rangers.

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

14 hours ago, Ian38018 said:

I was at that game.  I can remember me and my mates mocking the Swiss fans' non-stop singing of "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain, When She Comes."

"A song for babies", we laughed.

The last time I was at Hampden, I skulked in my seat as the Tartan Army were invited to all sit up nicely, and sing-a-long to "Doh-A-Deer"   FFS

 

First heard that song on a train from Bergerac to Bordeaux on the morning of the Norway game. Some Japanese tourists thought it was great fun. The novelty wore off a long, long time ago with that song.

I was at Villa Park for the Holland game. Great day out and great defensive performance.

[Guest TheJTS98]

On 08/04/2021 at 03:59, Monkey Tennis said:

I don't know if there was really much sense of that being the case at the time though.  It sounds nuts now, but I think the Home International Championship was probably seen at the time as a bigger deal in its own right.  

Because the tournament has existed since 1960, it's kind of overlooked that it only really became a finals tournament in the way we recognise in 1980, then expanded to 16 teams for 1996. 

That was necessary due to how the map of Europe had changed.  The move to 24 is a mistake though.  Teams shouldn't be able to qualify for the next stage by finishing 3rd of 4, but several now do.

Yeah, when I was a kid I remember people making a big deal of how poor our Euro qualification record was. But when you take into account that qualifying at all meant being in the last four and later last eight, it makes a lot more sense.

One of my mates recently put me on to the footballia website where you can watch loads of old games. I've watched my way through the old Euros during lockdown (the 8-team versions) and the standard is high and the level of jeopardy is too. Quite a few tournaments that could have turned out very differently from how they did simply because standards were high and margins fine.

It's a shame we'll never see them again. The 8-team format was really good.