Texas Pete

Shows you how quickly things can change. We were all heartbroken in 2016 when we were the only home nation (plus Ireland) not to make it to France and now Ireland and NI look to be on the way down and hopefully we are on the way up.

I’m not saying I disagree. I’m not 100% sure who I would start yet but I reckon Clarke will go with Tierney, Cooper and either Hendry or Hanley. Could be different in each game to be fair.

I doubt Gallagher will start at Wembley but otherwise sounds like a plan.

It’s not as bad as the Copa America this year. Two groups of 5 and top 4 from each group go through.

UEFA website says you need passport or ID card for Wembley and Hampden. I assume driving licence will be fine as well.

Ah the Last Chance. Haven’t been in there for years.

I’m not sure anyone has said McBurnie has been better in international football. I certainly haven’t. I just think it’s strange when people say he is a terrible footballer. He’s not. Anyone with a pair of eyes and a half decent knowledge of football who has seen him play for his club(s) over the last few years would know he’s actually not a bad player. If someone has only seen him play for Scotland then I can understand why they would think he was poor. For whatever reason he has never hit form for Scotland. That doesn’t mean he can’t in future - if he sorts his head out and gets back into the squad, which will be tough for him.

Yeah agreed. McBurnie obviously has some issues off the field and has never really shown what he can do for the senior team but I wonder what people would be saying about him if both of the chances that came off the bar had went in. Leigh Griffiths got similar stick (probably not as bad) before he buried those two free kicks against England. Yeah it’s good that our centre forwards in the squad at the moment all have at least one goal each. Hopefully they’ll add to their tallies in a couple of weeks.

I would imagine so. Why would they do it differently from the group games?

Some people do. One person in particular. I have seen McBurnie have some very good games for Sheffield United and Swansea. He is genuinely not a bad player and obviously can control a ball and make simple passes so your statement is blatantly untrue. McBurnie obviously has issues which may have affected his form and was possibly out of his depth in the EPL and has never really played well for Scotland (all reasons why Dykes should be ahead of him for us) but saying Dykes is vastly superior to McBurnie simply isn’t true in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer Dykes as a player and he is arguably a better player than McBurnie but sadly he is not vastly superior.

I’m not sure this is true. Dykes has certainly played better for Scotland and the fact he has a couple of goals helps but I think they are around a similar standard. They are both English Championship level strikers really and unless either gets a move to a Premiership club in the summer then we’ll get a good comparison next season. The way some people go on you’d think Dykes was playing for Barcelona or something.

You’d think so but they might need approval from a supervisor or something and it might be a hassle. I’m probably looking into it too much but I have a feeling it’s going to be a rammy. Most people will probably turn up at the last possible minute of their slot so there will be queues on the hour and at half past which will only be worse if a lot of people don’t turn up during their slots. Not that queuing are Hampden is unusual but if they are trying to avoid queues I’m not sure they’re going to achieve it.

I don’t really mind who we play if we get through so I hadn’t really looked at the permutations but it would be good to get a home game. There’s no guarantee that Spain will win their group. Sweden at Hampden in the last 16 would be good. Let’s just hope we get through to the last 16 and who we play and where we play them will take care of itself.

Yeah there will be people with no tickets that would happy to be in our position so I don’t want to moan about it too much but it’s not going to be a pleasant experience. I am actually lucky with the Czech game as my entry is 1230-1300 but I am 1700-1730 for the other two. I live in Glasgow and will be in London the day before the England game so I can’t really complain at all I suppose. I’ll just need to be bored and like it.

And as far as the stewards go yeah some of them likely won’t give a shit especially if you give them a sob story about why you are late but you will get jobsworths that will stick to the letter of the law. The other issue is will they be able to activate your ticket outside of your entry window? I doubt the tech they will use will be that sophisticated but who knows? It all sounds like a shambles in the making. Guaranteed to be hundreds of pished folk turning up late.

Yeah it’s taking the piss really, especially with stadiums only being a quarter full. Anyone who is in the stadium for three hours before kick off will be wanting to go home by the time the game starts. 1.5 hours would be just about bearable I think but any more than that, especially with no beer available, would be torture for most people.

All the UEFA website states is they “strongly recommend” the entry times are followed. No mention of what happens if you are late. My guess would be if there is no queue they would let you in and if there’s a queue they’ll tell you to go away and come back when there isn’t a queue, potentially after the game has started. I doubt you wouldn’t get in at all but I suppose it’s a possibility.

Very true. I have been optimistic for every tournament I remember at least until we lost/drew the first game but I would never book a flight or hotel based on going through. Especially when we could potentially be playing in 4 or 5 different places.

Looks like they haven’t worked that out yet.

Many a supporter has been saying that for 50 years (with a 23 year break of course).

Typical. There was some sort of pilots strike planned in France in 1998 just before the World Cup but it was called off at the last minute. Hopefully this will be the same.

😂😂😂 There’s at least one generation of Scotland supporters that have never known what it’s like to live under the curse of never getting out of our group. I fully expect us to go out on goal difference or head to head while other (presumably younger) folk are booking flights and last 16 tickets.

You can travel to Hungary. It’s an Amber list country but you need to pay £170 for travel tests and self isolate for 10 days at home when you get back. Any country can be moved to the red list without much notice so I wouldn’t be travelling anywhere on the amber list tbh. If Hungary was moved to the red list you would need to quarantine at a hotel for 10 days at your own expense when you get back. Bollocks to that.

I’m not sure if the system would be that sophisticated to be honest. Even if you can’t be logged in on more than one phone at a time there are ways around everything. The first person wouldn’t need to have the app on their phone at the time of the match if they weren’t going for example. Looks like we need to bring ID to the matches though so even if you do manage to go with someone else’s ticket you might not get it if the stewards are checking IDs properly.

It would work just fine. What if you had to get a new phone?