Hendricks

Tuesday night was his 73rd cap and in gaining it passed Tommy Boyd (72) and became the 6th most capped Scotsman in history. Ahead of him: King Kenny 102 Jim Leighton 91 Darren Fletcher 80 Alex McLeish 77 Paul McStay 76 If he stays fit I fully expect that Euro 2024 will be his swansong. I think he will announce that next season (2023-24) will be his last which means he has 3 more opportunities to win something else with Hearts and he will bow out after Germany, where he will realise a career dream of playing for Scotland at a major Championship. Should that all transpire and he remains fit throughout he could get anywhere from 10-20 more caps depending on the Euro draw, play offs, availability and success! 8/10 (dependent on group size) Euro 2024 qualifiers 2 potential play off games for Euro 2024 1 Friendly in November 2022 2 Friendlies prior to Euro 2024 3 games minimum at Euro 2024 He's a certainty now to pass McLeish and McStay and barring injury Fletcher. Ironically despite the success last night of getting into Nations League A he will likely have to continue to play into the 2024-25 season to ever play a match in it, due to the football calendar. You really wonder if not for injury how many caps he would have, certainly already surpassed Dalgleish if it hadn't been for injury. During his 'era' Marshall and McGregor won 89 caps!

Was at the Hearts v Rangers last geek of the league season. Was a bit of a glorified kick about given nothing to play for, Europa Final and the Scottish Cup Final the following week but watched Lowry carefully. Without getting carried away he looked like one of the best young Scottish Rangers players I have seen in decades, reminded me a little of a young Durrant. Let's hope their careers don't follow similar injury paths as surely he will earn a lot more than the 20 caps!

We could draw Hungary as our Pot 1 seed in the Euro draw next week too.

Something to note with the next Nations League campaign is that we won't be playing any of these fixtures for at least 18 months! So a Germany who looked fucking gash against England last night could have an entirely new side or a Belgium who will have lost even more of their 'golden' generation could be going through a transitional period. Plenty will change plus our young players will be even better!!! The reason for this is that due to this years World Cup the calendar is all over the place and 2023 will see Euro 2024 qualifiers in March, June, September, October and November. So Nations League won't start until March 2024. How they fit those around the actual Euro Championships in the summer of 2024 and then World Cup 2026 qualifying, is anyones guess!

Indeed. You only need to look back at the play of paths for Euro 2020 to understand that most of the really big nations will qualify automatically. Below was the 4 paths for the 2020 play offs. I've put which pot they are in for the Euro 2024 qualifying draw and which Nations League each country will be in for the next Nations League 2023-24 . It's quite interesting to note that our path has done by far the best (3 teams gone all the way to League A and 3 into pot 2) and that you could easily find yourself with a harder play off game depending on where teams are in a cycle of players etc. Scotland should be very positive about qualifying automatically but it's huge to have a play off in our pockets. Path A : Iceland League B and Pot 3 Bulgaria League C and Pot 4 Hungary League A and Pot 1 Romania League C and Pot 3 Path B : Bosnia League A and Pot 2 Slovakia League C and Pot 5 N.Ireland League C and Pot 5 Rep. Ireland League B and Pot 3 Path C : Scotland League A and Pot 2 Norway League B and Pot 3 Serbia League A and Pot 2 Israel League A and Pot 2 Path D : Georgia League B and Pot 4 N Macedonia League C and Pot 4 Kosovo League C and Pot 4 Belarus League D and Pot 5

Absolutely superb performance from Scotland. Brilliant from Clarke and his entire staff and squad. Tremendous achievement and gives us some really significant bonuses moving forward: 1. Nations League A which will bring massive games, and better future play off chances/seedings especially for WC 2026. 2. Pot 2 for Euro 2024 draw a week on Sunday. 2 qualify automatically from all 10 groups. 3. Guaranteed play off spot if we don't qualify automatically. On tonight given the absentees, quite a few guys who have been brought in from the cold and several guys including the outstanding Hickey (and whisper it Porteous who won't be at Hibs much longer) with little experience and the fact we were playing away from home in our 3rd high tempo match in a week, this is an outstanding result. So many positives; Hickey, Hendry, Porteous, Patterson all young players, the timeless Craig Gordon, consistently excellent McGregor, McGinn and Adams, McTominay magnificent in his correct position etc etc. Oh and England, Wales and Republic Ireland all in Nations League B. An absolutely brilliant night for Scottish football.

We will win the group with 2 draws. Ironically we might not win the group with a win on Saturday unless Ukraine fail to win in Armenia. If we win on Saturday and Ukraine win their game we will need a point in Poland against them. If we come 2nd in the group there is still every chance that might be enough for a play off should we fail to finish in the top 2 in our Euro 2024 qualifying group as it is highly likely 20 qualifiers (plus Germany) will come from Nations League's A and B. If Ukraine for instance finish ahead of us and qualify automatically for Euro 2024 then a spot would open up. Beating Ireland on Saturday is still huge for our 'ranking' for a play off spot. After tonight and showing what we can do against this type of opposition we should be targeting automatic qualification anyway of we can avoid a hellish group. The draw for the Euro qualifying is 2 weeks on Sunday.

That was the same for Euro 2020 (Euro 2021). There were 12 teams in the play offs, 4 in each of 3 'paths' with one legged semi finals and then a final to qualify 3 teams.

Have 1 adult South Stand ticket for Section O2 (£30 face value) for the Ukraine game. Can forward by email or meet outside Hampden (preferably by 7pm), whatever works.

Wonder how many brown envelopes this nonsense took to put together?!

Denmark travel to BOTH Israel (game 1) and Austria (game 3) in the March triple header.

Why do you say that? Personally think it’s a good set of fixtures for us. Up to us to deliver.

Apparently the Faroes can't play at home in March or November so that game will be September/October.

And yet they still lost 4-2 in Israel and 1-0 in Latvia in the Euro qualifying.

Not sure but the games aren’t till June and September 2022 so likely won’t be until after the Euros and maybe not till this time next year.

You aren’t taking into account that the domestic leagues and European competition will start earlier in 2022-23 season due to the significant break in the middle of the season. Therefore they’ll try and end the 2021-22 season a bit earlier and give the players a break especially now the Euro’s are being played in the summer of 2021. Also there are 3 Nation League fixtures scheduled for the first week of June 2022. That’s the next time that takes place.

Good post. I think the encouraging thing looking at recent results in the Euro qualifiers is that Denmark failed to beat the Rep.Ireland twice (2 draws) and drew in Georgia (though we know what its like over there!) whilst Austria lost 3 times including in Israel (4-2) and in Latvia (ranked 29 places below the Faores) 1-0. Whilst both have some very good individual players they are certainly beatable if we play as we did for well over an hour in Serbia on a more consistent basis. Neither are significantly better sides than the Serbs in my view so it shows what is achievable.

The fixtures are out tomorrow as per SNT Twitter.

Another interesting thing to note is that Austria have a safety net for a play off place. They sit in 6th place in the Nations League failure to finish in the top 2 in your qualifying group, lets ensure all the big teams are there scam!!! France Belgium Italy Spain Wales Austria There seems next to a 0% chance that those first 4 aren't 1st or 2nd in their respective groups which means that Austria will have a play off place whatever. Obviously their target will still be to win the group for automatic qualification but they may not be that motivated late in the campaign with a play off locked up automatic has gone. Therefore Austria at Hampden late next year might be what we want.

It really is as good a draw as we could have hoped for. Looking at Denmark and Austria's Euro qualifying campaigns (they both made it automatically finishing 2nd to Switzerland and Poland in their groups) but both dropped points to teams who aren't as good as us. Denmark drew with Rep. Ireland twice and drew in Georgia and Austria lost 3 times including, ironically, to Israel (4-2) and in Latvia! Obviously we know all about Israel but the fact remains we should be beating them and when you look at the Faroes and Moldova's records they lost 18 games out of 20 with a win each against the mighty Malta and Andorra. Great opportunity.

In June 2021 we are playing in Euro 2020 so I don't foresee many call offs!!!!!!!!!!!! The World Cup qualifiers are played: 3 in March 2021 3 in September 2021 2 in October 2021 2 in November 2021 So very condensed and very much during the season. The games in March could easily still see Covid issues and having everyone available and getting off to a good start, pre the Euros is going to be huge. I'd take a couple of 'easy' games to get points on the board this season and preferable if a big game one of Denmark or Austria at home. Lets leave Israel until later next year after the recent fixtures.

Still going to be very difficult to qualify for WC 2022 given UEFA only have 13 spots as it will remain extremely difficult to win a group and gain automatic qualification. The play off route is possible but realistically we could expect higher quality opposition than Israel and Serbia in that. For me gaining a 2nd pot seeding and having a real go at being one of the 20 automatic qualifiers (2 per group) for the 2024 Euro's in Germany has to be a big target which in turn would help with our seeding for the 2026 World Cup where UEFA will receive 16 places due to the increase to 48 teams. Both of these have to be medium term goals.

It's not rumoured mate it's confirmed. 48 teams will compete at the 2026 World Cup and UEFA will get 16 places. There will be 16 groups of 3 teams (2 guaranteed matches) but 32 teams will qualify for the knockout stage. All explained here...... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_FIFA_World_Cup