Whelky75

That’s not correct. Serbia had 7 points, having lost in Macedonia, Croatia had 16 points. There were only four matches to go. Croatia were at home to Scotland and Serbia were away to Belgium. Serbia had little to no chance of finishing in the top two by that point.

Croatia and Belgium had effectively but not mathematically qualified. We were already mathematically knocked out, which takes some doing, after 6 games out of 10! Possibly even after 5 matches, I’d need to do some more complicated maths for that one though!

Unless I’ve got my dates mixed up, I think we may have already been out by the first time we played them?

The fact they had already qualified very much does take the shine off. Coupled with the fact that we had nothing to play for either. Denmark came closer to being considered a ‘big’ team than Croatia, but even they didn’t quite fall into that category. I think a big team by my own definition would probably be one in contention to win the whole tournament. Denmark were their strongest in years but still not quite a potential tournament-winner for me.

Yeah, that was another horrible ‘Group of Death’ type group, it perhaps didn’t look so right from the start, as none of the ‘big five’ were in there, but considering how Belgium, Croatia and Wales turned out over the next 6 years, that was a really tough group. We’ve had our fair share - Euro 2008 being the worst, obviously, but also Euro 2016 too, along with others to a lesser extent. I don’t consider the Croatia we faced from 2012 to 2014 as a big team, and even if I did, I don’t count either of our matches against them as competitive matches, so it doesn’t fit the criteria for me. Those results certainly didn’t have the feel of the other five I mentioned, mainly because of the reasons I’ve given!

I considered the Sweden, Croatia (twice) and Denmark matches you mentioned, however I wouldn’t count any of those as big teams at the times we beat them and also, I only counted the Sweden match as a competitive match out of those four, due to teams being already qualified or eliminated. What a win that was over Sweden, at Ibrox and mainly thanks to a rather old Jim Leighton if I remember correctly, but it doesn’t quite fit the criteria for me, as Sweden were relatively-speaking in a bit of a lull at that point and had declined from the team which reached the semis of major tournaments in both 1992 and 1994, failing to qualify for Euro 1996 as well as failing to finish in the top two for the group in question here, in qualifying for the 1998 World Cup.

As in, when we beat them in qualifying for World Cup 2014? I don’t see them as a big team at that point, and also I think we were already out by the time we played them.

I have been following Scotland for just over 30 years, since 1992. For the first seven years, from 1992 to well into 1999, I don’t remember any competitive victories over ‘big’ teams, although we were often quite highly-seeded ourselves at that time, so most of our games against big teams came at major finals, rather than in qualifying. Then for the next eight years, from 1999 to 2007, we were relatively spoiled, with four such victories over big teams - England away, Netherlands at home, France at home, and France away. Remarkably, and sadly, none of these four victories ultimately ended in a successful qualification and have all gone down as great one-off moments, rather than as a part of some greater success. A lot of that was down to us being drawn in the hardest group there has ever been, hardest group possible, and hardest group there will be for a long, long time, in qualifying for Euro 2008, hence why we could beat the same big team home and away and still fail to qualify. Then, there was a dry spell of over 15-and-a-half years until last night provided the next competitive victory over a big team. That’s a pretty long wait and probably shows how far we have fallen as a footballing force, in recent years, although equally, these games aren’t exactly very regularly occurring and are by definition very difficult to win. We have had plenty of draws against big teams in the past 30 years as well, so it hasn’t all been doom and gloom. (Apologies if I have forgotten any competitive wins against big teams, but from my own definition, I think these would be the only five victories which fall into that category, since 1992.) I think the average of one win against a big team every 5-10 years is what makes these moments so special - the fact that they are so rare for us means that we do really appreciate them when they happen and don’t take them for granted in any way. I just hope that last night’s result can buck the trend of the previous four I mentioned and actually lead to a successful qualification at the end of the campaign.

Who’d have thought, a bit of stability and giving a manager time to get to know the players and to get their own ideas across, actually works?! As people have mentioned, no doubt when the inevitable downturn in results comes, the knives will be out for Steve Clarke again, but success in international management has to come from giving and allowing someone 8-10 years to actually have a go at the job. Changing the manager every 2-4 years is a recipe for disaster and leads to the kind of carnage we found ourselves in before Clarke took over.

I was about to have a go at you for that - thanks for correcting!

Watching him at Hibs, I wouldn’t have considered him anywhere near to being an international player, but he’s put himself into contention with his performances so far for Scotland. Will be interesting to see how he gets on at Watford over the next year or two. It’s a start for now, nothing more.

You’re quiet right. It’s quiet difficult ro spot those things when you’re actually in the stadium.

What do you think ‘second tier’ means?!

The singer and the footballer who played in Scotland, England and Australia. Both rather vague, compared to all the other clues.

English Championship, not League Two.

I’m worried that a lot of people aren’t as big Scotland fans as they like to think/claim, judging by these scores! I got 12 and the two I missed out on, I’m claiming are down to rubbish clues, rather than my lack of knowledge!

What’s your question here? When was the last time we were shorter odds than Wales to win a particular major tournament? Is that it? Not that long ago, I’d imagine.

I think, in fairness to Rodri…. we did have a lot of players go down injured towards the end of the match, however I think most, if not all, of these were genuine injuries. However, if this had been another team doing that to us, we’d probably be accusing them of the same thing he accused us of! Also, I believe Gunn was booked for time-wasting and Hickey intentionally rolled back on to the pitch when injured, to delay the game, which again we would have slated an opposition player for, so Rodri’s claims aren’t completely without merit. However, he’s also clutching at straws a bit, given how much more time Spain would have needed in order to create enough chances to score two goals, judging by how little they created during the match.

I’m not sure if attitude comes into it all that much - I think matches at that stage of the season usually come down to a lottery as to which set of players have most left in the tank.

Yeah, I hate hearing ‘experts’, pundits, Steve Clarke, fans, or whoever lump in ‘qualification for major tournaments’ under one banner, when World Cup qualification and European Championship qualification are two very different sizes of tasks. They should be analysed very differently to each other. You’d hope we’re now in a position to be very competitive in terms of qualifying for the European Championships, however I’d say World Cup qualification would still be a relatively long shot for us. Steve Clarke made no distinction between the two, when being interviewed the other day about his contract extension, which was very odd to me.

I am, believe me! That’s a completely different matter!

Turns out I WAS misreading the statistics. They finished second in qualification for World Cup 1998, but then lost a two-legged playoff, 12-1 on aggregate, to Yugoslavia. Still the current contradiction applies though, having performed well at two European Championship Finals and riding (very) high in the Nations League, but not managing to finish in the top two of a qualifying group for over 25 years.

I mean, I’m trying to be impartial, rather than biased.

I don’t know who the poster was including as part of their ‘etc’, but given the other names on that list, I’d suggest we’re probably not!

Hungary appear to have some very contradictory statistics. Until I checked just now, I thought they were a really good team - and currently far better than us - having performed well at the previous two European Championship finals and having finished second in their group in Nations League A, a really tough group as well, if I remember correctly, which is a huge achievement for a country of their recent standing in international football in Europe. However, unless I am misreading the relevant statistics, it looks like they haven’t finished in the top two in a qualifying group for a major finals, since 1985, which is quite staggering, as despite Scotland having not qualified for a lot of years, we’ve still had a few top two finishes along the way. Strange contradiction there in Hungary’s recent results.