Judith

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Ryanair cancelled their Seville - Beauvais flight which is a pain in the arse. However they have allowed a change to the Charleroi on the Monday at no additional cost. Just extended my hostel by a night and will travel to and from Lille from there.

Prestwick - Faro (Ryanair) Faro - Seville (bus) Seville - Charleroi (Ryanair) Charleroi - Lille (train) Charleroi - Edinburgh (Ryanair)

If you are a Spanish resident with a Spanish address, I dont see how they could justify cancelling your ticket. My daughter lives in Seville and will he going to the game with her Spanish boyfriend and Spanish friends. I would imagine there will be a number of Scots in similar positions. Im not even sure the Spanish will sell out this stadium. Im led to believe that people in Spain and Seville in particular are more invested in their club teams than the national team, hence why they tend to do the rounds of 30k seater stadia. Cartuja is significantly bigger. I would imagine there will be a fair number of Scots in the home end at this game. Shouldnt be an issue.

I remember the Craig Gordon one for Sunderland, but if we are allowed to pick a club save...... Ally Maxwell v Maurice Malpas, extra time in the 1991 Scottish Cup Final. "Remarkable save under any circumstance, but with those injuries, absolutely incredible"

Much rather we needed a point in Seville and qualify off our own backs. Now that would be a party! But if its a done deal after the England game, I wont be sniffy about it!

Where did I say otherwise? I never commented on his performances for Scotland.

Stevie Archibald was a very good striker. You dont get the moves he did and play for the clubs he did without talent. He was a supremely confident guy as well and that rubbed a lot of folk up the wrong way, so I dont think he made himself popular with journalists and some fellow pros at the time. However, if you listen to the likes of Willie Miller, Alex McLeish and Gordon Strachan, they all rated him. Even Lineker speaks well of him in the recent icons documentary on BBC. Stevies problem was he was born in a time when Scotland had a lot of options. Joe Jordan, Dalglish, McCoist, Johnston, McAvennie, Nicholas, Paul Sturrock, Derek Johnston, Alan Brazil etc so he didnt play anywhere near the number of games for Scotland he would have got these days. Probably not helped by his rather aloof uncompromising demeanour!

"He runs down the left, he runs down the right, James McFadden Makes McGeady look shite!" 😉

Gordon will undoubtedly come straight back into the squad if/when he deposes zander Clark as Hearts no.1. After that we just need to trust the goalkeeping coach to give the manager right advice. Id love Gordon to add to his caps, but he has to be the best keeper available. Hopefully he gets back to that level.

Could be right. Maybe one of the reasons you are not allowed a free international date these days. If you dont have a qualifier or a Nations League tie you must arrange a friendly or UEFA do it for you.

Mathematically yes. Realistically? Im pretty sure if we beat Cyprus we are there. As the other teams will cut each others throats one way or another.....

Beat Cyprus and we need a point from our last 3 games. Simples. We may not even need that. Its all on the Cyprus game.

Each to their own, but I wouldnt be encouraging these websites. They cant guarantee tickets at this stage and are obviously charging over the odds. If you are in the UEFA ballot and a SSC member you have a decent chance of tickets and there will be fanzones with big screens to enjoy the games should be unlucky enough not to get a ticket from official sources. Nice quandry to have though for a change! Exciting times to be a Scotland fan!

Craig was certainly a gentleman, but also a great football man. His list of acheivments is quite something. Won the League with Dundee as a player before his career ended prematurely with injury. Went to 2 World Cups and a Euros with Fergie and Andy Roxburgh as coach. Took the U16s to a World Cup Final. Took Scotland to Euro 96 and France 98. Easily the most successful Scotland manager of my lifetime (no pressure Stevie) made all the more pleasurable when he took on the Motherwell job and got us a top 6 finish and narrowly missed out on Europa League Group stages with 2 epic games against Odense. The fact that no one has a bad word to say against him in what is a cut throat business speaks volumes. RIP Paw Broon. You will be missed.

Winning this group would undoubtedly be a magnificent achievement and up there with the greatest of any Scotland team I can remember. I understand what you are saying about 1992, and whilst we probably did have one of the easier groups, Romania had one of the best teams in Europe at the time and Switzerland and Bulgaria were no slouches either. Nice discussions to be having though. Means we are heading in the right direction again.

Im not sure about that. In 1992 only 22% of the teams entering qualified for the finals. Last time out (and this time) it was 44%. So statistically, 1992 was by far the greater acheivement, and we had to win our group to qualify on that occasion as well. You could argue the overall standard of football has gone up, and I am by no means trying to diminish our acheivments in this campaign, but 1992 was a real outlier at the time.

24 teams is too many from a pool of 55 let alone expanding it. 16 was plenty and ensured the quality was upheld, even if we did benefit last time round. Remember the heady days when we qualified for a tournament of 8 teams?

Rodgers played a lot of Scots in his first 11. Whether that is because he believed in home grown talent or they just happened to all be there and good enough is up for question. Be interesting to see what he does this season. Turnbull couldl be one to watch....

I agree. I think part of Clarkes success building this squads mentality is they way he leans so heavily on loyalty/seniority/meritocracy. He sticks hard and fast to the players who do a job for him as they set the standards for the others to meet. Christie put a shift in on Saturday and did nothing to deserve to be dropped on Tuesday night other than tactics, fresh legs, so he is rewarded with a further cap. It shows the other players the standards they have to get to, to get in the team, and just as importantly, keeps the senior players on their toes. There will be no suspicious call offs from this squad any time soon.

He did indeed. If you look back to the Russia away game which was one of Steve Clarkes early fixtures, our first 11 was...... Marshall Palmer Mulgrew Devlin Robertson McGregor McGinn Fleck, Snodgrass Fraser Burke Thats some turnaround in the squad and formation. It has taken a fair bit of time to get where we are now, but Clarke must take huge plaudits for the work he has done building a competitive squad. Of course some of that can just be down to timing, and the emergence of younger players like Gilmour, Patterson and Hickey etc isnt Clarkes doing, but he still has to develop them.and get them playing effectively as a team. Good times.

I dont think there is anything wrong with us, as supporters, being cautious about upcoming games based on past experience. Its mostly self protection of your mental health! I totally agree that this set of players wont be thinking that way though, and will be fully focused on going to Georgia to pick up the 3 points. Its still a difficult place to go with the amount of travel and the time difference involved, but at least is wont be as warm in November as it was on the previous occasions we were there. And as much as the Georgians will be trying to play the victim card over the game on Tuesday night, I think our players will be super motivated to prove the conditions had nothing to do with the result and pay the Georgians back for their antics in trying to get the game stopped. In summary, still a tough place to go and 3 points are by no means guaranteed, but I would be surprised if this team shits the bed and throws in a stinker.

50 years of psychological programming! 😆

I would have taken 2nd place before a ball was kicked, and in truth, would be happy enough if thats where we end up. But Im feeling a little greedy and wouldnt shake hands on it now! If we go into the last game against Norway needing to win to top the group, we would have all bitten your hand off for that before a ball was kicked as well. As you said earlier, its just nice that its in our own hands for a change, regardless of how the other games pan out. Beat Cyprus and we have 3 shots at qualification! Unbelievable!

We should remember that Spain dropping points now isnt just bad for our qualification hopes, it would put them under enormous pressure to qualify, and there is no certainty that they will react to that pressure positively. We have given ourselves the best possible chance of qualification in the first 4 games and all the other teams will now be cutting each others throats, regardless of which way the results go. I reckon if we beat Cyprus we are qualifying. It would take a freak set of results to stop us from there. Its just our mental conditioning as Scotland fans over the years that stops us from wanting to be so confident! Of course a point in Georgia seals it. So lets just do that as well! 😆😆😆