2 Wins away...

[Marky]

On ‎9‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 11:08 AM, Scotsdeutsch said:

with the prospect of an England’s game at the finals. 

 

I think you accidentally made that sound like a good prospect, rather than the utterly, horrendous, fear inducing prospect that it actually is.

[Lion Rampant]

I think were we to get Bulgaria or Israel in the semi final then I would think that we would have enough to get by either of them. The only real chance we would have of winning the next game would be if it was at Hampden.

Norway or Serbia away would be an almost certain defeat and at Hampden would be an incredibly difficult game but there's always a chance we could do something. It's maybe about time we got a bit of luck, whether that be with the draw or something happening in a crunch game or even both!

Edited to add; Haaland or Mitrovic against any of our central defenders gives me the absolute fear it has to be said!

Edited November 19, 2019 by Lion Rampant

[GaryWood34]

4 hours ago, andyD said:

Failing to be enthused by our "best change in years".. especially because "both teams are below average"

2018 - we needed to beat Lithuania at home to finish 2nd.
2016 - Needed to beat Georgia away to reach the play-offs.
2014 - Losing twice to Serbia, drawing with Macedonia, two losses to Wales.
2012 - Draw with Lithuania. Loss and a draw with Czech Republic.
2010 - Lost to Macedonia, 4-0 pumping by Norway.

Not sure i need to go on..

7 games in and we've yet to have something approaching a performance under Clarke.

My confidence of us achieving anything under Clarke has ebbed away and you get the feeling from press conferences that he's regretting taking the job. Wouldn't be surprised if he steps down after the playoffs.

That's not the full picture though

It's - Had we beaten Lithuania at home we would have finished 2nd, we didn't know that it the time so it's very different.

 

[andyD]

23 minutes ago, GaryWood34 said:

That's not the full picture though

It's - Had we beaten Lithuania at home we would have finished 2nd, we didn't know that it the time so it's very different.

Feels a bit like clutching at straws to me. "we didn't know dropping points would hurt our chances" eeehh..

Sure there's a chance that it being a play-off will focus peoples minds more.. but then.. Kazakhstan was the opening game of this campaign.. that should focus minds too and we all know how that went. It's also something that wont be unique to us. Whoever our opponents are will raise their game too, so.. it feels like something that will make little difference, if any.

I suppose the main take away from my list was.. we've not the best record of beating 'below average' sides, no?

[aaid]

3 hours ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

We need to win two games in a row within days, against two decent teams. I'm not holding much hope

That's something we've been very bad at over the years.   

[Ta Ta]

However poor we have been, we still have a decent home record against teams our level or below in competitive games. I am as confident as I could be that we will win the semi. It’s crucial we are at home for the final. Serbia and Norway are a step up from the semi teams anyway but I really wouldn’t fancy our chances away and would see it as 50/50 for a home tie.

[GaryWood34]

Please. God. This. Time.

[dohadeer]

5 hours ago, Ta Ta said:

However poor we have been, we still have a decent home record against teams our level or below in competitive games. I am as confident as I could be that we will win the semi. It’s crucial we are at home for the final. Serbia and Norway are a step up from the semi teams anyway but I really wouldn’t fancy our chances away and would see it as 50/50 for a home tie.

I'm not sure if that's true. If it was, I don't think that we would have missed out on 20 years worth of major finals!

[Texas Pete]

23 hours ago, Ta Ta said:

However poor we have been, we still have a decent home record against teams our level or below in competitive games. I am as confident as I could be that we will win the semi. It’s crucial we are at home for the final. Serbia and Norway are a step up from the semi teams anyway but I really wouldn’t fancy our chances away and would see it as 50/50 for a home tie.

As long as we avoid Hungary we’ve got a great chance of making the final. Romania would be a tough match as well. Neither of these teams are unbeatable though.

If we get Bulgaria or Israel then I’m confident we’ll be playing Norway or Serbia in our biggest match for years. If it’s at home then we have a decent chance of reaching the finals. 

[mrniaboc]

 

17 hours ago, dohadeer said:

I'm not sure if that's true. If it was, I don't think that we would have missed out on 20 years worth of major finals!

I wanted some actual data on this, so here are the competitive home games Scotland have lost in the last 10 years:
 

Belgium 2019

Russia 2018

Germany 2015

Belgium 2013

Wales 2013

Spain 2011

Wales appears to be the exception, but this was actually them on the start of a road that took them to the semifinals of Euro2016 and the world's top 10.

We do have a good record against teams our level or below. These playoffs are quite possibly the single best chance we'll ever get again to qualify for a major tournament, especially if we get a home draw.

[dohadeer]

1 minute ago, mrniaboc said:

 

I wanted some actual data on this, so here are the competitive home games Scotland have lost in the last 10 years:
 

Belgium 2019

Russia 2018

Germany 2015

Belgium 2013

Wales 2013

Spain 2011

Wales appears to be the exception, but this was actually them on the start of a road that took them to the semifinals of Euro2016 and the world's top 10.

We do have a good record against teams our level or below. These playoffs are quite possibly the single best chance we'll ever get again to qualify for a major tournament, especially if we get a home draw.

We’d have to see all of our results, what level of teams they were against, and how that compares to other teams’ records, to say if our record is ‘decent’ or not. Like I said, since we’ve never qualified in the time period you have stated, I assume that our record isn’t as decent as you may think.

Also, ‘not losing’ in 90 minutes doesn’t get us through. We have to actually win the tie. 

Finally there is no equivalent data on one-off matches, where one team has home advantage, as those type of matches haven’t exist at international level in Europe until now. So there’s no data which is all that equivalent to your claim.

[Texas Pete]

6 minutes ago, mrniaboc said:

 

I wanted some actual data on this, so here are the competitive home games Scotland have lost in the last 10 years:
 

Belgium 2019

Russia 2018

Germany 2015

Belgium 2013

Wales 2013

Spain 2011

Wales appears to be the exception, but this was actually them on the start of a road that took them to the semifinals of Euro2016 and the world's top 10.

We do have a good record against teams our level or below. These playoffs are quite possibly the single best chance we'll ever get again to qualify for a major tournament, especially if we get a home draw.

Russia was also 2019. I’m not pointing out your typo to be an arse but we went almost 4 years without losing a competitive game at home.

The Belgium result can be disregarded as far as I’m concerned as they are on a different planet to us but the Russia result was a real disappointment. 

Luckily the teams we could play in March are not as good as Russia and if we get a lucky draw then we have a great chance of qualifying, regardless of what some folk on here think. 

[mrniaboc]

3 minutes ago, dohadeer said:

We’d have to see all of our results, what level of teams they were against, and how that compares to other teams’ records, to say if our record is ‘decent’ or not. Like I said, since we’ve never qualified in the time period you have stated, I assume that our record isn’t as decent as you may think.

Also, ‘not losing’ in 90 minutes doesn’t get us through. We have to actually win the tie. 

Finally there is no equivalent data on one-off matches, where one team has home advantage, as those type of matches haven’t exist at international level in Europe until now. So there’s no data which is all that equivalent to your claim.

Totally get what you're saying blud, but at least I've presented some data pertaining to our recent home record. 

Of course there no data on our performance in Nations League playoffs, as we've never been in one. This data is purely indicative. Do with it what you will and please feel free to provide more! 

[Orraloon]

3 minutes ago, mrniaboc said:

 

I wanted some actual data on this, so here are the competitive home games Scotland have lost in the last 10 years:
 

Belgium 2019

Russia 2018

Germany 2015

Belgium 2013

Wales 2013

Spain 2011

Wales appears to be the exception, but this was actually them on the start of a road that took them to the semifinals of Euro2016 and the world's top 10.

We do have a good record against teams our level or below. These playoffs are quite possibly the single best chance we'll ever get again to qualify for a major tournament, especially if we get a home draw.

When it comes to home games the important stat isn't "not losing". If you want to qualify you need to "win" your home games. On top of your list we have failed to beat Lithuania, England, Czech Rep, Poland, Slovenia, Norway (twice), Belarus, Italy, and Netherlands. And that's just off the top of my head. There are probably others. We needed 8 minutes of injury time to beat Liechtenstein. 

We won't win a play off by "not losing". I don't fancy our chances in a penalty shot out.

Wales only dropped 2 points at home, and that was to the top seeds. That's why they have qualified.

[ceudmilefailte]

I think a list of the teams we haven't beaten at home would be  far more informative 

[mrniaboc]

5 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

Russia was also 2019. I’m not pointing out your typo to be an arse but we went almost 4 years without losing a competitive game at home.

The Belgium result can be disregarded as far as I’m concerned as they are on a different planet to us but the Russia result was a real disappointment. 

Luckily the teams we could play in March are not as good as Russia and if we get a lucky draw then we have a great chance of qualifying, regardless of what some folk on here think. 

Sorry about the typo! You're right. 

[Texas Pete]

3 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

When it comes to home games the important stat isn't "not losing". If you want to qualify you need to "win" your home games. On top of your list we have failed to beat Lithuania, England, Czech Rep, Poland, Slovenia, Norway (twice), Belarus, Italy, and Netherlands. And that's just off the top of my head. There are probably others. We needed 8 minutes of injury time to beat Liechtenstein. 

We won't win a play off by "not losing". I don't fancy our chances in a penalty shot out.

Wales only dropped 2 points at home, and that was to the top seeds. That's why they have qualified.

Why don’t you fancy our chances in a penalty shootout? You can’t be basing that on anything since we’ve never been involved in one. Not an important one anyway. 

Edited November 20, 2019 by Texas Pete

[mrniaboc]

1 minute ago, ceudmilefailte said:

I think a list of the teams we haven't beaten at home would be  far more informative 

Wouldn't both lists be more informative than either in isolation. Sorry I wasn't able to grab that for you all. I had 5 mins before my train. 

[mrniaboc]

4 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

When it comes to home games the important stat isn't "not losing". If you want to qualify you need to "win" your home games. On top of your list we have failed to beat Lithuania, England, Czech Rep, Poland, Slovenia, Norway (twice), Belarus, Italy, and Netherlands. And that's just off the top of my head. There are probably others. We needed 8 minutes of injury time to beat Liechtenstein. 

We won't win a play off by "not losing". I don't fancy our chances in a penalty shot out.

Wales only dropped 2 points at home, and that was to the top seeds. That's why they have qualified.

I feel like not losing will be a real start. Don't you? 

[Texas Pete]

5 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

I think a list of the teams we haven't beaten at home would be  far more informative 

The main one that springs to mind would be Lithuania. That was a terrible performance.

We have beaten some sides fairly recently though that I would consider comparable to who we are likely to face in March. Slovakia, Slovenia and Ireland for example. 

[dohadeer]

16 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

When it comes to home games the important stat isn't "not losing". If you want to qualify you need to "win" your home games. On top of your list we have failed to beat Lithuania, England, Czech Rep, Poland, Slovenia, Norway (twice), Belarus, Italy, and Netherlands. And that's just off the top of my head. There are probably others. We needed 8 minutes of injury time to beat Liechtenstein. 

We won't win a play off by "not losing". I don't fancy our chances in a penalty shot out.

Wales only dropped 2 points at home, and that was to the top seeds. That's why they have qualified.

Yeah, I was going to compile a full list this evening when I get home, but that is indeed an awful lot of dropped points.

As I thought, that doesn’t look like such a decent home record at all! Although I’m sure that some of those are longer than 10 years ago.

[Orraloon]

10 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

Why don’t you fancy out chances in a penalty shootout? You can’t be basing that on anything since we’ve never been involved in one. Not an important one anyway. 

Most of our players are Scottish. They'll bottle it. 

Not sure my nerves could take a penalty shoot out. But if we are 0-1 with 5 minutes to go, I'd settle for penalties.

[Texas Pete]

1 minute ago, Orraloon said:

Most of our players are Scottish. They'll bottle it. 

Not sure my nerves could take a penalty shoot out. But if we are 0-1 with 5 minutes to go, I'd settle for penalties.

I was saying the exact same thing in the pub after the game last night. Can you imagine a penalty shoot out against Norway/Serbia to get to the finals? I honestly don’t think I could watch it. 

As for your other point, Scots have as much bottle as anyone. Any English born players wouldn’t be any better anyway. Have you seen England’s record in shootouts? Even after the last World Cup it’s still shite. 

[dohadeer]

1 minute ago, Texas Pete said:

I was saying the exact same thing in the pub after the game last night. Can you imagine a penalty shoot out against Norway/Serbia to get to the finals? I honestly don’t think I could watch it. 

As for your other point, Scots have as much bottle as anyone. Any English born players wouldn’t be any better anyway. Have you seen England’s record in shootouts? Even after the last World Cup it’s still shite. 

I wouldn’t have thought that we have the bottle of the likes of Germany, or most other European teams. I’d assume that our bottle would go in a shootout, like England’s does.

[Texas Pete]

Just now, dohadeer said:

I wouldn’t have thought that we have the bottle of the likes of Germany, or most other European teams. I’d assume that our bottle would go in a shootout, like England’s does.

Maybe I should’ve said Scottish people (excluding footballers) have as much bottle as anyone. 😂

Seriously though, why would you assume that? Plenty of Scots have been involved in penalty shootouts over the years. I don’t have any memory of major bottle crashes.

We won’t know until if/when it happens.