Play Off Picture

[rOsCo2]

I just want a seeding so we have a home game and another sell out Hampden. Partly makes up for the empty stadium at the last play offs.

[Texas Pete]

So here’s what we need to be one of the seeded teams if we lose tomorrow (as far as I can make out):

Group D

Finland to fail to beat France 

Group E

Belgium to beat Wales by at least a goal more than Denmark beat us by and Czech Republic to fail to beat Estonia at home.

Group G

Turkey to fail to beat Montenegro away and Norway to fail to beat Netherlands away. 

Most of these results are likely to happen except the Czech game. Even if the Czechs only beat Estonia by one goal they would go through ahead of us on goal difference. We could really come to regret only beating the Faroes 0-1 up there.

We are extremely unlikely to be seeded if we lose to Denmark although I think we all knew that anyway. 

A point will only be good enough to guarantee us to be seeded if 2 of the following 3 things happen:

1) Belgium beat Wales

2) Poland lose to Hungary

3) Turkey fail to beat Montenegro by fewer than 4 clear goals. 

A win would guarantee us to be among the seeded teams.

I am sure I must be missing something but my head is burst trying to work it all out.

Edited November 14, 2021 by Texas Pete

[mccaughey85]

6 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

We should fear any team at Hampden.  The World Cup is harder to get in to now so you have beat decent sides.  We should be going in to tomorrow’s game with a win to top the group.  Denmark are a decent side by beatable. Portugal and Spain should be bearable at home.

Lol you been on the bevy. "we should fear any team at Hampden". 

Also we cant top the group, its mathematically impossible. 

 

[mccaughey85]

7 minutes ago, rOsCo2 said:

I just want a seeding so we have a home game and another sell out Hampden. Partly makes up for the empty stadium at the last play offs.

We have played quite well away from home in our recent big games.

[Guest Scot1]

Gonna be some game tomorrow, Gilmour and McGinn’s erse to steal the show and lead the Scots to victory

[todd]

1 hour ago, mccaughey85 said:

Pretty sure netherlands will qualify automatically, thankfully Spain have done the job tonight so it's just Portugal as the lone big gun in the play offs. 

Don't know mate, they have to get something off Norway, Turkey need a win against Montenegro, not a given that the Netherlands are winning that group!

[todd]

42 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

We should fear any team at Hampden.  The World Cup is harder to get in to now so you have beat decent sides.  We should be going in to tomorrow’s game with a win to top the group.  Denmark are a decent side by beatable. Portugal and Spain should be bearable at home.

Possibly 'shouldn't' 😁 but yeah I know exactly what you mean, we should be thinking we can win this

[Grim Jim]

Ma heid's burstin'.   Been looking at where we are since results came in tonight, then scurrying through about four pages on this thread, but am in roughly the same place as @Templeton_Peck and @Texas Pete were at least half an hour ago.

A draw should do us fine, but we've seen the likes of Ireland beating Germany help scupper us before.

[Tartan Chris]

Serbia are a funny old team aren't they? Outplayed them a year ago in Belgrade and with largely same team they go on and win in Portugal to top the group.

Now made 3 of last 4 world cups but don't think they've made a euros in something like 20 years!

Didn't want Portugal in play offs though.

 

[Grim Jim]

ELO ratings giving us only a 24% chance of a win and even a draw being an improvement for us.

[Texas Pete]

2 minutes ago, Grim Jim said:

Ma heid's burstin'.   Been looking at where we are since results came in tonight, then scurrying through about four pages on this thread, but am in roughly the same place as @Templeton_Peck and @Texas Pete were at least half an hour ago.

A draw should do us fine, but we've seen the likes of Ireland beating Germany help scupper us before.

It’s brutal isn’t it?

It’s great to have the opportunity to try and work these things out though as we are usually out of it and in a huff at this stage. 

Let’s just hope for a good performance tomorrow and see what comes of it. If we are seeded, great if we’re not we’ll just need to do it the hard way. 

[Guest Scot1]

Not used to this, all our games have meaning, each game just seems to be bigger and more important than the last one. 

[Grim Jim]

2 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

It’s brutal isn’t it?

It’s great to have the opportunity to try and work these things out though as we are usually out of it and in a huff at this stage. 

Let’s just hope for a good performance tomorrow and see what comes of it. If we are seeded, great if we’re not we’ll just need to do it the hard way. 

Aye, a nice problem to have!

I was going to post something about sticking or twisting at level with 15mins to go, but feck that.   I just hope we're in that good a position.

[Grim Jim]

Miserable barsteward alert!   We'll be 0-2 down by half time and with 10 men 😳

[mccaughey85]

15 minutes ago, Tartan Chris said:

Serbia are a funny old team aren't they? Outplayed them a year ago in Belgrade and with largely same team they go on and win in Portugal to top the group.

Now made 3 of last 4 world cups but don't think they've made a euros in something like 20 years!

Didn't want Portugal in play offs though.

 

Serbia have a strong squad and us beating them in our euro play off was a massive achievement. Most of their players play in top leagues. 

They will be a tougher opponent this time round if we get them again. 

[mccaughey85]

18 minutes ago, Grim Jim said:

ELO ratings giving us only a 24% chance of a win and even a draw being an improvement for us.

24 percent chance of a win against Denmark is pretty decent tbf. I would probably give us less than 15 percent. 

[Texas Pete]

1 minute ago, mccaughey85 said:

24 percent chance of a win against Denmark is pretty decent tbf. I would probably give us less than 15 percent. 

Steady on. It’s not France we’re playing. 

[mccaughey85]

7 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

Steady on. It’s not France we’re playing. 

How many times have we beaten a top nation in the last ten years. Pretty sure it's only been twice and that was against Croatia nearly 9 years ago. We don't beat top 10 nations very often and Denmark are a team thats very much on form. They have only conceded 1 goal in the whole campaign. 

[Texas Pete]

6 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

How many times have we beaten a top nation in the last ten years. Pretty sure it's only been twice and that was against Croatia nearly 9 years ago. We don't beat top 10 nations very often and Denmark are a team thats very much on form. They have only conceded 1 goal in the whole campaign. 

I would put Denmark a level below the top nations. When they are at full strength they are obviously a very good side and their performance at the Euros and their record in this group proves that but they will not be at full strength tomorrow. 

They are clear favourites to win tomorrow and rightly so but that doesn’t mean we can’t win the game.

 

Edited November 15, 2021 by Texas Pete

[todd]

6 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

I would put Denmark a level below the top nations. When they are at full strength they are obviously a very good side and their performance at the Euros and their record in this group proves that but they will not be at full strength tomorrow. 

They are clear favourites to win tomorrow and rightly so but that doesn’t mean we can’t win the game.

 

Their 'performance' at the euros was ultimately based on somehow getting to the next stage after being beaten by Finland and Belgium so not sure we should read too much into that!

[mccaughey85]

6 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

I would put Denmark a level below the top nations. When they are at full strength they are obviously a very good side and their performance at the Euros and their record in this group proves that but they will not be at full strength tomorrow. 

They are clear favourites to win tomorrow and rightly so but that doesn’t mean we can’t win the game.

 

Historically they have not always been a top tier nation but at this moment in time they very much are. If we played this danish side ten times I would expect us to beat them once.

Thats a 10 percent chance. Not exactly great odds. 

[todd]

3 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

Historically they have not always been a top tier nation but at this moment in time they very much are. If we played this danish side ten times I would expect us to beat them once.

Thats a 10 percent chance. Not exactly great odds. 

Oh well, that's official. I'd expect us to beat them 5 times so, yeh 50% odds! Score 😄

[Texas Pete]

2 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

Historically they have not always been a top tier nation but at this moment in time they very much are. If we played this danish side ten times I would expect us to beat them once.

Thats a 10 percent chance. Not exactly great odds. 

I’m not sure what you are basing that on. Why not 2 out of 10 or 3? I’m pretty sure we beat Denmark the last time we played them at Hampden 5 years ago. We can do it again. I’m not going to put any sort of odds on it because the bookies have already done that for us. 

Denmark are good but they are clearly not as good as Belgium, France, Italy or probably even England or Spain. They have less strength in depth and they will be missing some key players tomorrow. 

Will we beat them? Probably not but we have better than a 10% chance in my opinion. 

We will have a full Hampden behind us tomorrow and with a good performance and a bit of luck we might just spring a surprise. We could also get pumped. I’m looking forward to finding out. 

[Toepoke]

56 minutes ago, Tartan Chris said:

Serbia are a funny old team aren't they? Outplayed them a year ago in Belgrade and with largely same team they go on and win in Portugal to top the group.

Now made 3 of last 4 world cups but don't think they've made a euros in something like 20 years!

It's now 4 out of 5 World Cups they've reached since being rebranded as Serbia. Phenomenal record. 

And you're right on the other hand their last time at the Euros was when they were still known as Yugoslavia!

 

 

[Texas Pete]

13 minutes ago, todd said:

Their 'performance' at the euros was ultimately based on somehow getting to the next stage after being beaten by Finland and Belgium so not sure we should read too much into that!

They also won their second round match and quarter final. They are a very good team but they are not as good as some people on here would have you believe. 

They needed a late goal to beat the Faroes away just as we did and laboured to beat them at home. We beat the Faroes more comfortably than they did at home. 

They are definitely beatable but we will need to be at our very best, take our chances and will probably need a bit of luck as well.