Andy Robertson

[Orraloon]

56 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

Ah ok, new it was a hibby of some sort 😂

Eric Schaedler was also in the squad, never got a game though.

[mccaughey85]

35 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

There is so much wrong in that post I am not sure how to go about it.

Teams playing in Europe in 1974 that were strong are generally still strong now but been joined by many more such as Croatia (World Cup runners-up and perrenial qualifiers), Ukraine, Slovakia, Serbia, Bosnia and North Macedonia. The countries that you belittle such as Latvia, Estonia and Belarus are in a place that the likes of Greece, Turkey, Finland and Iceland were back in the 1970s all of which are markedly improved teams. We just need to look back to the last World Cup and Italy not qualifying to see how much harder it has become. This time around Portugal and Italy could not even qualify as group winners and Italy are the European Champions. Back in the 70s African Nations were the whipping boys at the World Cups - not any more. Countries from Asia are far more capable of causing upsets too in greater number rather than just the freak showings of North Korea in the 66 World Cup.

If you ask Scotland fans of today how good our current side is many will tell you we have the best side we have had since we last qualified for the World Cup and yet we still can't qualify directly. Another indication of how global standards have risen in quantity and quality. Anyway I don't think we are going to agree on this so I will leave it there.

I already mentioned croatia as a top team these days. 

Sorry but North Macedonia are not a decent side, they maybe have had a decent run recently but overall they have been poor, slovakia are half decent but are hardly great either. 

Fair enough there have been improvements in the scandanaivian sides and a few others but the point still stands that to get to the 70s world cup we had to be one of 8.5 teams that qualified that still had all the top guns minus croatia who were under the banner of yugoslavia who were a good side back then anyway. 

Do you think we could qualify today from a group that had the European champions and a strong Wales team? Even if we were to face today's czech team and today's Wales team(who fair enough are pretty good) would we come out on top. Maybe but it would be tough. 

Not sure why you are mentioning the African/asia sides, we have never had to play them to qualify so they are irrelevant. 

Your right that global standards have risen but the world cup has increased in teams so it has balanced out the difficulty. Lets face it we wouldn't have qualified for the euros had it still been 16 teams. The extra 8 countries allows us to qualify. 

The extra places at world cups and euros is why we stand a chance of qualifying these days. 

Also lots of big countries have failed to qualify for World cups. England never qualified for 74, 78 and 94. Portugal never qualified for any world cups until 66 and then never qualified again until 86. All the while teams like benfica and sporting had great Portuguese players. The Netherlands have never qualified for countless World cups as well. They never qualified for 70, 82,86. Top teams often don't qualify, it happens and has been happening since the world cup started.

In fact it happened more often in the 60s, 70s and 80s due to fact that the world cup was only 16 teams and qualifying for one meant you had to beat other top tier nations. 

We didn't qualify directly for this world cup because we weren't good enough. We had the easiest group we are likely to ever get and we still couldn't get top. The 98 team got the best place runner up spot which looking back was an amazing achievement. The only difference between this world cup and the 98 world cup was that the best placed runner up got automatic entry, thats a pretty marginal difference tbf. 

[ceudmilefailte]

Robertson on the bench tonight, hate to say it but the Greek lad in his place has been very impressive every time he has played.