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The Greatest Scotland Squad for a Major Tournament


Caledonian Craig

Which is the Greatest?  

44 members have voted

  1. 1. The Best Scotland Squad to Play at a Major Tournament

    • 1954 World Cup Finals
      0
    • 1958 World Cup Finals
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    • 1974 World Cup Finals
    • 1978 World Cup Finals
    • 1982 World Cup Finals
    • 1986 World Cup Finals
    • 1990 World Cup Finals
      0
    • 1992 Euros
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    • 1996 Euros
    • 1990 World Cup Finals
      0
    • 2020 Euros


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13 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

You genuinely have no clue do you?

Firstly, the poll is about our best ever squad to go to a major tournament so every squad is up for discussion.

Secondly, the squad of 54 certainly could not be better than available even today due to SFA incompetence. In 1954 they named only a 13-man squad even though other squads were 22-man strong. On top of that the SFA still operated in an archaic manner with a selection committee choosing the squad and selecting the teams. The manager/coach And Beattie had his hands tied in every way. And on top of that due to SFA disagreements with Rangers none of their players were selected and preparation time for the tournament was far more limited compared to other qualifiers as clubs refused to release their players for preparation.

On to 1958 and the SFA still operated in archaic ways though it was being dragged into the new age. Manager Sir Matt Busby was allowed to sit in on selection committees and team selection discussions but the committee had the last word. Handicaps like that were still major disadvantages and the talented youngster Denis Law missed out on the tournament due to a knee injury.

So your comments on 54 and 58 squads are way off the mark. Curious why you chose to comment on a thread which has a poll but you ignore participation and post in only an antagonistic form.

The first tournament I vaguely remember is the 1992 European Championships. The first major finals tournament Scotland competed in, that I have any reasonable knowledge on, was four years later, in 1996. I don’t feel qualified to make a selection on the poll, as I don‘t have enough knowledge of all the squads to make a fair decision, as so many of them were before my time.

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29 minutes ago, Whelky75 said:

The first tournament I vaguely remember is the 1992 European Championships. The first major finals tournament Scotland competed in, that I have any reasonable knowledge on, was four years later, in 1996. I don’t feel qualified to make a selection on the poll, as I don‘t have enough knowledge of all the squads to make a fair decision, as so many of them were before my time.

So why pollute the thread with wild suppositions about the 54 and 58 squad and denigrating others opinions on a subject, by your own admittance, you know very little about?

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2 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

So why pollute the thread with wild suppositions about the 54 and 58 squad and denigrating others opinions on a subject, by your own admittance, you know very little about?

I think it was a fair point to suggest removing the 1950s squads from the debate.

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53 minutes ago, Whelky75 said:

I think it was a fair point to suggest removing the 1950s squads from the debate.

No not at all it was you doing the usual - being wholly obnoxious. There are many Scotland fans who will do their homework (not you of course) by researching, watching old footage, reading up on the subject and taking on board past expert opinion to form an opinion. That is not your style though as you are just here to be a self-righteous, holier than thou, Grade A asshole.

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3 hours ago, Caledonian Craig said:

No not at all it was you doing the usual - being wholly obnoxious. There are many Scotland fans who will do their homework (not you of course) by researching, watching old footage, reading up on the subject and taking on board past expert opinion to form an opinion. That is not your style though as you are just here to be a self-righteous, holier than thou, Grade A asshole.

Is there footage of the matches involving the 1950s teams?

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Although maybe not our best ever side on paper, the Euro 92 team could have won that tournament!

We played very well in the opening game against the Dutch and arguably deserved a draw. Should definitely have taken something from the next match versus Germany. Beat a solid CIS team in the final match. They still had a chance to qualify having drawn their opening  2 x matches.

If we’d progressed through that group it would have been a winnable semi final against Sweden or Denmark and then who knows!!!!

To qualify for Euro 92 we topped a very stuffy group which included Bulgaria, Romania and Switzerland. All of these nations went on to reach the knock out stages of USA 94. Bulgaria and and Romania both had golden generation sides. Indeed, off the top of my head, I believe Euro 92 was the only tournament that Romania did not qualify for during that decade (1990 - 2000).

Apologies, I have bored my mates with this one on many an occasion after a few pints, saw this thread and grabbed the opportunity to post this with both hands!! Haha

 

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Put 74 . It’s the first I  remember and the reason I became a Leeds supporter. 
I took the huff that we were knocked out unbeaten. Dunno if that’s often happened. 
still in a huff through the final . Popping in and out the house getting updated for us kids playing football outside whilst the dads watched *

* in no way sexist. The mums were enjoying themselves next door with loud music as I remember 

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1974 for me.

78 as mentioned we were hampered by injuries.

In 82 Stein made some odd choices, his squad peaked a couple of years later.

Ironically our best squad would probably have been in 1962 or 66 if we'd qualified. 

1930 too, Scotland were without doubt one of the world's best teams then, but wanted nothing to do with FIFA unfortunately. 

 

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On 4/7/2023 at 3:24 PM, Orraloon said:

The way folk answer this will be as much a reflection of their age than anything else.

Not me, I’m ancient. I think the squad of 2024 - 26 will be our most successful ever.

Talent at a good age, I’d go for 82 or 86. The 74 squad was somewhat past it even if maybe the best on paper.

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3 hours ago, er yir macaroon said:

Not me, I’m ancient. I think the squad of 2024 - 26 will be our most successful ever.

Talent at a good age, I’d go for 82 or 86. The 74 squad was somewhat past it even if maybe the best on paper.

Most successful ever in what sense?!!

Thats an outrageous claim to make.

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On 4/8/2023 at 9:24 PM, Daz1982 said:

Although maybe not our best ever side on paper, the Euro 92 team could have won that tournament!

We played very well in the opening game against the Dutch and arguably deserved a draw. Should definitely have taken something from the next match versus Germany. Beat a solid CIS team in the final match. They still had a chance to qualify having drawn their opening  2 x matches.

 

 

I was at all 3 games and whilst i was extremely drunk that is a million miles from my recollections - particularly the Germany game where it was 2 going on 5

The way to judge it is if everyone felt hard done to after the first two games - we never

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On 4/8/2023 at 9:24 PM, Daz1982 said:

Although maybe not our best ever side on paper, the Euro 92 team could have won that tournament!

We played very well in the opening game against the Dutch and arguably deserved a draw. Should definitely have taken something from the next match versus Germany. Beat a solid CIS team in the final match. They still had a chance to qualify having drawn their opening  2 x matches.

If we’d progressed through that group it would have been a winnable semi final against Sweden or Denmark and then who knows!!!!

To qualify for Euro 92 we topped a very stuffy group which included Bulgaria, Romania and Switzerland. All of these nations went on to reach the knock out stages of USA 94. Bulgaria and and Romania both had golden generation sides. Indeed, off the top of my head, I believe Euro 92 was the only tournament that Romania did not qualify for during that decade (1990 - 2000).

Apologies, I have bored my mates with this one on many an occasion after a few pints, saw this thread and grabbed the opportunity to post this with both hands!! Haha

Whether we could've won Euro 92 is debatable, but the Euros back then were very strong; you'd never get a Euro group with the world champions and both previous Euro finalists now. Given the circumstances it was probably one of the most respectable tournament performances we've ever had. Getting to that Euros was an achievement in itself, as you mention.

I think that Denmark side was underrated at the time. They got knocked out in the qualifiers narrowly by a Yugoslavia side who could've won the competition themselves. Their squad would've featured a number of Red Star players who won the European Cup the season prior and would've made two successive finals had they won their final match in the European Cup groups that season. Even if they hadn't been banned from the competition, they would've likely been without any Slovenian, Croatian, Bosnian and Macedonian players who would've been in the squad though.

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9 hours ago, Ally Bongo said:

I was at all 3 games and whilst i was extremely drunk that is a million miles from my recollections - particularly the Germany game where it was 2 going on 5

The way to judge it is if everyone felt hard done to after the first two games - we never

You must've been extremely drunk cos we should've been 4 up on Germany after 20 minutes.

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10 hours ago, Ally Bongo said:

I was at all 3 games and whilst i was extremely drunk that is a million miles from my recollections - particularly the Germany game where it was 2 going on 5

The way to judge it is if everyone felt hard done to after the first two games - we never

We were outstanding against Germany, although too open. It was probably McStay’s best ever performance for Scotland with McAllister not far behind. I was gutted after that game. I think Nevin also played well iirc. 

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2 hours ago, daviebee said:

You must've been extremely drunk cos we should've been 4 up on Germany after 20 minutes.

Knickers

 

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2 hours ago, daviebee said:

You must've been extremely drunk cos we should've been 4 up on Germany after 20 minutes.

Yep, absolutely battered them. I remember talking to a German mate who couldn't believe how tough a game we gave them (in terms of our play and physicality).

Took a couple of flukey goals for them to get past us 😠

 

Edited by Toepoke
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1 hour ago, Toepoke said:

Yep, absolutely battered them. I remember talking to a German mate who couldn't believe how tough a game we gave them (in terms of our play and physicality).

Took a couple of flukey goals for them to get past us 😠

 

Aye that 2nd goal was absolutely ridiculous. Came off Malpas and landed in the one place Goram couldn't possibly reach. The team never deserved that sort of luck going against them in an outstanding performance.

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9 hours ago, Clyde1998 said:

Whether we could've won Euro 92 is debatable, but the Euros back then were very strong; you'd never get a Euro group with the world champions and both previous Euro finalists now.

TBF we got a Euro qualifying group with the WC winners, runners up and quarter finalists in it!

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