Norway v Scotland - match day thread

[loanhead-tartan]

Before kick off off I’d have taken a draw before they’re very soft pen , but now with the 3 points back to hampden I’d say we just about deserved that . That a performance

[Tartan Chris]

3 hours ago, ger intae them said:

Oh dear, ain’t over til it’s over ya muppet 😂

Haha what an ending! Love being proven wrong on these occasions.

Have to credit McLean, he really did finish like Haaland as so many players would've just lent back and blasted the ball over the bar. Perfect body position curling into the corner.

Dykes was pretty isolated all game but credit to him for keeping going and pouncing on a defensive mix up.

I thought it was a pretty mediocre performance for pretty much 80 minutes. Just played for a 0-0 and then not a great response after going 1-0 down but I think keeping going at least shows the change in mentality in this side over last 2-3 years.

Think how bad the away form was for pretty much a decade and now the guys just don't believe they can lose away especially with results like this.

This pretty much knocks Norway out of contention, if they want top 2 they will simply have to win at Hampden and v Spain and that's a big ask given how limited they are (they don't use Odegaard right at all compared to how he plays for his club).

See you all in Dortmund in 12 months time...

[borojock]

awesome result - performance wasnt great but doesnt matter - big mentality shift in the camp from years gone by and a lot more professional - i see on flight radar 24 2 private jets flying back from Oslo right now in years gone by they would have been taking a commercial flight tomorrow morning lot of praise has to go to squad, managaement team but also behind the scenes people as who place seems more organised, structured and professional 

[mccaughey85]

1 hour ago, Tartan blood said:

It wasn't lucky. They might have been the better side over the piece, but we created those chances.

It wasn't a dodgy penalty (theirs was), it wasn't a bad refereeing decision (he was against us all night), and it wasn't an o.g. You need to check your definition of luck.

Winning a game where you weren't the best team isn't lucky, it's football. And it's why we watch it.

 

44 minutes ago, ThistleWhistle said:

Plain and simply anyone watching that today not realising we're the better side by miles knows fuck all about football!

Come on tae fuck guys. We hardly got out of our own half most of the game. We were terrible most of the match. Fair play we pulled out a great result but it was a tough watch at times. Norway dominated large spells. 

I love that we won, but i am able to admit the truth that we we played poorly for most of the match. 

If you want to delude yourself fair enough but dont criticize me for not deluding myself.

[Dave78]

31 minutes ago, borojock said:

awesome result - performance wasnt great but doesnt matter - big mentality shift in the camp from years gone by and a lot more professional - i see on flight radar 24 2 private jets flying back from Oslo right now in years gone by they would have been taking a commercial flight tomorrow morning lot of praise has to go to squad, managaement team but also behind the scenes people as who place seems more organised, structured and professional 

I think you're spot on about the mentality change. Clarke spoke about it in the post match interview, saying that's mainly what they worked on during the training camp.

When you compare the pathetic June performances against Ireland and Ukraine, and today's, it's easy to see the difference. We matched a fired up Norway in effort and determination. The June Scotland of a year or two ago wouldn't have done that.

 

12 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

 

Come on tae fuck guys. We hardly got out of our own half most of the game. We were terrible most of the match. Fair play we pulled out a great result but it was a tough watch at times. Norway dominated large spells. 

I love that we won, but i am able to admit the truth that we we played poorly for most of the match. 

If you want to delude yourself fair enough but dont criticize me for not deluding myself.

We limited a fired-up Norway with a world-class front line to one good chance and a soft penalty.

Sure, we might not have dominated the game, but i don't think that means we played badly.

[JECK]

Amazing reading the comments back folks👍 thought we were quite poor for large periods but take it all day, an amazing ending, as has been mentioned never experienced anything like that as a Scotland fan.   

[bigfingers]

22 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

 

Come on tae fuck guys. We hardly got out of our own half most of the game. We were terrible most of the match. Fair play we pulled out a great result but it was a tough watch at times. Norway dominated large spells. 

I love that we won, but i am able to admit the truth that we we played poorly for most of the match. 

If you want to delude yourself fair enough but dont criticize me for not deluding myself.

We were the away team with points already in the bag. We didn’t need to be the team playing all the football. We let Norway have a lot of the ball and we took our chances. Heat played a factor too. 

[Diamond Scot]

This lucky talk is nonsence. 

It takes good players and coaching to cur off the supply to forward areas against good sides. Especially in that heat. Gunn hardly had a save to make and they scored from a penalty that was very smart play from one of the top 3 strikers in the world.

Yes, we didnt create many clear cuts chances and could have had abit more composure but we did have chances. It wasnt backs to the wall l, last ditch defending. It was controlled, coached phases of play in a game where a draw would have been a good result. We got abit of luck for the 1st as they made a mistake but we still had to force that mistake then capitalise on it. 

Most average teams (us previously) would have then sat back. We went up the field and scored a cracking goal. Top teams have that mentality, not lucky teams.

We will dominate other games more than that but sometimes playing well looks different. 

[slasher]

5 minutes ago, Diamond Scot said:

This lucky talk is nonsence. 

It takes good players and coaching to cur off the supply to forward areas against good sides. Especially in that heat. Gunn hardly had a save to make and they scored from a penalty that was very smart play from one of the top 3 strikers in the world.

Yes, we didnt create many clear cuts chances and could have had abit more composure but we did have chances. It wasnt backs to the wall l, last ditch defending. It was controlled, coached phases of play in a game where a draw would have been a good result. We got abit of luck for the 1st as they made a mistake but we still had to force that mistake then capitalise on it. 

Most average teams (us previously) would have then sat back. We went up the field and scored a cracking goal. Top teams have that mentality, not lucky teams.

We will dominate other games more than that but sometimes playing well looks different. 

Totally agree with this.

I don’t think either team really deserved the win but we restricted them to very little which in itself was a success. The only blip was our failure to link up with Dykes and create anything meaningful. Once we changed the system and went looking for a goal we both created and scored. 
It’s a massive result at a difficult venue at a traditionally troublesome time of year for us. All credit to the manager again and the players 

[todd]

49 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

 

Come on tae fuck guys. We hardly got out of our own half most of the game. We were terrible most of the match. Fair play we pulled out a great result but it was a tough watch at times. Norway dominated large spells. 

I love that we won, but i am able to admit the truth that we we played poorly for most of the match. 

If you want to delude yourself fair enough but dont criticize me for not deluding myself.

So would you rather a stellar performance and a loss? Jeez, just no pleasing some folk

[Tartan blood]

55 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

 

Come on tae fuck guys. We hardly got out of our own half most of the game. We were terrible most of the match. Fair play we pulled out a great result but it was a tough watch at times. Norway dominated large spells. 

I love that we won, but i am able to admit the truth that we we played poorly for most of the match. 

If you want to delude yourself fair enough but dont criticize me for not deluding myself.

You're the one that referred to it as lucky. Not many on here have claimed we were the better team.

Have a look at the stats. We weren't battered. In fact, we probably had better stats than you'd expect away from home against a team that had to win.

Our quality eventually shined through, after a disappointing showing up until then. No one is under any illusions about our performance. But we were the masters of our own fate. 

Edited June 17, 2023 by Tartan blood

[Texas Pete]

4 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

Lets be honest we looked dire most of the game. There was no creativity or urgency to our game. We looked like we wanted the draw from the outset and thats a dangerous game to play. 

We have gotten a huge bit of luck and its great to see.

 

We were the away team. The onus was on Norway to take the game to us and I thought we stifled them well and barring a soft penalty we would easily have achieved the draw most of us reckoned  would have been a good result. 

Could we have played better? In an attacking sense obviously yes we could have but if we had went all out for the win Norway could potentially have picked us off and scored more. 

The penalty ruined plan A but luckily plan B worked out pretty well. 

[ParisInAKilt]

Probably a bit harsh in some of the in game comments 😂

Forgot how hot it was as well. 

Sobered up now and re watched most of it. We generally defended well as a team, obviously could have played better going forward but least we remained solid and didn’t give up.

Dykes capitalised really well on their mistake and that second goal is good enough to win any game. 
How many of us have moaned when McLean has gotten a call up but showed great composure to tuck that away. 

Don’t think we’ve won 4 qualifiers in a row at the start of a campaign, can’t wait for Tuesday now. 

[Toepoke]

11 minutes ago, ParisInAKilt said:

 Don’t think we’ve won 4 qualifiers in a row at the start of a campaign, 

Nope, won the first three for Euro 2008 and WC74 but never more than that.

 

[ParisInAKilt]

2 minutes ago, Toepoke said:

Nope, won the first three for Euro 2008 and WC74 but never more than that.

 

Cyprus away after Georgia as well …. Right best not get carried away

[Texas Pete]

6 hours ago, McTeeko said:

YAAASSSSSS!!!!!!! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Cracking pic mate. Would be one for the album if they were still a thing. 

[Texas Pete]

6 hours ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

Didn't have much to do, but Gunn has completely won me over. Unlucky with the pen too. Anyone notice at ht, the only sprinkler they had on was the one outside our penalty area, hour did that work out 🖕🖕🖕

Looks solid enough. Only conceded one goal so far and that was a penalty which he almost got a paw to.

[Texas Pete]

6 hours ago, romanticscot said:

I am lost for words.  The Norway coach taking off Haaland when they are only 1 up was a real shocker.  Dykes should be the man of the match, he could easily have gone to sleep but scored once and was massive with his layoff for the second.  McGinn with his cross instead of shooting showed real awareness.

The problem I find with Scotland is always considering the future and not enjoying the moment and deferring the enjoyment.  We are 8 points off our 2nd place main rival in Norway and 6 points clear of Spain who don't play until September.  If we keep our composure and beat Georgia then we are 9 points ahead of 2nd place in the league in Spain we can totally enjoy the summer which I think mathematically means 4 points in our last 4 matches would get us to Germany. 

This was a game changer. Gave the whole team a lift. 

[Texas Pete]

5 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

The first goal was lucky. The second was a brilliant move but overall our performance didnt deserve a victory or even a draw. 

We were quite poor most of the match. Wouldnt you agree?

I would definitely disagree about not deserving a draw. Norway were pish tonight for a home team which needed to win. 

You could also argue that we deserved to win because we scored more goals than Norway did. 

[Texas Pete]

5 hours ago, romanticscot said:

Could you imagine if this group was World Cup qualification, mental. 

It will be very mildly irritating if we win this group when we don’t really need to. 😂 

Don’t get me wrong I will love it if we win the group and it should benefit us in the finals draw but I’d much rather have won our last group our next one.

The very fact we are even daring to think about the possibility of winning the group is brilliant though. 

I’d still bite your hand off for second place right enough. 

[Texas Pete]

4 hours ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

Steve Clarke getting teary, think we all felt it today 👍👍

https://twitter.com/ScotlandNT/status/1670155633818222592?t=IHtK3bGI-hK5WDK3PtC3hA&s=19

Teary? Nae chance. 

[mccaughey85]

2 hours ago, bigfingers said:

We were the away team with points already in the bag. We didn’t need to be the team playing all the football. We let Norway have a lot of the ball and we took our chances. Heat played a factor too. 

Thats ok, i dont mind it but lets be honest about our performance. Up until our first goal i was cursing our performance and if you are honest you probably were as well. We played terrible and managed to pull ourselves out of a hole with a bit of luck and a well worked goal. Thats great but i will not delude myself with lies.  We looked relatively poor for most of the game. 

Its great to pull out a result like we did but if you want to lie to yourself then fine. Just dont expect me to do it, i have higher personal standards and i refuse to bullshit myself.

[Shaundy]

That was fun 

credit to all the players in 30+ .

was really pleased to see billy come on with a bit to go and our subs were as good as the previous players whereas Haaland off is not gonna be matched. The guy is great , beserker in previous times. Overall deserving his penalty goal. 
Lyndon loves the step up in teammate quality when with the national squad. And a squad it so seems to be . Was great when Robertson articulated after the game that they choose to socialise. Expressing the feel that a national team has .

pleased for Clarke 

👍🏻🥃🖖

[mccaughey85]

2 hours ago, todd said:

So would you rather a stellar performance and a loss? Jeez, just no pleasing some folk

Fuk me when did i say that? All i expect is a little honesty about how we performed.

If i asked you about our performance before the first goal went in how would you have answered it?

Try and be honest.

I was raging with our performance prior to our first goal. I doubt anybody on here would say different if they were being brutally honest with themselves. We played poorly but managed to knick a couple of goals. Nothing wrong with that but just be honest about it. 

No ones happier than me at the result.

[mccaughey85]

2 hours ago, Texas Pete said:

We were the away team. The onus was on Norway to take the game to us and I thought we stifled them well and barring a soft penalty we would easily have achieved the draw most of us reckoned  would have been a good result. 

Could we have played better? In an attacking sense obviously yes we could have but if we had went all out for the win Norway could potentially have picked us off and scored more. 

The penalty ruined plan A but luckily plan B worked out pretty well. 

Were you happy with the performance prior to the first goal?

Do you think we played well up until that point?