Life is Great Just Now

[mccaughey85]

31 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

Would those teams bring any value? Not saying they wouldn’t I’m just not sure. 

Probably not but expanding the euros to 32 teams when theres currently only 55 teams seems  a bit daft to me. Perhaps a few teams from the middle east might justify having a 32 team competition.

[Burj_Alba]

7 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

Maybe the future of the euros will be the inclusion of middle eastern teams. Israel already gets in. Why not a few more.

They won't play Israel. 

[Toepoke]

5 hours ago, Burj_Alba said:

They won't play Israel. 

Exactly, that's why Israel are in UEFA. 

[scotlad]

13 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

Probably not but expanding the euros to 32 teams when theres currently only 55 teams seems  a bit daft to me. Perhaps a few teams from the middle east might justify having a 32 team competition.

32 teams is far too many. Arguably expanding it to 24 teams has diluted the quality of the tournament but I think it's about right considering the number of teams in Europe nowadays.

[Tartan blood]

On 6/23/2023 at 1:44 PM, Judith said:

He did indeed.

If you look back to the Russia away game which was one of Steve Clarkes early fixtures, our first 11 was......

Marshall

Palmer Mulgrew Devlin Robertson

McGregor McGinn Fleck, Snodgrass

Fraser Burke

Thats some turnaround in the squad and formation. It has taken a fair bit of time to get where we are now, but Clarke must take huge plaudits for the work he has done building a competitive squad.

Of course some of that can just be down to timing, and the emergence of younger players like Gilmour, Patterson and Hickey etc isnt Clarkes doing, but he still has to develop them.and get them playing effectively as a team.

Good times.

Obviously Clarke does have an absolutely cracking squad at the moment, but I think we all know he does a lot more than just turn up and put 11 names on a board.

 

Arguably, our strongest squad in the past 25 years would have been around 2009. The likes of Brown, Maloney, Ferguson, Hutton, Fletcher x2, Caldwell, Gordon, McFadden, Morrison, Miller, McManus etc were all in their prime. We badly underachieved during the next few years, which must be largely down to poorly suited managers. But also the fact that knowing any success means the manager will walkaway. If the manager isn't commited, why would the players? Clarke's loyalty will be infectious.

[Texas Pete]

15 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

Probably not but expanding the euros to 32 teams when theres currently only 55 teams seems  a bit daft to me. Perhaps a few teams from the middle east might justify having a 32 team competition.

I think UEFA have abandoned the idea of expanding again anyway. At least for the moment. 

Having 24 teams devalues the tournament a bit for me because only 8 teams go out after the group stage. Can’t complain about that too much though since it benefitted us last time. 

[Orraloon]

1 hour ago, Texas Pete said:

I think UEFA have abandoned the idea of expanding again anyway. At least for the moment. 

Having 24 teams devalues the tournament a bit for me because only 8 teams go out after the group stage. Can’t complain about that too much though since it benefitted us last time. 

How did it benefit us?

[mccaughey85]

5 hours ago, scotlad said:

32 teams is far too many. Arguably expanding it to 24 teams has diluted the quality of the tournament but I think it's about right considering the number of teams in Europe nowadays.

24 teams is good for a country like us. Means we should be qualifying most years imo. 

[mccaughey85]

12 hours ago, Burj_Alba said:

They won't play Israel. 

Does most of the middle eastern teams refuse to play israel?

Genuine question.

Maybe one or two might reconsider if it allowed them access to playing in the euros. 

Either way i cant see how 32 teams is worthwhile with only 55 uefa countries.

[Texas Pete]

1 hour ago, Orraloon said:

How did it benefit us?

We’d have been nowhere near qualifying if there wasn’t 24 teams in the finals. 

[ThistleWhistle]

5 hours ago, scotlad said:

32 teams is far too many. Arguably expanding it to 24 teams has diluted the quality of the tournament but I think it's about right considering the number of teams in Europe nowadays.

I thought at the last euros there was a gulf in class where 6 or 7 of the teams were pretty pish ourselves included 

[Texas Pete]

1 minute ago, ThistleWhistle said:

I thought at the last euros there was a gulf in class where 6 or 7 of the teams were pretty pish ourselves included 

I don’t think we were actually that bad. We matched England and could actually have won that match and we were OK against the Czechs we just didn’t take our chances and Czech Republic took theirs.

We we’re far too negative against Croatia but they were the better team and deserved their victory.

We were obviously one of the weaker teams at the tournament but you can’t just have fantastic teams at these tournaments unless you do limit the numbers to 16 or fewer. The World Cup is even worse for weak teams and will only get worse if they keep expanding it. 

[ThistleWhistle]

What 24 teams does too is open up the knock out for smaller nations.

16 team format means only 8 so a smaller nation would need to finish ahead of a France, Germany, England, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, Spain or fluke the group draw. 

[ThistleWhistle]

2 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

I don’t think we were actually that bad. We matched England and could actually have won that match and we were OK against the Czechs we just didn’t take our chances and Czech Republic took theirs.

We we’re far too negative against Croatia but they were the better team and deserved their victory.

We were obviously one of the weaker teams at the tournament but you can’t just have fantastic teams at these tournaments unless you do limit the numbers to 16 or fewer. The World Cup is even worse for weak teams and will only get worse if they keep expanding it. 

I thought with two home games we showed understandable naivety and would have been noticeably off qualifying for a 16 team tournament.  I think this team could qualifying for a 16 team version though in comparison- they've definitely taken something from the last one

[Texas Pete]

Just now, ThistleWhistle said:

I thought with two home games we showed understandable naivety and would have been noticeably off qualifying for a 16 team tournament.  I think this team could qualifying for a 16 team version though in comparison- they've definitely taken something from the last one

Yeah I agree. Full crowds at Hampden would have helped as well but would have hindered us in London. 

I actually think we might have had a better chance last time if we didn’t have any games at Hampden. 

Euro 2024 will have a completely different feel to it for the players and supporters and as you say, most of the squad have had experience of playing at a major finals which none of them had last time.

Lets just hope we finish the job and secure our place ASAP.

 

 

[borojock]

Just spent the last hour watching on  Scotland National Team YouTube page the match highlights which start at Scotland 2 Austria 2 

We really have had a marked improvement from where we were the last 20 years take away the golden spurt with Smith then McLeish in charge first time round with the France games 

Since the Sco 2 Aus 2 game we have in competitive games beat Spain and Demark at home and beat Austria and Norway away, got one of the best Nation League records which has led us to group A, got a stable team, got a great team spirit, defence has got better and better and most games we seem to score. 

Compared to when Clarke took over we were shipping goals and lucky to get a shot on target 

Granted the Ukraine and Ireland games were sickening but outwith of that its really not been too bad at all 

 

[Judith]

24 teams is too many from a pool of 55 let alone expanding it.

16 was plenty and ensured the quality was upheld, even if we did benefit last time round.

Remember the heady days when we qualified for a tournament of 8 teams?

[Texas Pete]

1 hour ago, Judith said:

24 teams is too many from a pool of 55 let alone expanding it.

16 was plenty and ensured the quality was upheld, even if we did benefit last time round.

Remember the heady days when we qualified for a tournament of 8 teams?

There were only 34 or so countries in Europe at that point and we didn’t have the hardest of qualifying groups. Still a great achievement obviously but if we qualify for Euro 2024 as a group winner and if we manage to get into pot 1 as one of the 5 best qualifiers that would be a far bigger achievement that 1992 in my opinion even though there are 24 teams in the finals now. 

[Burj_Alba]

9 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

Does most of the middle eastern teams refuse to play israel?

Genuine question.

Maybe one or two might reconsider if it allowed them access to playing in the euros. 

Either way i cant see how 32 teams is worthwhile with only 55 uefa countries.

Remember this was the reason Israel first got onto the European circuit. Couldn't play in the Asian ones as all the Arab / Islamic teams wouldn't play them.

Fast forward 30 years and would it have changed? Several countries UAE, Jordan have diplomatic relations with Israel, not sure if that would venture into a football match. 

Cannot imagine an Israel V Iran EURO qualifier anytime soon. Other might be a bit more up for it.

Anyway, I am sure it is a problem EUFA wouldn't want to seek.

BTW have Israel ever played Turkey in a qualifier? Just checked, they haven't, co-incidence or luck of the draw?

[Texas Pete]

5 hours ago, Burj_Alba said:

Remember this was the reason Israel first got onto the European circuit. Couldn't play in the Asian ones as all the Arab / Islamic teams wouldn't play them.

Fast forward 30 years and would it have changed? Several countries UAE, Jordan have diplomatic relations with Israel, not sure if that would venture into a football match. 

Cannot imagine an Israel V Iran EURO qualifier anytime soon. Other might be a bit more up for it.

Anyway, I am sure it is a problem EUFA wouldn't want to seek.

BTW have Israel ever played Turkey in a qualifier? Just checked, they haven't, co-incidence or luck of the draw?

Could be a bit of both. They are not included in UEFA’s current political restrictions so could be drawn together now but maybe they have been in the past?

 

[Judith]

10 hours ago, Texas Pete said:

There were only 34 or so countries in Europe at that point and we didn’t have the hardest of qualifying groups. Still a great achievement obviously but if we qualify for Euro 2024 as a group winner and if we manage to get into pot 1 as one of the 5 best qualifiers that would be a far bigger achievement that 1992 in my opinion even though there are 24 teams in the finals now. 

Im not sure about that.

In 1992 only 22% of the teams entering qualified for the finals.

Last time out (and this time) it was 44%.

So statistically, 1992 was by far the greater acheivement, and we had to win our group to qualify on that occasion as well.

You could argue the overall standard of football has gone up, and I am by no means trying to diminish our acheivments in this campaign, but 1992 was a real outlier at the time.

[ThistleWhistle]

Saw a Tweet that a decade ago we were the first side in Europe mathematically eliminated from 2014 world cup after having 2 points from 6 games.

I'd completely wiped it from my mind apart from Bale blitzing Adam for pace.  

[Orraloon]

16 minutes ago, ThistleWhistle said:

Saw a Tweet that a decade ago we were the first side in Europe mathematically eliminated from 2014 world cup after having 2 points from 6 games.

I'd completely wiped it from my mind apart from Bale blitzing Adam for pace.  

The home game against Wales was even more embarrassing. 

[Texas Pete]

38 minutes ago, Judith said:

Im not sure about that.

In 1992 only 22% of the teams entering qualified for the finals.

Last time out (and this time) it was 44%.

So statistically, 1992 was by far the greater acheivement, and we had to win our group to qualify on that occasion as well.

You could argue the overall standard of football has gone up, and I am by no means trying to diminish our acheivments in this campaign, but 1992 was a real outlier at the time.

Our group this time is a lot more difficult in my opinion. Surely the manner of qualification is more important than the number of team at the finals?

In our 1992 qualifying group we were a pot 2 team as we were for this group but our pot 1 side was Romania. 

Apart from Denmark who sneaked in the back door we would have been the lowest ranked qualifier in terms of performance in the qualifiers. We won 4 games and 2 of those were against San Marino. 

If, and it’s a big if to be fair, we continue our winning streak and qualify as one of the pot 1 sides from a group which includes one of the top European sides then I would consider it a bigger achievement than scraping through a group which was arguably the weakest of the 7 groups with the possible exception of Denmark’s group although Yugoslavia were a very good side. 

It’s all a matter of opinion though and hard to say definitively either way. Especially since we haven’t even qualified for Euro 2024 yet. 

[Shaundy]

Still feel great about the football prospects. Fuck the fabric of social cohesion and climate emergency  unless we get much hotter than Oslo and any wetter than Hampden the last couple of games. 
gonna use casually planning for next summer as a ting for this summer till we confirm qualifying likely before November. Then will enjoy getting a few weeks in bonnie Deutschland next summer sorted. 
Embdy bothered about getting ahead of yourself should remember it makes little difference either way. If we by some miracle fuk this qualification up , can’t see it with these guys, then I have a lifetime of being Scottish. 
expect this lot to not only qualify but progress out of group and likely manage the last 8 

slanj

saor Alba