Reflections on the campaign

[exile]

Well obviously the bigger picture is well done for qualifying with a couple of games to spare, and a buzzing Hampden rather than nail-biting exits of old.

I'd have taken that at the start; unbeaten except for playing the top seed away. 

As others have said, the injuries show our relative thin-ness in some areas.

We've got into the habit of creating chances and scoring.

The last game was a little odd, not sure if we were experimenting or if we were really going for the win, if so was that really our likeliest scorers on the park?

Let's hope whatever experimenting needs doing can be done in the friendlies and we can go into Germany with the strongest squad and the right mentality.

[Diamond Scot]

Best campaign in a long long time with some big performances.

We have abit of belief / backbone etc about us now. Also noticeable that we are much more streetwise.

Big take away for me is how key it is to stay a pot 2 side. We will always give the pot 1 side a go at Hampden however more importantly the difference between a pot 2 and 3 side was vital in the sence that I dont think a pot 2 side drop points in Georgia and collapse to us at home.  Norway dropping points early combined with us getting the unexpected win against Spain really put them up against it. 

If we stay pot 2 then id fancy us to keep qualifying for Euros and depending on pot 1 team have a slim chance of World Cup.

Most pleasing thing for me is that we actually play football now which really helps us against lower seeds. Historically we would snatch points against higher seeds but then be totally out of ideas against the low seeds. Now we just routinely dispatch these teams. Even getting a point in Georgia with a depleted team and not needing to win was a sign of how far we have come.

Now to get out the group!!!!

[vanderark14]

Brilliant campaign, qualified with time 2 games to spare, when I say that it still doesn't seem real.

The last two games we were without 4 guaranteed starters, 2 of them are arguably our best players too, all of them from the back line and goalie. Most teams would struggle if they were missing those players.

[wanderer]

It was a campaign that I went in to thinking "at least we have the Nations League play off spot in reserve" with not very high expectations.

Was thinking Spain would run away with the group, and most likely we would go into the last game v Norway needing a 3-0 win or something to sneak 2nd place.

The Cyprus game at Hampden pretty much showed that this was probably going to be the case, but that run of Spain-Norway-Georgia-Cyprus really did turn out to be something special!

In the past, if the result in Oslo had been the other way around, that was usually the game that ultimately cost us the most across the whole campaign, and yet it probably cost Norway the most

 

[Orraloon]

1 hour ago, wanderer said:

 

In the past, if the result in Oslo had been the other way around, that was usually the game that ultimately cost us the most across the whole campaign, and yet it probably cost Norway the most

 

Aye, if that had happened, we would have gone into last nights game both sitting on 13 points. Imagine the last 10 minutes if we had been in that position?  😂 

Fine margins at this level.

[Saint4805]

The result in Oslo was absolutely massive. Had we lost then I doubt Haaland would have played against the Faroes last week and would most likely have been saved for yesterday. All in all an excellent campaign with a little bit of good luck in that we were without our key players for dead rubbers. 

Edited November 20, 2023 by Saint4805

[stocky]

Campaign could be summed up as 

90 seconds in Oslo 

 

That changed everything....

[Orraloon]

59 minutes ago, stocky said:

Campaign could be summed up as 

90 seconds in Oslo 

 

That changed everything....

90 minutes at Hampden v Spain were pretty important as well.

[N4Footsoldier]

On the campaign itself, absolutely magical. The margins for qualification are fine, if say we lose to Norway and lose both to Spain, which we could easily have done btw, we would have missed out. But with an inspired Spain victory against a lacklustre Spain team still getting to grips with their new squad/manager, and a 90 second outburst to beat Norway, we are off to Germany.

Generally the overall quality within our starting 11 is better than it has been for easily 20+ years, and there is a close understanding of the players who have played many caps together, versus other Scotland teams who qualified, very few of our 'best' players have very many caps relatively. The consistency of this and being able to sit on a pot 2 qualification position, should bode well to sustain this.

After 5 wins then a quite unlucky loss away at Spain I thought we might even be a shoe in for going a long long way at the Euros.

Realistically when you see teams who challenge for these tournaments now, their squad depth is incredible. The last 3 game we have seen, we are a couple of injuries away in key positions from being really quite mediocre.

That said, with a full squad, and the fact that we can qualify in 3rd place, I think we should be targeting a knockout stage spot at the very least.

[JandC]

4 minutes ago, N4Footsoldier said:

On the campaign itself, absolutely magical. The margins for qualification are fine, if say we lose to Norway and lose both to Spain, which we could easily have done btw, we would have missed out. But with an inspired Spain victory against a lacklustre Spain team still getting to grips with their new squad/manager, and a 90 second outburst to beat Norway, we are off to Germany.

Generally the overall quality within our starting 11 is better than it has been for easily 20+ years, and there is a close understanding of the players who have played many caps together, versus other Scotland teams who qualified, very few of our 'best' players have very many caps relatively. The consistency of this and being able to sit on a pot 2 qualification position, should bode well to sustain this.

After 5 wins then a quite unlucky loss away at Spain I thought we might even be a shoe in for going a long long way at the Euros.

Realistically when you see teams who challenge for these tournaments now, their squad depth is incredible. The last 3 game we have seen, we are a couple of injuries away in key positions from being really quite mediocre.

That said, with a full squad, and the fact that we can qualify in 3rd place, I think we should be targeting a knockout stage spot at the very least.

I totally agree. Obviously a lot comes down to the draw (pot 2 and pot 4 teams would have to be favourable) but we should be aiming at the knockout stages with 16 of the 24 teams progressing. 
 

 

[scotlad]

Our best qualifying campaign in 25 years. 🙂

About 10 or 15 years ago, when we were finishing third and fourth in groups, I used to daydream about Scotland qualifying campaigns going as smoothly this one.

It hasn't been perfect, obviously; the drop-off in results since Cyprus away is concerning and we were slightly lucky at times - like when we won in Norway - but when the draw was made I didn't expect it to go as well as it has, that's for sure.

[wanderer]

5 minutes ago, scotlad said:

Our best qualifying campaign in 25 years. 🙂

About 10 or 15 years ago, when we were finishing third and fourth in groups, I used to daydream about Scotland qualifying campaigns going as smoothly this one.

It hasn't been perfect, obviously; the drop-off in results since Cyprus away is concerning and we were slightly lucky at times - like when we won in Norway - but when the draw was made I didn't expect it to go as well as it has, that's for sure.

 

Last couple of games injures have clearly not helped, but I think you can take England and (especially) France (i do not think Clarke banked on them effectively playing their A-team, when he sent out his B-Team) you can take with a pinch of salt.

I think Georgia and Norway a number of players played while on holiday mode (even the crowd last night seemed very subdued and the whole game just had a feel of a friendly match.... the atmosphere certainly did not reflect the occasion) 

[GLOSTA]

Been to every game and thoroughly enjoyed it.

So many campaigns in last 20 years we have been out long before it finished, often with terrible results against teams that we underestimated.

Am confident we can progress from here.

 

[Toepoke]

2 hours ago, Orraloon said:

90 minutes at Hampden v Spain were pretty important as well.

As great as that was, Spain could have beaten us that night and we'd still have qualified if our other results were similar. The turnaround in Oslo was the big moment for us.

I'm ignoring a lot of variables of course, but change the result in Oslo to a Norway win and we finish third.

 

Edited November 20, 2023 by Toepoke

[Orraloon]

12 minutes ago, Toepoke said:

As great as that was, Spain could have beaten us that night and we'd still have qualified if our other results were similar. The turnaround in Oslo was the big moment for us.

I'm ignoring a lot of variables of course, but change the result in Oslo to a Norway win and we finish third.

 

Aye, Oslo was one of those "six pointers".

 

[Caledonian Craig]

Best qualifying campaign of this century by some way for obvious reasons. We were competitive in every game  and turned losses into wins and losses into draws with late goals which have been pretty alien to us in recent years. We have reached a good level now but we need our key players fit for the Euros and if so I am very hopeful we can go further than we have ever done before in a major tournament.

[Ally Bongo]

4 hours ago, stocky said:

Campaign could be summed up as 

90 seconds in Oslo 

 

That changed everything....

Totally

99.9 times out of a hundred we would never have won that and 9 times out of 10 we wouldnt have equalised so late in the game

(remember Mo Johnston against Brazil at Italia 90)  

It gives me the shivers thinking of how much luck we had - and that's not a negative as you have to make it 

[TDYER63]

8 hours ago, Orraloon said:

Aye, if that had happened, we would have gone into last nights game both sitting on 13 points. Imagine the last 10 minutes if we had been in that position?  😂 

Fine margins at this level.

Instead we were screaming in the last 10 mins ‘don’t score a 4 th ya numpties, Pot 3 is fine’ .  

[exile]

While it's natural to think 'what if' we hadn't won this or that, let's also imagine 'what if' McTominay's 'goal' against Spain had been allowed, and we had held out for a victory. Confidence would have been stratospheric, while Spain would have the jitters... Of course Spain could still have won 2-1, it would also give extra confidence we could score anywhere and the sense of threat that it would signals to others. Though we might still be brought down to earth by England and France.

[ThistleWhistle]

5 hours ago, Orraloon said:

90 minutes at Hampden v Spain were pretty important as well.

It's mental really that if Norway had beat us in Oslo, and the rest of the group played out as it did, we'd have been level on points.  

Was goal difference first or head to head record because if its the later we'd have needed a win last night?  Brilliant campaign anyway but even qualifying by 6 clear points the actual margin was ridiculously tight.

[thesaint]

6 hours ago, wanderer said:

 

Last couple of games injures have clearly not helped, but I think you can take England and (especially) France (i do not think Clarke banked on them effectively playing their A-team, when he sent out his B-Team) you can take with a pinch of salt.

I think Georgia and Norway a number of players played while on holiday mode (even the crowd last night seemed very subdued and the whole game just had a feel of a friendly match.... the atmosphere certainly did not reflect the occasion) 

I would say the atmosphere did reflect the occasion.In real terms the result didn't really matter.There's nothing like a do or die match to get the atmosphere ramped up.Last night's game didn't come into that catagory.Nothing like winning a game you have to.Funnily enough although there were six goals i thought it was poor.

[King Of Paisley]

Best campaign for a long long time. To qualify with two games to spare is just insane. The last time I can remember we qualified with a game to spare was for Spain 82 and we went into that campaign on the back of a still lingering 1978 hangover and a shite Euro 80 campaign.

Looking at the last three campaigns including the last Nations League, three defeats in 24 I think it is. That's bloody incredible given its only 4 and a half years ago when we sunk to a pitiful new low in Borat country 

[Orraloon]

4 hours ago, ThistleWhistle said:

It's mental really that if Norway had beat us in Oslo, and the rest of the group played out as it did, we'd have been level on points.  

Was goal difference first or head to head record because if its the later we'd have needed a win last night?  Brilliant campaign anyway but even qualifying by 6 clear points the actual margin was ridiculously tight.

Would have been H2H. But we would have won if we had needed to.

[Caledonian Craig]

Obviously, early qualification was the stand-out. Although most people will airbrush over the last two games due to the results but if you do it overlooks evidence of how far we have come in terms ofbeing able to still get results in adverse circumstances.

We went to Georgia - a place where we have only tasted defeat before and got a draw. This with a third choice goalkeeper and fourth choice left-back plus there was not much for us to play for. Likewise at home to Norway it had changes with only half a team of regulars, were defensively slack but still were a few minutes from winning the match.

That is now three games I recall in the last year or so we have fielded a makeshift side and still came away with a  point in shape of Ukraine (away), Georgia (away) and Norway (home). Highly commendable.

[robbo cop]

Just a fantastic campaign. None of us thought we would have qualified with two games left.

Really hope that Tierney and Robertson stay fit as we really missed them the last two games.

Looking forward to the up coming draw to see who we get.

Clarke has done a fantastic job.