Pretty dumb comment from Souness. You could make similar comments in 80% of the games in this tournament! Might as well just say “we are a minor nation and they are a major nation”.
Souness has always criticised Watford. No surprise he blamed RP for his teams pathetic performance. To be fair to Porteus the game was over before he made his tackle. Souness comments failed to mention Porteous is not from Watford but his belittling of Watford continues even though I thought all the Liverpool dinosaur pundits had been retired.
Yes he basically said we are small so cannot compete. I mean maybe but Croatia do ok and they are smaller than Scotland. The trouble was Scotland set up to be negative but that went out of the window after 10 minutes and they didn't know how to react.
Germany were just way too good and Scotland couldn't even amount an attack or retain possession. Their efforts to play it out from the back were sad and doooomed to failure Its amazing they scored and they probably have one of the best ever goals to shots ratios in the Euros given they managed a goal from one shot off target. However, I do think the managed to win the battle of the anthems which is impressive away to the host nation and the crazy thing is they can still qualify.
Somebody quoted a stat at me after the game (didn't listen that carefully so don't hold me to it) but the Rudiger own goal put him straight in as joint highest goalscorer for Scotland at major tournaments since 1980, or something similar.
Serbia, Slovenia, Albania - all showed so far that 'minnows' don't have to embarrass themselves. They can still turn up, do the basics and work hard to give a good account for themselves. Scotland were just shameful.
And whilst the ongoing inquest into the death of English football is slightly adjourned whilst the latest media hype around our chances takes a foothold, it's worth Scotland asking, how does a country that used to produce the likes of Dalglish, Souness, Gemmell and Law now produces the likes of Porteous. I realise they are a small population, but they have the richest footballing history outside of England, yet they used to produce players who won club titles across England and Europe, but now produce not that good Champ players.
I blame it on the welfare state making their wee’uns too namby-pamby. I mean, what was wrong with kicking a rolled-up newspaper over broken glass with no shoes on?
The decline of Scottish football has coincided with the mysterious disappearance of the white dog jobby
You can also say the same for Wales, and Republic of Ireland who used to regularly produce world class players and to a lesser extent the Northern Irish. Not sure what the answer is and probably a combination of factors contributing to the decline but it is strange how other smaller nations can remain competitive at international level while our home nations struggle.
The problem is that we think the nations of Ireland, Wales and Scotland have a pedigree in international football. They don’t. Scotland have appeared in six world cups, none before 1974 or after 1998. So a golden era in the last quarter of the 20 century. They never got out of the group stage. In European championships they are now in their third finals. Never appearing before 1992, and then again in 1996, before this year becoming their third appearance. Despite Celtic winning the European Cup in 1967, basically domestic competition in Scotland is of a standard below the European average. Yes a few Scottish players in the last 50 years had decent careers in the top division of the English game, but that was not the norm before or after. You had the odd exception, like Alex James at Arsenal, but not many. Apart from Dalglish, I can’t think of a world class Scottish player developed in Scotland. Souness was a very good player, nurtured in the English game, but short of World class. Who else is there? Plenty of good domestic league players, but world class? John Charles was the last player of true international standing for Wales before Bale. Pat Jennings the only very good player from Northern Ireland. The Republic? I would say Brady and O’Leary were in the very good group. The rest just good domestic top level players.
If we are talking "best in class" in a particular position then Roy Keane and Alan Hansen have to be in the conversation too. And for the teenagers..... Denis Law !
Ooft. A few corrections: 1) Scotland have appeared in eight World Cups, not six - they have, after Uruguay (14), the second-best population-to-appearances record in WC history. 2) Two of those came before 1974. 3) Scotland are appearing in their fourth Euros finals, not third (you missed 2020). 4) The SPL is currently ranked 11th out of 55 by UEFA, so very much above the European average, in fact. 5) To answer your question, Jimmy Johnstone and Gordon Strachan are two players developed in Scotland that spring to mind. I picked those two as they finished 3rd and 4th respectively in the Ballon d'Or voting in '67 and '83. 6) If George Best wasn't world class, I'm not sure what 'world class' means.
There's definitely been a massive decline in the quality of Scottish players coming in the last few decades, although I don't think they've been helped by English clubs being able to look further afield for talent, hence fewer Scottish players make a move to the Prem and stay stuck in a mediocre league. Wales had Gareth Bale, and to a lesser extent, Aaron Ramsey, but they are once in a blue moon players for a nation like Wales, and for all of their good work in recent years, it has been easier for them to qualify for tournaments than previous golden generations
I expect the fact that English clubs can now acquire talent from anywhere in the world has much to do with it. Scotland, Wales, NI and RoI used to be a cheap hunting ground for young talent who would then benefit from better training and route to first team football at tier one clubs. Now that talent can come from anywhere.
I had forgotten about George Best. I don’t think UEFA league rankings reflects a lot on national prowess in tournaments. uEFA rate England 1st and Denmark in the same table. Scotland have never achieved as much as Denmark in International football. Even the golden period in the late 1970s did not lead to success in competitions.
Should be no excuses then for a decent pre season from him. He will be fired up and ready to go again.
Shame he was suspended tonight. Scotland would have easily qualified and probably gone on and won the Euros if he had not been sent off
They went through players Scotland were missing and Gabby Logan mentioned Porteous as if he would have made a difference!
He got a 2 match suspension so should had been available as a substitute to come on the second half yesterday! But because he is our player they made it two and a half matches! Surprised Scotland didn’t mention that!
The first page of this thread is hilarious. Well done to @Steve Leo Beleck for being pretty much the only poster aside from me for clocking on to him early.
Terrible error for the first goal last night but was pretty good after that. I've seen far worse than him play for us at the back
Problem is in all games not least city away, gifting an early lead with such a lack of concentration and inability to do the basics is unforgivable. Even if he improved he has has such a negative impact on the game (again).
He's abysmal. Please don't try to defend him. Between him and Bayo we may as well play with nine men.
