Euro 2020

So a win against Croatia, and England winning and scoring at least 2 more goals than the Czech Rep, and we'll come 2nd, and through to the next round.

Or a win against Croatia will still have us on 4 pts, with a decent chance of going through as a 3rd place team.

Getting a deja vu feeling of impeding failure here, esp with all the optimism i'm seeing on forums from our fans.

Germany showing why you can never write them off, gubbing Portugal 4-2.

And Spain.Woefull.Well done the Poles.So many including us on a knife edge for progression. Next week is going to be nerve-wracking. Great viewing but engrossing nevertheless. ‍�

Italy v Wales.

Good game for Wales, they're prob through with 4 pts on the board already, and a 5 goal lead over Switzerland on 1 point, as long as they don't get scudded by Italy right enough.

From our perspective it would be good if the Swiss drew with Turkey, and both would be out of the running for a 3rd place qualifier.

Yeah, only a major disaster will knock Wales out before the knock-out rounds.

And yeah again, the more teams that fail to reach 3 or 4 points the better for us… we still need to get the win ourselves but our game against Croatia becomes virtually a knock out game the more teams fail to reach the magic 4 points.

Not going well for Wales, or us, with Switzerland up 2-0. Italy are just different class, so many great balls into the box, and Italian players making the runs in behind the Welsh defenders. They're def the best team in the Tournament so far. It's 1-0 going on 3 or 4, with Wales riding their luck a good bit, getting caught out with runners in behind them, and quick throw ins too.

I'll be surprised if this isn't another 3-0 win for Italy, maybe even more, and that's with them leaving out some players that are a booking away from a suspension.

That's me surprised then, still 1-0 with just added time to go.

Bale had a chance to equalise too.

The Swiss winning 3-1 is a bummer though.

1-0 Italy FT.

Wales keep 2nd place, that's them def through.

Relativly routine win for the impressive Italians.Won their group comfortably. Even had the luxury to make 8 changes and basically go with their B team against the plucky Welsh.So many permutations after the Swiss gubbing the Turks whove had a shite tournament. Well done the Welsh,their through,magnificent effort from them.So onto Tuesday and heart in the mouth time again.????????????????????????.

Austria (my second team - being half Austrian) currently 1 up approaching half time. This would be a good result as it would leave Ukraine in 3rd on 3 points. Arnautovic should have made it 2, hope we don’t suffer as a result of that miss.

Denmark going in 1-0 up against Russia is excellent, neither would be in contention for a 3rd place qualification if it stayed like that. Both sitting on 3 pts.

Bertie Bassett wrote:Austria (my second team - being half Austrian) currently 1 up approaching half time. This would be a good result as it would leave Ukraine in 3rd on 3 points. Arnautovic should have made it 2, hope we don’t suffer as a result of that miss.

Aye great result for us that, groups B* & C are on 3 pts, so a win against Croatia would see us qualifying whether we got 2nd or 3rd.

*Providing Denmark hold on to their lead.

Yeah the results have given us a chance…all we have to do is win… it certainly won’t be easy as we haven’t scored a goal yet. A 0-0 draw knocking both teams out wouldn’t surprise me but both teams know a win takes them through so it should be a decent game. Just hope we can give it our best shot & get the win that would turn the squad into history makers.

Mon Italy.

Well, I think we all probably expected it but out we go.

I thought we started well but Croatia gradually got on top. We didn’t defend the first goal particularly well. Got ourselves level & looking threatening as half time arrived. Probably just a wee bit too soon as we had taken control at that point but in the second half Croatia & Modric in particular showed why they were World Cup Runners-Up.

I think there is some promise within the squad & if we can build on the good performances & start taking our chances we will improve.

As alluded to earlier, I can now divert my support to Austria as my other nation, probably only for 1 game though as they are up against Italy in the next round. The Italians have been the best team to watch so far but I think Belgium might just live up to their billing & win the tournament.

Another glorious failure unfortunately, but we're well used to it. False hope given to us again and another chance gone.Croatia with an inspired Modric, who strolled it deserved winners.Not sure if Gilmour would have made a huge difference tbh,but he was missed.1 point and 1 goal says it all for me,when it could have been oh so different.I backed the Italians pre tournament and am confident they will go far here,sorry Bertie.With our non partaking now confirmed its gonna be good to whatch the big boys slug it out.Still hard to call,but the cream usually rises to the top.Good luck to all,especially the Azzurri..

Shows you the fine margins though… we score 1 goal & get 1 point… England score 2 goals & get 7 points. The difference being they haven’t conceded a goal yet, while we conceded 5 & while all 5 were well taken by the opposition, all 5 were arguably avoidable defensively. I also don’t think England’s defence is that good but worryingly they are getting clean sheets & if you don’t concede goals you don’t lose.

I’d also say that over the three games we didn’t play badly at all. We could have played better against Croatia, especially second half but even then we battled & never gave up.

Billy Gilmour is a very talented young player but IMO his performance against England was hyped beyond the reality. I remember thinking after about half an hour that I hadn’t seen him do anything & that the game was largely passing him by. I also remember hearing the pundits fawning over him but in one breath they were saying the best midfielders play looking for a forward pass then they’d show clips of Gilmour & wax lyrically about him & yet every pass was sideways or back. I have no doubt he will go on to become a very important player for Scotland but to be hanging so much hope on him already is unfair on the lad. Give him a chance to settle in & let’s see how he develops.

Back to last night, I thought young Patterson put in a decent shift when he came on, he is much more inclined to take a player on than O’Donnell - the latter didn’t play badly but is not the quickest or most adventurous (that shot against England being an exception rather than the rule) - Patterson showed in his short spell that he can bring a threat down the right that we lacked all tournament - I remember numerous occasions where a more attacking right sided player would have been in acres of space but we had to go back to the more congested but more attacking left side…. And yet how did our goal come? Dykes controlled it in midfield & played it to the right, Armstrong & O’Donnell got it to the byline (or nearly to it) & crossed it in where it caused panic in the Croatian defence before it broke to McGregor to score with a well taken goal. Also… I’d like to see McGregor further forward playing more like he does for Celtic where he is a potential goal threat.

Having said all that, the lads got us to our first tournament this century & put in 3 decent performances that arguably were better than the results suggest. There were signs that Dykes & Adams can form a partnership up front, Robertson & Tierney can be played together & many more positives. We look like we have something to build on. So come on boys let’s get ourselves back on the World stage by getting to Qatar 22

Yeah in all 3 games we created plenty of chances to score a goal or three, decision making in front of goal and just poor finishing had as much to do with us going out as anything.

Felt first half we were trying to walk it into the net, till McGregor took a shot and scored. Same with our set pieces, they were mostly hit long to head back across goal, even one from a perfect angle into the box to just glance a header towards goal.

2nd half though, Croatia just bossed it, knocking the ball around and comfortably winning the game, Modric's goal was a fantastic strike with the outside of his foot.

On the whole i tried not to get invested with Scotland, for prev mentioned reasons of past failures, but we did qualify, so this squad did no worse than prev ones, and better than any in the 23 years since we last qualified for a major tournament. Lots of young guys in the squad too, 26 years and younger, so hopefully we'll have gained experience to do it again in the next 5 or 6 years, and not have to wait another 23 years to get this far. Might even go further than any have managed before too, and get beyond the group stages.

THEN i might even get carried away and think we can win it.


I can relax and just enjoy watching the rest of the tournament now, not bothering about who has to do what for Scotland to progress. Enjoying watching Italy already, and was good seeing Germany come to life scoring 4 goals, Belgium transformed themselves with their star players entering the stage, haven't watched France play yet but would say those 4 must be favourites to win it. Don't rate Spain's chances, but laughed at the English pundits saying England will be watching their game thinking they have nothing to worry about, they're still better looking than England.

Always good seeing one of the not so fancied teams reach the semi's, or final though, just need to be well organized in defence and nick a goal, or win the pen shoot out (not wanting England to ever do this though).

England winning the group might be a mistake on their part… they will play the second placed team from Group F…. France, Germany or Portugal being much more likely than Hungary. France were good in beating Germany but poor in drawing with Hungary. Portugal are a better side than the team that won it last time but it took them a long time to get in front against Hungary with 2 late goals embellishing the score & Germany tore them apart a couple of times but looked dodgy at the back. Hungary shouldn’t trouble Germany & France v Portugal could be a classic or a bore; World Champs v Euro Champs with the loser (or Portugal if it’s a draw) likely to face England.

One final thing on Scotland, we came into the competition as the 23rd ranked country of the 24 & have finished with a better record than Turkey & North Macedonia (they were 24th pre-tournament) & could finish with a better record than Hungary depending how their game with Germany goes… so that in & of itself is a positive. I know it’s not a strict rating because really you can only get a definitive ranking if they all played every other side but it’s as close as you can get given the format.

Quite looking forward to seeing the Belgium v Portugal game, both have a world class player, that is capable of winning a game for them, Belgium have several others that are pretty shit hot too, interesting one.

Spain v Croatia is another good one to watch i reckon, both are good in possession, moving the ball around, could be an even match, but i think it will have a few goals.

Will be watching the Italy v Austria game as well, liked the Italians so far, been good games with plenty of goals, played a 2nd string against Wales and still looked good too. Haven't seen Austria play yet, so don't know if they're in with a chance of an upset.

Germany v England is the only other one i'm interested in watching, both for liking Germany, and wanting England papped out.

It was quite a rollercoaster yesterday with all four teams at one stage or another being in second place in the group, England didn’t know their opponents until both games ended.

Felt sorry for Hungary, they may well have qualified out of another group such was the level of their performances. Germany looked poor by comparison to the side that beat Portugal so hopefully they “turn up” against England.

Aye that's some group Hungary were in, nae luck landing in there.

Geographicly when you look at the size of Denmark, yeh there smaller than us but with a similar population 5 million ish. The Ericsson situation aside theve been magnificent for a country of its size.Blew Wales away,hard on them but thoughrally deserved win for the Danes.Must be the Carlsberg and bacon effect.Right cmon Italy.Keep ma bet going..

Obviously I'm delighted with the result.But Italy made hard work of that.Credit too Austria.They made it so hard for the Azzurrie.End of the day,their through. Their half of the draw will test them.Belgium France and possibly Portugal. On the other side England if they get past the Germans look to have a safe passage to the Semis.God forbid..

Yep Austria played well, deserved to take it to pens, but wasn't to be.

Italy were the better team first half, but ran out of steam a bit second half, and Austria looked the better team, if they'd scored you'd have fancied them to win it, narrowly offside for their VAR decision taking away their goal. Same with their penalty decision being offside before being fouled.

ET was a cracker, 30 mins extra you were expecting 2 tired teams to slug it out for pens, but none of it, both had tons of energy, and went for goals, what an entertaining period that was. Italy again having the better first half, and when they scored it fired them right up to get another, and it was looking game over. Then again Austria came back and went looking for goals in the second half, and deserved their goal when it finally came, they had a couple of close efforts leading up to it. As a neutral i was willing Austria on to equalize, didn't want the game to end. It was end to end stuff, very unlike Italy to be so open, but great entertainment.

Still fancy Italy to win it, but Austria showed they aren't invincible in defence, looking forward to their next game already.