1. Spain
2.Semis
 

1. England
2. last 16

Win England
Scotland to lose against Germany, Switzerland & Hungary and come home without scoring a goal.

Winners, France.

Scotland - A very respectable performance v Germany, but losing by a late goal after soaking up loads of pressure/defending well.

Beat Switzerland, all in the garden is rosy.

But we go into the Hungary game needing to beat them, as they beat Switzerland 2-0, whilst we beat them 1-0.

We're 1-0 up and Clarke brings on John Souttar, who's lack of ariel presence in his own box causes him to fuck up, the game ends in a draw and glorious failure.

It's the Scotland way.
 

England should win it, but probably lose in the Final against France or Germany.

Scotland will narrowly lose against Germany after leading at half time.  Lose comfortably to Switzerland.  Lyndon Dykes will then score the first double hat-trick in a 9 goal thriller against Hungary and Scotland will go out.  Dykes will finish top scorer on six (and sign for PSG in the summer).  He'll become the next Giroud or Giro, one or the other.

 

Last edited by Finn Seemann (27/3/2024 4:23 pm)

David_Blunkett wrote:

Winners, France.

Scotland - A very respectable performance v Germany, but losing by a late goal after soaking up loads of pressure/defending well. Nope!

Beat Switzerland, all in the garden is rosy.

But we go into the Hungary game needing to beat them, as they beat Switzerland 2-0 Nope! whilst we beat them 1-0.

We're 1-0 up and Clarke brings on John Souttar Nope! who's lack of ariel presence in his own box causes him to fuck up, the game ends in a draw and glorious failure.

It's the Scotland way.
 

The 2nd half was more like it last night but:

I still question the preparation we've done before this. Were the players actually given a fitness programme at the end of the season? It's taken us 2 friendlies 1 & 1/2 competitive matches to finally look up to speed. That's unacceptable when you compare us to every other team.

Canadian Arab wrote:

I like Steve Clarke. He's a straight-talker, he isn't in the pocket of the Old Firm and has no time for their pish, and I think he's a good club manager. He managed to get what I think is a fairly limited group of players (particularly the current group) to two consecutive Euro finals appearances. He deserves credit for that. The Scotland team we've just been watching reminds me very much of the Liam Fox United that went down two seasons ago. Two hundred passes between a back 4 of limited ability, a midfield that doesn't get into the game, 9 passes backwards for every one forwards, a forward who wouldn't score in a bag of fannies and a shot-shy team who know they're doomed trying to pass the ball into the net.

I remember the story about someone writing into the Tully complaining about Wee Jim's team selection, and Jim went round to the boy's house, banged on his door and told him in no uncertain terms that he picks the team.

Clarke is in some ways a poor man's Wee Jim, but more stubborn. His bloody-mindedness over Gauld in particular - a lad who is at his peak and is probably about to be voted the MVP of the entire MLS - is unforgivable. Leaving Shankland on the bench for all but 30 minutes of a tournament where we got 3 shots on target in 3 games is unforgivable. He has favourites, he sticks with them, and that's that.

Why play safe for 70 minutes in a must-win game and then have to go for broke and leave yourself wide open for the last part of the game? Why not put out a team and a formation that would cause Hungary some problems straight from kick-off, instead of persisting with a toothless 5-4-1 so Andy Robertson can play as a wing-back (when we have fecking Ralston on the other side). Play Robertson as a left back in a 4-4-2 - full backs in a 4-4-2 are still allowed to get forward - e.g. Gough! Or take another left-sided defender in the squad and let Robertson play further forward like we did with Miller Thompson.

Given some of the past Scotland teams who didn't make it out of the group stages but who would have wiped the floor with this current team, it would have been a travesty if this was the Scotland team that finally cleared the Finals Hurdle. And yet it was there for the taking. Hungary were nothing special. Neither were Switzerland tbh. If he had taken the right squad, picked the right teams and adopted the right tactics, we could have been sitting on 6 points today and into the knock-out rounds. Instead we don't turn up against Germany and then we're getting fist-pumps when we take a point from Switzerland.

Usually glorious failure has come after we demonstrated some intention to progress. This time, it looks like Clarke achieved his goal, as it seems that glorious failure was what we were playing for.

 

 
Think this is a really good post btw.

Tek wrote:

What a shite tournament it's been btw. Boring, boring, robotic football.

What has happened to our game? 

P.s. England are gonna shitehouse their way to winning this just like Greece did. Brutal stuff.

 
Agreed. About 100 passes around the back 3 or 4 at walking pace before even attempting anything like a forward pass.

SlatefordArab wrote:

Tek wrote:

What a shite tournament it's been btw. Boring, boring, robotic football.

What has happened to our game? 

P.s. England are gonna shitehouse their way to winning this just like Greece did. Brutal stuff.

Pep Guardiola happened to it,  And now every coach regardless of what level they are at try to copy his whole philosophy.  I am longing for the day when a coach comes along and says "lets not do this any more" and goes back to trying to have individual skilful players expressing themselves and taking risks again.


 

The smaller nations have mostly been a breath of fresh air, albeit a weakened XI they faced, Georgia were great to watch v Portugal.

Spain v Germany was good, but only because Spain too their foot off the gas and let Germany back in.
 

Tek wrote:

japanarab wrote:

1. Spain
2.Semis
 

Good shout on the winners JA.


 

Cheers. The less said about my Scotland prediction the better.