Euro 2024: Opening night nerves show the gulf between the makeweights and the rest
No Scotland no party, eh? Well okay, but that’s going to be harder to maintain over three matches without a rictus grin unless the team improves somewhat.
Well, at least their other two group matches won’t be against a team as strong as this. Or at least, it is to be sincerely hoped that they won’t be, because the worry about Scotland in the aftermath of their 5-1 thrashing in Munich last night is just how easy they made it for their opponents.
From conceding early to settle opposition nerves to ending the evening by sitting down and flicking through the wreckage of the match statistics, what was striking about this defeat was just how few positive consolations could be taken from either the result or the team’s performance.
The party had started early. About nine in the morning, by the looks of it. But there's the danger. You drink, and drink, and drink. You have to keep those spirits up. But then the team take to the pitch, everything reaches a crescendo with the national anthems, but… eventually the match kicks off and the realpolitik of football starts to get in the way.
On some of the previous eleven occasions that they've failed to get through the group stages of a major tournament, there has been a hint of hope about Scotland, a promise left unspoken, a point at which everything might, however briefly or fleetingly, have been different. Archie Gemill against the Netherlands. David Narey against Brazil. Ally McCoist against Switzerland. Gordon Strachan against West Germany. For years, it felt as though it was within grasping distance, and who knew what might happen if they did make it through?
But Scotland's return to tournament football hasn't come at that level. Three years ago, they managed to stifle England for ninety minutes but ultimately came unstuck against Czechia, and in particular Patrik Schick. On this occasion there was less on offer than even that relatively meagre fare. One shot off-target all night and none to trouble Manuel Neuer. A goal gifted by the side of Toni Rudiger's head to which Scotland's greatest contribution was slinging the ball in the general direction of the Germany goal in the first place.
The post-match statistics made for mournful reading and the return of a hint of hope will have to wait for another day. In short, over three or four decades, Scotland have gone from being a team who came achingly close to the knockout stages of international tournaments to being a team who couldn't qualify for international tournaments to being a team who can qualify for expanded international tournaments but don't do anything much once there.
The nature of last night's result has knock-on effects. Few were expecting Scotland to get much of a result in Munich, but it's the nature of the defeat that's been simultaneously so troubling and damaging. The fact that four of the third placed teams are going through to the knockout stages of the competition gave Scotland an extra window of opportunity get through, but this comes in the form of windows of opportunity that can slam shut at the slightest movement. Four points is usually enough to qualify in third place, and three points can also be. But that comes with conditions. To have much of a chance of qualifying with three points, you need that defeat to not be too heavy. Ah.
Can Scotland improve upon this? You'd hope so. Julian Nagelsmann will have been happy at a job well done. His team has set out their stall as being deserving of their place among the favourites to win it overall. Hungary and Switzerland shouldn't present the same level of insurmountability about them. But whereas a 1-0 defeat may have left Scotland optimistic about their remaining two matches, a 5-1 defeat leaves them probably requiring a win and a draw from their other two group matches, and all with a lot of confidence having been spirited away by their opening defeat. Should you do so, the manner in which you lose matters.
And if there was one aspect of it all that will have been familiar to Scotland supporters, it will have been the extent to which this latest sequence of failures was self-inflicted. Jimmy Greaves will have been chortling in his grave at the performance of goalkeeper Angus Gunn, who was arguably at fault for three of the five German goals. And the tackle that Ryan Porteous put in that earned him a red card and Germany a penalty might have been necessary in that he had to try it, but it also wasn't in that he didn't have to try it like that.
It almost felt calculated to play out as an evening going wrong, step by calamitous step. The very early chance as a shot across the bows. The confidence-sapping two early goals. The third right on half-time plus a red card, just as Scotland might have been hoping, “Well, if we can get to half-time at 2-0 and get a goal back early in the second half…” Even the fifth Germany goal, coming as it did halfway through a particularly lusty rendition of Flower of Scotland which had been brought about by Rudiger's unscheduled intervention, felt like someone being comprehensively pushed back into a box.
Next up come Switzerland on Wednesday night and Hungary a week on Sunday, and the likelihood is that, with their goal difference torepoded after just one match, Scotland are going to need four points from these two games to have a realistic chance of breaking their eleven tournament run of falling at the first. And yes, there may be a conversation to be had about the vast gap in resources between nations of 84m people and nations of 5.5m, but once referee's whistle blows and the match starts, it's a bit late for all that, isn't it?
The good news is that things are not going to get much more difficult for Scotland than they were against Germany, but the bad news is that overriding impression to be taken from last night is that while “No Scotland no party” is an admirable statement for supporters to take in a tournament such as this, the actual playing staff could do with taking it all a little more seriously. Because keeping that party atmosphere going for a further two games will be extremely difficult if they don't. After a, record win in an opening Euros match, German confidence will be soaring. Scotland have much to think about, none of it very encouraging.
I followed Scotland home and away for years, I was one of the 300 who travelled to Japan to see them lift the Kirin Cup in 2006. The other side of that coin, was that I was
also one of those who to Prague in 2010, the night Craig Levein set them up in a 4-6-0. I vowed that night I was finished with them. I couldn't even be bothered watching any of the last three Scotland v England games,
The build up to Friday night's game reminded me of the 'win and qualify' match against Italy at Hampden in 2007(?), when the media built it up so much and big Luca Toni, stuck a massive pin into the balloon 80 seconds after kick off.
Having been watching them from relatively afar over the past few years, they come across as a workmanlike side, who will chuck in the random big result. But, time and time again, the big time players such as, McTominey, McGinn, Robertson and Tierney' are posted anonymous in games that matter. The keeper didn't cover himself in glory and having watched one of the keepers on the bench, all last season at my club, then that position doesn't fill me with confidence either. There is also players in the squad who are there due to plying their trade in Glasgow. You are not going to tell me that there is not a better right back in Scotland than Ralston at present.
Friday didn't surprise me in the slightest, when you can't defend and don't register a single shot on target then you are always going to be on the wrong side of a hiding. Funnily enough, I do remember them having shots on target in Prague.
On current form both Switzerland and Hungary should beat them.
I'm desparately trying to clutch at any straw here and I am equally desperate that they prove me wrong.