FRANKFURT, Germany — Scotland’s recurring failure in major tournaments has become so etched in the country’s psyche that songs have been written about it. They are arguably the unluckiest team in world football, which is why they lend themselves to broken-dream ballads.
When the Scots qualified for the 1998 FIFA World Cup – their last appearance in the competition – Glasgow band Del Amitri wrote the team’s official song and called it “Don’t Come Home Too Soon”. Did not work. Scotland were knocked out at the group stage and have, at that point, qualified 10 of the 10 times for a tournament, only to fail to reach the knockout stage. Don’t come home so soon? They were one of the first to pack up and leave. Again.
If you want glorious failures and what-could-have-been stories, Scotland are the team for you, whether at World Cups or European Championships. The final chapter was always the same – heartbreak.
“We had some of the best players in Europe, especially in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but we never managed to get out of a group,” said ESPN FC analyst and former Scottish midfielder Craig Burley. “It’s incredible. There were probably 100 Scottish teams better than this, but [current manager] Steve Clarke has done a magnificent job as coach, and who knows? This team could be the one that finally knocks Scotland out of the group.”
No country in the world comes close to Scotland’s record of qualifying for 11 major tournaments – eight World Cups and three European Championships – and falling at the first hurdle on each occasion, but Clarke’s side now have the chance to make history at the Sunday in Scotland’s 12th and fourth Euro quiz tournament.
If Scotland beat Hungary in Stuttgart, after a 1-1 draw with Switzerland revived hopes following a 5-1 defeat in the opening game against Germany, they will almost certainly guarantee qualification for the round of 16. -final of Group A and will finally do what its predecessors never did. able to achieve.
“The team knows that Scotland have never come out of a group before, so we’re keen to change that,” said defender Jack Hendry. “The team is determined to make history against Hungary. “There is a lot to look forward to now. Obviously, it’s in our hands and it’s something to really savor.”
Scotland’s long history of suffering goes back to the 1954 World Cup, but it is more than simply not being good enough. They have been good enough, sometimes relying on some of the world’s leading players of the day such as Denis Law, Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness, but if there is a way to mess something up, Scotland have stumbled upon it.
In three World Cups – 1974, 1978 and 1982 – Scotland were eliminated on goal difference, exiting in 74 after going unbeaten in the group stage in West Germany.
Four years later, Scotland flew to the World Cup in Argentina with manager Ally MacLeod telling the country they would return as world champions, but despite a 3–2 victory over eventual finalists the Netherlands in their final game, a defeat against Peru and a draw against Iran meant the Dutch overtook the Scots, even after finishing level on points.
“The whole country thought we were going to win the World Cup in 1978,” said ESPN FC analyst Steve Nicol, a former Scotland international. “It seems ridiculous looking back, but 40,000 people sent off the team at Hampden Park and thousands of people lined the streets as the bus took the players to the airport. the team would be world champion, but we couldn’t even beat Peru or Iran.”
Despite the humiliation of predicting World Cup glory and being knocked out in the first round, Scotland manager MacLeod still insisted his team could have gone all the way after being knocked out in a blaze of glory against the Dutch.
“We had so much anti-press that we all got together and said, ‘Fill them all up and go out there and play any way we can,’” MacLeod said at the time. “If we had played like that in the first two games, there’s no doubt we could have won, but unfortunately we didn’t. It’s just one of those things.”
However, Scotland’s closest failures came at the 1986 World Cup and Euro ’96. Both times, it all came down to one goal.
In 1986, Nicol was in the Scotland squad, led by Sir Alex Ferguson, who needed to beat Uruguay in the final group match to reach the knockout stage. When Uruguay had a player sent off in the second minute, Scotland looked to be on their way to qualification.
But this is Scotland. Everything went wrong.
“Their expulsion of their lad worked against us,” Nicol said. “The referee went the other way after that and there was a foul every 90 seconds and he didn’t do anything. Uruguay kicked us. It was like the worst of the 1980s – spitting, cheating, you name it – and everything that It could go wrong, it went wrong. I had a chance to score, probably our only chance. It was 4 meters away, the ball hit the sole and the goalkeeper saved it, we ended up drawing 0-0.
Ten years later, Scotland reached the final group game of Euro ’96 needing to beat Switzerland, and England had to defeat the Netherlands by a four-goal margin. An unlikely scenario, but with Scotland beating the Swiss, England took a 4-0 lead over the Dutch. Scotland had the upper hand until Patrick Kluivert scored a consolation goal for the Netherlands, sending the Scots off and prompting English fans to sing songs mocking their neighbors in the British Isles for losing again.
“That was the closest we got,” Burley said. “We went in, we went out, we went in again and then we went out. I was on the wing closest to the bench and they told me to bomb forward, stay back, bomb forward. Then Kluivert scored for the Dutch against England and we were away. But what a night it was. Ally McCoist scored a world goal to put us ahead and then missed about seven easy chances, actually.
For McCoist, the near miss summed up the reality of being involved with the Scotland national team.
“We finished with four points and nowadays that would be automatic qualification,” McCoist told the Press & Journal. “I remember the crowd when England missed that goal, which effectively knocked us out, but England gave us a huge turnaround at the time because they were beating the Netherlands 4-0. Those five minutes summed up being a Scotland player and fan. . I’m praying it won’t be the same this Euro, and I don’t think it will be.
The chance to rewrite history now lies with Clarke and his players, and more than 50,000 Scottish fans – the self-styled Tartan Army – are expected to travel to Stuttgart on Sunday. But while Scotland are just 90 minutes away from finally reaching the knockout stages of a major tournament, Nicol believes the weight of history will not weigh heavily on the players’ shoulders.
“That whole psychological thing of carrying the weight of expectation is bulls—really,” Nicol said. “When you get off the bus at the stadium, the only thing you think about as a player is the game you are going to play and what you need to do. The last thing on your mind is the external noise about being the first team to qualify- if in a group Both Scotland and Hungary are probably thinking the same thing at the start of the game, that they have a real chance of winning and progressing to the next round.
“But as a Scot, I’m setting myself up for glorious failure again.”
