Czech Republic v Scotland

[Skyline Drifter]

1 hour ago, G51 said:

We're playing the Czechia B team, who have never played together under a manager who's had about 3 hours to put a gameplan together.

It's reasonable to expect us to dominate the ball in this match, particularly considering they've had almost no time to work on tactics, so they'll probably be going with something very basic.

I'm not even going to remotely pretend to know the first thing about Czech football. I thought someone said earlier int he thread the squad mostly all played for Sigma Olomouc? Is that not correct?

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

36 minutes ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

Again. This is not the Czech B team. The B team also went home. Presumably the C team would include u21s who were also unavailable.

No great team is built from 22 non-capped players from the clubs they could contact at a few hours’ notice.

I’m quoting myself now, but our leagues from a co-efficient standpoint are not dissimilar. In addition the Czech side has been very poor by its own standards of late - hence us being in a group with them.

If the same thing happened to us, our C/D team without Hickey/Ferguson/Turnbull/Campbell etc would be a damn poor team. We would absolutely be going into the fixture against any other middle ranking nation expecting to be the much weaker team, and where a draw would be a great result.

With the shoe on the other foot, why do we expect to be the lesser nation in circumstance like this? Anything less than a convincing performance and victory will be up there with the worst results of recent decades.

[DA Baracus]

4 hours ago, Scotty Tunbridge said:

Odds back available we are 1/2

 

3 hours ago, sonsism said:

Scotland -1 was too tempting for me.

Home win. Apologies in advance.

 

3 hours ago, Binos said:

What's 0-0?

Bet365 have this frankly generous offering:

[Savage Henry]

10 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

 

 

Bet365 have this frankly generous offering:

I know next to nothing about betting, but do those odds not scream “nobody has a clue what’s going to happen”?

Why, for example, are Scotland 6/1 for 1-0 and 2-0?  Surely the latter is slightly less likely than the former?

Edited September 7, 2020 by Savage Henry

[DA Baracus]

Anyway, we absolutely have more than enough to provide a pumping to this team. Our squad is far better than theirs.

The big issue however is the mentality. For years the norm, with a few exceptions, is that Scotland absolutely shite it in away games. They turn in timid and meek performances and look notably to be lacking confidence. They think they must be really defensive and take no 'risks' and so play well within themselves. Mistakes are made more often and players seem to hide. Excuses are always made (heat, travel, the pitch, time zones) but lessons are never learned.

Kazakhstan utterly pumped us but were, and still are, absolutely gash. We had that one lost before it started. There's loads of other examples of where a shitebag performance was turned in and a meek, pathetic defeat was inflicted on us by a team we then beat pretty comfortably at home.

It's happened under multiple Scotland managers and sadly will keep happening for a long time.

[Szamo's_Ammo]

25 minutes ago, Marshmallo said:

I absolutely hate this section of The Forum. What am I doing with my life?

I've said it before but you deserve a medal for moderating this section of the forum bro.

[DAFC.]

Would appear I have upset a few Robertson fan boys. The guy has never looked convincing at all for Scotland, apart from games against the uber diddies. Maybe it’s the pressure of being captain. Maybe it’s because we expect a bit more, perhaps unjustly, but he has never looked like a player playing with one of the best teams in the world, let alone the best player in his position.

I’d have Tierney at LB now.

[Scary Bear]

1 hour ago, G51 said:

We're playing the Czechia B team, who have never played together under a manager who's had about 3 hours to put a gameplan together.

It's reasonable to expect us to dominate the ball in this match, particularly considering they've had almost no time to work on tactics, so they'll probably be going with something very basic.

So we’re going to boss this game and win comfortably? I might even listen on the radio.

[DA Baracus]

1 minute ago, Savage Henry said:

I know next to nothing about betting, but do those odds not scream “nobody has a clue what’s going to happen”?

Why, for example, are Scotland 6/1 for 1-0 and 2-0?  Surely the latter is slightly less likely than the former?

I'm no expert either but the odds there are all expecting a Scotland win, so much so that it isn't really worth their time to differentiate between a 1 and 2 nil victory for us.

[Scary Bear]

1 minute ago, DAFC. said:

Would appear I have upset a few Robertson fan boys. The guy has never looked convincing at all for Scotland, apart from games against the uber diddies. Maybe it’s the pressure of being captain. Maybe it’s because we expect a bit more, perhaps unjustly, but he has never looked like a player playing with one of the best teams in the world, let alone the best player in his position.

I’d have Tierney at LB now.

Where are you playing Robertson?

[Szamo's_Ammo]

1 minute ago, Savage Henry said:

I know next to nothing about betting, but do those odds not scream “nobody has a clue what’s going to happen”?

It seems to be a running theme on this thread today that there are a lot of things you know next to nothing about, Savage Henry.

[true_rover]

Bet365 have this frankly generous offering:

That's changed a bit from this morning where you could get 6/1 on the Czechs - clearly plenty money going on a home win.

[Savage Henry]

1 minute ago, Szamo's_Ammo said:

It seems to be a running theme on this thread today that there are a lot of things you know next to nothing about, Savage Henry.

I’ve not even tried to hide it.  

But there is absolutely not a single reason to be optimistic about this game.

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

3 minutes ago, Scary Bear said:

So we’re going to boss this game and win comfortably? I might even listen on the radio.

I have no expectation of it, but there is no world in which we should be setting out to be anything other than dominating this game. This single match might well represent 22 years of failure better than any other moment.

[Scary Bear]

1 minute ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

I have no expectation of it, but there is no world in which we should be setting out to be anything other than dominating this game. This single match might well represent 22 years of failure better than any other moment.

22 years of failure in organisation is there for all to see when we can’t find a Scottish forward and are having to steal Lyndon Dykes from Australia.

Incidentally if Dykes had decided against Scotland, what would our forward option have been for these games?

How long have we been searching for decent central defenders? 10 years? We’ve been searching for a decent forward since Kenny Miller got too old. Not much luck there either.

[Scary Bear]

Anyway, we’ve got lucky here so hopefully we can get the win tonight. Goal from midfield?

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

1 minute ago, Scary Bear said:

22 years of failure in organisation is there for all to see when we can’t find a Scottish forward and are having to steal Lyndon Dykes from Australia.

Incidentally if Dykes had decided against Scotland, what would our forward option have been for these games?

How long have we been searching for decent central defenders? 10 years? We’ve been searching for a decent forward since Kenny Miller got too old. Not much luck there either.

Our problem is rarely the calibre of player. If that was the case N.Ireland, Wales, Bosnia, Albania, Iceland, Slovakia, Finland etc wouldn't be qualifying either. 
 

Our problem is more often mentality. We are timid, meek, and passive. How often do you see us take a game to the opposition like others do? I swear we’ve managed it only a couple of times since 2007.

[eez-eh]

Footage of me when the team is announced and Callum McGregor is predictably starting his twelfth Scotland game in a row.

[DC92]

1 hour ago, Savage Henry said:

They all play for the same clubs.   They know each other’s game a darn sight better than the Scotland players do.  Scotland dominiate against technically lesser teams.  Czech Republic B are not a lesser team, in my opinion.  Your mileage my vary, of course.   

Their top teams seem to do reasonably well in Europe, but David Vanecek scored goals for Teplice in that league before coming here and looking woefully out of his depth (he managed to be the worst player on the park against Auchinleck Talbot). Rudi Skacel also managed to play regularly at the age of 39, a full year after his underwhelming spell at Raith Rovers.

Those example might not be representative of the overall standard, but I'm pretty confident these guys coming in are going to be significantly worse than our first team.

That said, I'd guess they're likely to at least be of a similar standard to the Estonia/Lithuania/Macedonia type teams, and we quite frequently drop points away to those sides. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we do the same here.

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

3 minutes ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

Our problem is rarely the calibre of player. If that was the case N.Ireland, Wales, Bosnia, Albania, Iceland, Slovakia, Finland etc wouldn't be qualifying either. 
 

Our problem is more often mentality. We are timid, meek, and passive. How often do you see us take a game to the opposition like others do? I swear we’ve managed it only a couple of times since 2007.

I’ve just checked. Out of the entirety of League B, only Israel and Scotland haven’t qualified for any major tournament since 1998.