Spectacular

[oneteaminglasgow]

2 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Heroism from Kenny McLean - yes.  

Even a heroic couple of minutes from the team - yes, I suppose so if you get such things.

 

A heroic Scotland performance on the night though - no I'm not having that.

Does it need to be full of heroic performances from every player to have been a heroic performance? From memory, Robertson was tremendous in that game and Liam Cooper was widely credited as being instrumental in driving the team on when he came on. I’d describe both of their performances as heroic in that game. 

[Monkey Tennis]

2 minutes ago, oneteaminglasgow said:

Does it need to be full of heroic performances from every player to have been a heroic performance? From memory, Robertson was tremendous in that game and Liam Cooper was widely credited as being instrumental in driving the team on when he came on. I’d describe both of their performances as heroic in that game. 

Hmmmm, interesting.

I'd still maybe question "full of" if we're talking about individual performances.

it would also mean that even campaigns under Vogts, Levein and Burley featured heroic performances at times.

[velo army]

Awa min.

Of all the Scotland threads celebrating the team you come on to this thread which is clearly for people to get carried away with joy. Popping on and invalidating that is rightly resulting in a felt collar for yourself.

[Monkey Tennis]

22 minutes ago, velo army said:

Awa min.

Of all the Scotland threads celebrating the team you come on to this thread which is clearly for people to get carried away with joy. Popping on and invalidating that is rightly resulting in a felt collar for yourself.

I'm not invalidating anyone's joy.  If I knew how to do that, I'd obviously do it more often.

I simply questioned a specific thing someone said.  Even then, I only said it was a bit of a stretch. 

 

 

Pretty darned mild, I'm sure you'll agree.  Certainly mild when set against what it provoked.

[Ewanandmoreagain]

3 hours ago, AndyDD said:

Given the pant wetting going into the group and the game itself about Haaland, the fact they kept him really rather quiet and he only scored from a penalty would suggest that side of the performance wasn't poor at all. The defensive, off the ball side of the performance wasn't poor, from my recollection. I didn't feel under any real threat prior to the penalty and thought we ought to have made more of some first half forays (a few good blocks and Dykes being on his heels for a Robertson cross stick in the mind). 

The result itself, though, and the manner of it, surely places that firmly in the heroic category, even for you. Winning football matches is more than just possession domination, chances created etc, especially away internationals to your chief opponent in the group. Went a goal down, kept the mentality, kept belief, and turned it around at the death with sheer determination for the equaliser and then an excellent, excellent goal to win it.  

That's heroic. 

The referee was a hero !

[Richey Edwards]

Spectacular. 

[velo army]

33 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

I'm not invalidating anyone's joy.  If I knew how to do that, I'd obviously do it more often.

I simply questioned a specific thing someone said.  Even then, I only said it was a bit of a stretch. 

 

 

Pretty darned mild, I'm sure you'll agree.  Certainly mild when set against what it provoked.

[Venti]

Monkey Tennis:

[Savage Henry]

Scotland Gemmill doing his utmost to make Granny look positively optimistic by draining all the good feelings out of the national team. 

[Lex]

14 hours ago, eez-eh said:

None of this happened. Most folk were unhappy with Norway from Pot 3. And looking back at the pots they were definitely one of the strongest looking teams in their pot at the time, as were Spain.

Well here’s what I said in the draw thread when it was made and there is plenty of similar sentiment.  Spain one of the strongest looking teams? Did no one see them at the World Cup? They’re clearly nowhere near the level of teams like France and England, as our recent games against the three of them show. 

I accept there were some Uber pessimists - yourself included presumably - who had us finishing third. And probably some Uber optimists somewhere that had us finishing first.  Most sensible and realistic predictions had us finishing second, and that’s where we will finish. Job done, expectations met. Nothing more nothing less.

 

 

 

[eez-eh]

26 minutes ago, Lex said:

Well here’s what I said in the draw thread when it was made and there is plenty of similar sentiment.  Spain one of the strongest looking teams? Did no one see them at the World Cup? They’re clearly nowhere near the level of teams like France and England, as our recent games against the three of them show. 

I accept there were some Uber pessimists - yourself included presumably - who had us finishing third. And probably some Uber optimists somewhere that had us finishing first.  Most sensible and realistic predictions had us finishing second, and that’s where we will finish. Job done, expectations met. Nothing more nothing less.

 

 

 

Referring to a post from yourself being optimistic is not evidence of almost everyone being optimistic.

The draw was a month before the World Cup so why would Spain’s performance there have any relevance to how people felt at the time of the draw? At the time they looked like one of the stronger teams there.

[craigkillie]

They also won the Nations League in the summer there, the idea that they are some sort of hopeless nobodies is daft.

[LiviLion]

Haven't looked back at that thread but I seem to remember the general consensus being:

- Spain will beat everyone
- Norway have Odegaard and Haaland, one of the tougher pot 2 teams
- Georgia are improving and give us all sleepless nights
- Cyprus should be easy enough but it's the Scotland way LOL

 

Definitely plenty optimism but pretty sure it was a general laugh that we finally look decent then got a very tough draw given the possibilities.

[craigkillie]

I thought that it was a tough group but also was confident that we would qualify because we are a very good team. I don't think anyone expected it to be done and dusted so comfortably, or that we could feasibly finish 11 points clear of Norway.

[TheScarf]

It was definitely the Haaland factor at play.  Take him out of that side, even keeping Odegaard in, and they drop off in how dangerous they are is wild.  We have better players than them all over the park and this group have proved it.  And a better manager.

[craigkillie]

They still have a pretty strong looking squad on paper, they've got guys across clubs like Napoli, Dortmund etc.

[Boo Khaki]

I'd describe the campaign as extremely whelming.

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

If you ordered the groups from easiest to hardest, then ours would certainly be on the latter end.  

We drew Norway, possibly the team most sides would fear given Haaland and Odegaard.  The third tier is otherwise much of a muchness.  We'd have been happier with Albania or Slovenia, but look how they've performed.

In hindsight, other sides may have been more problematic, but Norway at the time did feel like an unfortunate draw.

From 4th seeds, Georgia were only a better draw than Greece or Turkey.  Even if Luxembourg and Kazakhstan have had great campaigns, we'd still have preferred them.

Slovakia were the sides to avoid from Pot 5, but Cyprus wouldn't have been most people's picks.  That they're almost definitely going to finish the campaign with zero points is quite a surprise.

Edit: as noted above, it's quite conceivable that we'll finish with 21/24 points and only be behind Spain in virtue of a Hickey slip, or an incidental VAR decision based on the width of a toe.  Even those confident about our qualification wouldn't have expected that much.

Edited October 18, 2023 by HuttonDressedAsLahm

[oneteaminglasgow]

14 minutes ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

Slovakia were the sides to avoid from Pot 5, but Cyprus wouldn't have been most people's picks.  That they're almost definitely going to finish the campaign with zero points is quite a surprise.

I think the fact that Cyprus will finish on zero points is a reflection that the rest of the teams in our group are pretty decent actually. 

[GAD]

Even fans of other teams were laughing at the draw we got, loads of "always 2028 lads" stuff from English, Welsh and Irish supporters. Spain were going to win easily, Haaland and Odegaard were too good, Georgia had the Napoli wonderkid who would beat us himself and Scotland always struggle against teams like Cyprus was the general gist.