24th out of 24

[MarkoRaj]

People who criticise the Tartan Army for enjoying a trip abroad, as though it's somehow a choice between having a good time and being a good team are joyless, gormless morons

[ChrispPancake]

Steve Clarke not walked yet? That's the first piece of the puzzle not solved then.

and aye, 24/24 but we're giving ourselves the imaginary 'best fans' award.

I'd rather someone had a heated conversation, realised they were being silly and then settled it over a pint.

[git-intae-thum]

Took a bit of a euro road trip after the swiss game. Am now back in Germany and the rest of the competition goes on without us.

The tartan army are already forgotten...like the team that never deserved its support.

[kennie makevin]

10 hours ago, George Parr said:

But as long as the “tartan army” had a lovely time in a square…

Would you rather they react to defeat by trying to decapitate police officers ?

[kennie makevin]

10 hours ago, BucksburnDandy said:

A big problem is the of attitude of the entire Scottish footballing establishment. 

 

1) In terms of the national team, getting to a tournament is enough for pundits and those within the game as well as the SFA board. That is the limit of their ambition. Pundits almost to a man have rallied round Clarke (see McCoist for one example) when he should be absolutely hung out to dry for the way we played. Ewan Murray is the journalist closest to the anger the fans feel about the complete failure, the rest of them are all pulling their punches when they should be absolutely eviscerating Clarke and the players. The fact is that social media, on here and group chats are all being far more critical in a measured way of Clarke and the players than any media outlet.

 

2) In terms of youth development, clubs don't play enough young Scottish players anymore. It's not big spending like the early 00s but we are back to the scenario of teams being chalk full of absolute dross with no plan to change it. My club are a prime example with pish like Shayden Morris and Richard Jensen to name two getting game time. Rather than have a national plan to elevate the entire game with Scottish players at the core, clubs are more worried about petty rivalries and cutting each other down. Clubs are also happy to be absolutely shite on the European stage and produce a shite domestic product. So we just circle the drain of not playing enough players and watching our game fall to a poorer state.

 

3) Even if players come through, the limit of their ambition is join Rangers or Celtic and rot on the bench or go to England. We should have absolutely no shame in producing a plan to get boys 100 games and get them sold to the likes of Italy, France, Germany and Spain to help players become more rounded. We should be looking for players to become more rounded to develop in high quality leagues with better tactical minds who can educate them and bring them on in ways the UK game can't.

 

4) Absolutely no one in any position of power wants to understand the anger that fans have towards the game in general, they just arrogantly serve up the same crap time and time again knowing that because football is a religion for most of us, we will still turn out.  That's not just the national team, a prime example would be the ICT hierarchy serving up Kelty.

 

Thankfully the days of the entire Tartan Army accepting shite are gone, there's been a good, strong reaction of upset and anger at what has happened.

 

I know a lot of what I said may not be popular particularly taking pot shots at the quality of the domestic game. But sadly it is true. I'm getting more angry by the day at how bad this last fortnight was from Scotland.

 

Tl; Dr I thought I would mellow to our exit but it has angered me more and more all week

Correct...all those who wail 'but we will have meaningless games' whenever an expanded league is brought up need to own the shite state of affairs that have come to pass. Clubs, players need to have room to breath, develop and grow. f**k what the likes of Tam Cowan, who has zero interest in the game of football, think. 18 team top flight now !!!!

Edited June 27 by kennie makevin

[kennie makevin]

9 hours ago, Venti said:

Yogi with Ancelotti as DoF.

Who's this 'Yogi' imposter people keep referring to ? John 'Yogi Bear' Hughes played for Celtic in the 60's, on form was an unstoppable winger. He never managed or exposed his penis on national television, to my knowledge. Sadly he is no longer with us. 

[bluetoonscotty]

10 hours ago, George Parr said:

But as long as the “tartan army” had a lovely time in a square…

Ah yes, if only the fans drank a few less beers. That's definitely the problem.

[MarkoRaj]

Genuinely was a bit depressed watching the 2 games last night.

The Georgia win is tempered by the fact they were playing a Portugal B team that could barely be arsed.

I was more bothered by 10 man Czech fighting til the end and creating numerous chances even though they were eventually outgunned. And earlier watching ordinary teams like Slovenia and Romania going right at each other even though a draw saw them both through

Big changes are required in our mentality. If Steve Clarke sees himself as the man to see those through then fair play to him but it's a huge job ahead. It will be interesting to see where we go from here. It wouldn't be my choice to keep him on but as others have said I don't trust the SFA to get the next call right anyway so where does that leave us

As for the naval gazing around the size of the league and players going to the Old Firm etc, just absolute nonsense that means nothing for the national team.

[CM.]

12 hours ago, Richey Edwards said:

Genuinely I cannot think of any redeeming aspects of our participation in this tournament. We'd have been just as well not qualifying.

I thought we ranged from par to decent in the Switzerland game at times. If the other 2 games had more of that but ultimately ended in defeats then it'd have been a bit more acceptable. 

Tierney & Robertson celebrating winning a goal kick 4 minutes into the Germany game set alarm bells ringing for me straight away.

[velo army]

9 minutes ago, CM. said:

I thought we ranged from par to decent in the Switzerland game at times. If the other 2 games had more of that but ultimately ended in defeats then it'd have been a bit more acceptable. 

Tierney & Robertson celebrating winning a goal kick 4 minutes into the Germany game set alarm bells ringing for me straight away.

Very much this for me. It was a very strange experience watching a Champions League winner do that. Germany would have known there and then that they were winning that comfortably.

[adamntg]

13 hours ago, Richey Edwards said:

Genuinely I cannot think of any redeeming aspects of our participation in this tournament. We'd have been just as well not qualifying.

I got to see some interesting places. 

[Nightmare]

The main frustration for me is that the team clearly is capable of better, as evidenced by the qualification campaign. For some reason there's a mental block when we arrive at these tournaments, where we just look overawed and outclassed against the level of opponents that we can beat and do beat in the qualifiers.

Neither Clarke nor the players had a good tournament by any means. The tactics were alarmingly negative, some of our higher profile players were completely anonymous and all in all it was just a meek, wimpy attempt at tournament football. But it does feel like the issue with our national team goes beyond a few poor performances over the space of the last two weeks.

Absolute muck like Georgia this year, Finland in 2020, Northern Ireland in 2016 have turned up at the Euros and won a game; something we look incapable of doing. I don't know what the answer is and it feels a bit simple to punt the manager, appoint someone like David Moyes or Derek McInnes and then just suddenly expect better results. But something definitely needs to change mentally and tactically for these major tournaments.

 

Eta - the "but at least the fans had a good laugh" patter is excruciatingly brutal.

[forameus]

48 minutes ago, Nightmare said:

The main frustration for me is that the team clearly is capable of better, as evidenced by the qualification campaign. For some reason there's a mental block when we arrive at these tournaments, where we just look overawed and outclassed against the level of opponents that we can beat and do beat in the qualifiers.

I wonder if it's something with the way we're approaching setting up for 3 games in quick succession that are essentially knockout football.  International football is pretty slow paced, and you can plan for months for two specific games.  I don't think there should be a big difference between that and spending months preparing for three specific games, but clearly there's some difference there.  

It's why it's so very important that if we decide to punt Clarke (which we probably won't) we prioritise getting someone who actually knows what it is like to turn up at a tournament and actually be successful.  If it's Clarke that hasn't got it in him, then maybe a manager in that mould can show the players what to do.  If it's the players, then maybe a manager in that mould can drag the useless c***s kicking and screaming to success.

50 minutes ago, Nightmare said:

Absolute muck like Georgia this year

This I don't agree with though.  I think we got lucky when Glasgow turned into Atlantis and we got that win.  I wonder if all being equal they might have given us more trouble like they did in Tbilisi.  With international football being cyclical, I wonder if we simply met Georgia at the perfect time when we hadn't quite started going downhill and Georgia hadn't got their head of steam up yet.  

 

[2426255]

2 hours ago, CM. said:

Tierney & Robertson celebrating winning a goal kick 4 minutes into the Germany game set alarm bells ringing for me straight away.

At the time I probably would have said: kind of agree, bit odd - but that's modern football and they must be pumped.

On reflection, not something I'm really bothered about. If we'd gone on to draw nil-nil then folk would say: look at that desire to defend from the first whistle or more likely it would be forgotten about.

What about it set alarm bells?

[Gordon EF]

4 hours ago, forameus said:

 

 

This I don't agree with though.  I think we got lucky when Glasgow turned into Atlantis and we got that win.  I wonder if all being equal they might have given us more trouble like they did in Tbilisi.  With international football being cyclical, I wonder if we simply met Georgia at the perfect time when we hadn't quite started going downhill and Georgia hadn't got their head of steam up yet.  

 

Last night was the only time Georgia have won competitively against one of the 23 other sides at this Euros this decade.

They did incredibly well but let's not fall into the trap of thinking they're a great side who we were lucky to finish above and beat in qualifying. They're not.

They are a mediocre side, and worse than us. They turned up big time at the Euros. We shat the bed.

For comparison, we've played 13 of the other 23 competitively at some point in the 20s and beaten 8 of them.

Edited June 27 by Gordon EF

[Jives Miguel]

So the current insane cope about why we failed is that the Tartan Army had too much fun, and some of the players celebrated a goal kick ? 

Interesting. How long until "the kids these days are too interested in the PlayStation", or "we only care about England losing" is wheeled out? 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

14 hours ago, Ray Patterson said:

They'll have a consultant that will come with the team for a few weeks I believe. 

Consultant gynaecologist no doubt. 

[An Absolute Imposter]

Have enjoyed reading a lot of the posts, it's a pity that at SFA headquarters are too busy getting fitted for their new blazer and sucking up to the right people to ensure they get invited to all the right parties.

I'll be honest don't have an opinion on Clarkey one way or the other. The problem with Scottish Football goes way deeper than the coach.

We have a league system whose sole purpose is to facilitate the needs of 2 clubs above every other club from Tier 1 down to Tier 10.

The small sided leagues are nearly 50 years young; have the clubs in the SPFL improved or advanced in that period, evidence would suggest not.

Has the quality of the players playing in the top 42 clubs increased, again evidence suggests not, when you consider clubs throughout the leagues aren't bursting at the seams with local talent.

I watch a fair amount of my football from Tier 6 down; there are a lot of young players from clubs in the top 42 who get loaned out to clubs below the SPFL and very few seem to go back above Tier 5.

In the SPFL 4 leagues how many clubs have local Scottish players from either their own youth/academy set up. You don't hear of any young players coming from the boys club system any more, unless I am wrong.

Actually, what is the number of Scottish players at each club in the SPFL. I am not advocating a no foreign player policy, but surely players from outwith the country should be there to improve the quality of each team. Is that the case with these players at our clubs.

What is needed is a proper review of Scottish Football, not something with a stupid Hollywood title that means nothing and is not implementable.

I honestly thought I was not interested in the National team; haven't seen them play live since the 80's before I moved down south for work; what with no qualification this century, Euro 20/21 was weird after the lockdowns; not being able to watch on TV not having any sports channels.

But as soon as I sat in front of my TV on 14th June and seen the teams walk out onto the park I was hooked and spent the following 270 minutes over the 3 nights, screaming at the box, forgiving how crap the team played and how woeful the tactics were. Watching the efforts against the Swiss willing just one of them to go in and believing up until the 99th minute that someone would find a goal against the Magyars.

The SFA, the SPFL, the Pyramid owes every single one of us that turn up at grounds up and down the country supporting our game. Its time they showed us the respect we deserve and invested properly in our game and give us a product that we can be proud of instead of the 'pub leagues' and 'pub teams' that embarrass us at European and National level.

I shall now return to my own wee South of Scotland Football League and wait for the revolution that sees us qualify for 2026 and bow out of the tournament with praise and pride for our team's achievements.

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

1 hour ago, Jives Miguel said:

So the current insane cope about why we failed is that the Tartan Army had too much fun, and some of the players celebrated a goal kick ? 

Interesting. How long until "the kids these days are too interested in the PlayStation", or "we only care about England losing" is wheeled out? 

I actually heard someone say that after the game in Stuttgart on the platform - was too tired and too frustrated to even react to it.

Clarke set the tone - too defensive and never had the courage, especially in the last game to go for the win.

He cannot admit it, but did he just not trust those on the pitch to not take another humping if we pushed forward at pace and with a win in mind?

I thought some players you should be able to rely on were poor - Robertson for example when he did get forward was poor with his passing and crossing. Adams could not hold the ball up until support arrived (probably because it took too long), Ralston just not good enough and  that is not really his fault, McGregor too safe with his passing. 

The Berti Vogts thing still hangs over some people, but for me we need to ditch that experience and look elsewhere for a coach who knows what it takes to deliver. The idea that you MUST be of the same nationality is clearly incorrect - see Austria, Hungary, Georgia,  Albania etc.

Having said that, I am not sure anyone in the SFA knows what it takes, so how could they run a successful recruitment?

Anyway -that was a let down too far for me- 4th tournament outside Scotland and my last. 

Edited June 27 by SouthLanarkshireWhite
x

[Lyle Lanley]

Clarke and the players should be embarrassed for their pathetic performances in the games.