Scotland 3 - 2 Israel

[Millertime]

7 hours ago, Byrne Baby Byrne said:

Can we just make that the draw?

Scotland v Wales at Hampden followed by Scotland v Albania / Austria at Hampden? 

We will need a whole lot of luck in the draw to have any chance.

Could certainly do with avoiding Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Czech Republic and probably want both games at Hampden

Don't think that's the way it works bruv!

[fatjim]

On 10/11/2021 at 8:21 AM, Sonoftherock said:

Removing emotion from it, (1) when was the last time we even won 4-games in a row?  If we beat both, then it's a 5 game winning streak.  Have Scotland ever won 5 games in a row?  When was the last time we beat all the minnows, home and away, in a qualifying tournament.  We certainly don't routinely take care of these sort of fixtures.

I don't think it's unreasonable to think we'll drop points in these games.  We have previous against the Faroes and we made hard work of it against Moldova at home too!  They will fancy they can get a point on their home patch.

1998 world cup qualifiers apparently

[Stavrogin]

On 10/11/2021 at 10:21 AM, Sonoftherock said:

Removing emotion from it, (1) when was the last time we even won 4-games in a row?  If we beat both, then it's a 5 game winning streak.  Have Scotland ever won 5 games in a row?  When was the last time we beat all the minnows, home and away, in a qualifying tournament.  We certainly don't routinely take care of these sort of fixtures.

I don't think it's unreasonable to think we'll drop points in these games.  We have previous against the Faroes and we made hard work of it against Moldova at home too!  They will fancy they can get a point on their home patch.

2002 World Cup qualifying when we beat both Latvia and the mighty San Marino home and away.  Since then, there has been a fair few horror results to the minnows (I'm classing this as the bottom two in the group) in both World Cup and Euro qualifying.  A 3-0 gubbing in Kazakhstan, losing to Georgia 2-0 when in a strong position in a group that included Italy and France, 2 draws with the Faroes, losing to Belarus at home, losing home and away to a poor Welsh side.  Even in qualifying for  the 1998 WC we managed to drop points to Estonia.  The odds of Scotland fucking up in the Faroes or Moldova seem reasonable.  

[thedandydon]

We’ve definitely been guilty of taking the minnows of the group too lightly in the past, especially away from home. It would be typical of Scotland to do the hard bit then fail to capitalise with the road to the playoffs pretty straight forward. Certainly don’t want to leave ourselves having work to do against the Danes. Maximum points in the next two should see us seeded. Anything we can take from a by then qualified Danish side would be a bonus. None of those teams currently occupying the unseeded spots look too daunting.

[Andy_123]

Clarke has turned us into a very solid unit, although at times unspectacular. We also seem to have a bit of grit and determination about us as well, I doubt many Scotland teams of the past 10 years would have come from behind twice to win like we did the other night.

I can't see him taking anyone lightly, or making the kind of tactical errors that would let someone like the Faroes or Moldova getting a result against us.

[Ramandu]

2 hours ago, thedandydon said:

We’ve definitely been guilty of taking the minnows of the group too lightly in the past, especially away from home. It would be typical of Scotland to do the hard bit then fail to capitalise with the road to the playoffs pretty straight forward. Certainly don’t want to leave ourselves having work to do against the Danes. Maximum points in the next two should see us seeded. Anything we can take from a by then qualified Danish side would be a bonus. None of those teams currently occupying the unseeded spots look too daunting.

Not sure why folk keep saying this, it's not true. If we finish 2nd the games v Moldova don't count for whether we're seeded. We'll be on 14 points, and it's likely a few others will too. It will come down to goal difference - ours is marginally better than rivals at the moment, but everyone's got minnows to play, so that will change.