Faroes fiasco fuels Lambert's urge to win

SCOTLAND captain Paul Lambert has told of the moment when he realised some of his international team-mates did not care about the prospect of an embarrassing loss to the Faroe Islands.

An anger-fuelled speech he made in the dressing room at half time in Toftir a year ago has since gone down in Scottish footballing folklore.

The Scots were 2-0 down within just 12 minutes following two strikes from primary school teacher John Petersen and Berti Vogts' first competitive game was half way to disaster. But Scotland rallied in the second half and recovered to share a 2-2 draw thanks to goals from Lambert and vice-captain Barry Ferguson.

Now Henrik Larsen's side are in Glasgow for the return match at Hampden Park on Saturday, and a year on few are tipping the Scots to slip up again, especially after an encouraging performance against Germany in June which ended 1-1. But those agonising moments in Toftir are still imprinted on Lambert's mind. "I have been in the game a long time and there was an acceptance of losing 2-0. Maybe because we had such young players at the time, they thought it was just another game. But it wasn't," Larsen said. "It's your job to try to qualify for a major tournament and if you do it's a great thing for a footballer.There was an acceptance, without a doubt, from a lot of the players."

The side Vogts picks on Saturday will hardly resemble his initial selection on the Euro 2004 qualification trail.

Centre-back David Weir retired from international football after Vogts publicly criticised his performance that day.

Fellow defender Christian Dailly is suspended while left-back Stephen Crainey has long since disappeared from the international picture, as have Scott Dobie and Allan Johnston. Raw striker Kevin Kyle played up front, but is now back in the Under-21s.

The Scots are the only nation to have dropped points against the Faroes, but despite that setback remain on course for a play-off place at lease.

But Lambert knew full well another slip-up would severely diminish their chances of reaching Portugal, especially as they travel to group favourites Germany straight after.

"We have to win. There is no point losing or drawing that one as when Dortmund comes it will be irrelevant. "We can't play the way we did against Germany in June and then throw it all away against the Faroes. If we play at the right tempo we will win the game."

Lambert admitted the Scots had underestimated the Faroes a year ago despite the fact that the previous time they had played there, they had also been held to a draw. "There is no such thing as an easy game. Maybe when we went up there we were thinking we were going to win hands down."