Scotland assistant hopes opportunity knocks in Germany

Mark McGhee does not see any weaknesses in the Germany team but is optimistic about Scotland’s chances in their 2016 European Championship clash next Sunday.

Ireland’s Group D rivals will meet in Dortmund in their Euro 2016 qualifying opener, with few giving Scotland a chance against a team who won the World Cup so impressively in the summer.

However, the Scotland assistant manager, while acknowledging the talent within the Germany squad, believes there will be “opportunities” for Gordon Strachan’s side to get off to a positive start in the campaign.

“I don’t think there are any weaknesses,” said McGhee of the Germans. “What there are, is opportunities. At some point in the game we will have the ball and it is what we do with it then.

“We can’t wonder if the right-back or the right centre-half is a weakness.

“They don’t have weaknesses but that doesn’t mean to say that we can’t be successful against them.

“We have seen teams who have done well against them, like Chile in the World Cup but we expect them to be the Germany that we saw win the World Cup and therefore we have to be at our best.

“Whatever happens in this game, I still expect Germany to win the section.

“They will be excited about the occasion and optimistic about going to France [for the 2016 Euro finals] and doing what Spain did, winning a double.

“So they will be rubbing their hands and licking their lips at the thought of getting started.

“But whoever we were playing we would be preparing in the exact same way, we wouldn’t be doing anything different this week. We wouldn’t be changing our thinking.

“That said, we are aware of who we are playing and we all uphold them in the highest respect.”

McGhee feels responsibility rather than pressure to help guide Scotland to the finals of a major tournament for the first time since the 1998 World Cup in France.

He became assistant to Strachan after the former Celtic, Southampton and Middlesbrough manager took over from Craig Levein during the ultimately doomed 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign when Scotland were at the foot of Group A with two points from four games.

McGhee revealed that watching this summer’s World Cup made him even more determined to get the Scots and the Tartan Army back on the big stage.

The former Aberdeen and Motherwell boss said: “We feel, not pressure, but responsibility.

“And when we watched the World Cup and what a fabulous tournament it was, you were just wishing you were there.

“So we go into this tournament dreaming that we can qualify and that as a team, a management and supporters, we can all go to France.”