Scotland deserved something, maybe everything, but get draw with Swiss
Scotland's Scott McTominay (right) reacts after being shown a yellow card by match referee Ivan Kruzliak. Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire.
Scotland and Steve Clarke have a point to call their own. Perhaps as pleasingly they have a goal too. With 81 minutes gone here, UEFA gave belated notice that they’d awarded Scotland’s early opener to the midfielder.
Within the next 60 seconds McTominay almost scored a stunning second and then watched as Breel Embolo scored a Swiss winner that wasn’t, hundreds of beers hurled into the Cologne night for nothing as VAR intervened.
At the other end the Tartan Army howled in derision, at the waste of perfectly good pilsner but also at another utterly compelling contest not being stolen away from them. They deserved something, maybe everything. In they end they got their draw, courtesy of McTominay’s moment and also Billy Gilmour’s essential influence in midfield, the Brighton man bringing calm and cohesion to a team devoid of all of that five days earlier.
They didn’t win, so this positivity had to be offset somewhere. It was: the cheap giveaway which Xherdan Shaqiri arrowed in for an equaliser and the costly loss of Kieran Tierney to a hamstring injury. But they’re alive and will go to Stuttgart on Sunday knowing victory over Hungary will keep this dream rolling on.
Much as UEFA trumpet their shiny, happy ‘football unites’ PR lines, this ultimately is a tournament which reminds us how different we all are. A continent coming together to explore its contrasts.
In the platzes and parks of Cologne they were all too clear, Scots invading by the tens of thousands, a great wall of navy blue humanity gathering outside the city’s iconic cathedral, drinking the place dry and only lowering bottles to belt out lines like “you can stick your pointy chocolate up your arse”. Good humoured and gallows humoured, they've been a credit to the country and brought so much to Germany’s first week. They arrived at Cologne Arena looking for a little in return.
On the flip side were the Swiss, impeccably tailored and turned out, a large group of them gathering in a lakeside retreat beside the venue, sipping wine and debating things like taxation and the aesthetics of Toblerones… perhaps.
In the important stuff, like hanging around, the teams are stark contrasts too. The Swiss are the great group-stage progressives. The Scots are 0 for 11.
Having face-planted in Munich on opening night, Clarke looked to steady the midfield with Gilmour coming in. “Tonight hopefully you’ll see the real Scotland on the pitch,” he told BBC.
In response, Murat Yakin gave us the real Switzerland restoring Shaqiri, the ageless barreller of Basel looking to score in a sixth-straight major tournament. He wouldn’t have to look — it found him.
The bar for improvement was at ground level but Scotland cleared it, early cornershelping to settle them. But Gilmour was settler-in-chief. The difference he made to the heart and the pulse of his team was immediate.
It influence soon counted on the scoreboard. When McTominay cleared a corner, Scotland had a frantic chance to break. Gilmour slowed the game down, controlled and turned in an instant and fed Andy Robertson. He galloped and released Callum McGregor at just the right moment, the pullback went into what is surely known as McTominay Alley and the Manchester United man crashed in with help from Fabian Schar.
It was the cue for Tartan bedlam. The release and raging sea of Scottish limbs at the other end will live long in the memory. Clarke’s side settled into their ascendency. It wasn’t faultless but they were doing a lot of good things, McTominay putting manners on Granit Xhaka, Che Adams holding play up better.
Then came Anthony Ralston’s intervention. Third-choice, he unfortunately showed why, panicking on 26 minutes and laying on into Shaqiri's path. There was still so much to be done but this is Shaqiri in the spotlight. He speared it over Angus Gunn into the top corner. In Ralston’s panic and Shaqiri’s poise, that Scots-Swiss contrast was all too clear.
Back came the head-down hesitancy from Munich. The Swiss smelled it, a flowing beauty of a break on 31 minutes almost giving them the lead but Gunn saved from Dan Ndoye, who had a goal ruled out by VAR soon after. The Scots looked like they needed halftime and found it.
As the teams re-emerged, the Army had rehydrated and the contest began a slow but inevitable creep towards a knife edge in the middle distance.
The first moment of real consequence arrived on the hour when Ndoye raced clear and Tierney tried to keep up but twanged his hamstring in the process. Stretchered off, you feared for Scotland’s rearguard without him. Maybe they did too so they endeavoured to keep the ball at the other end.
McTominay outfoxed Manuel Akanji on the edge of the box and Robertson finally whipped in a treacherous ball, Hanley meeting it full and true but crashing it off the post. On we went.
There were at least five good chances for the other two points to swing one way or the other. None were taken but Scotland took enough. Enough to dream on.
Gunn 7; Ralston 4, Hanley 6, Hendry 6, Tierney 7 (McKenna 61), Robertson 7; McTominay 7, Gilmour 9 (McLean 80), McGregor 8, McGinn 6 (Christie 90); Adams 7 (Shankland 90).
Goals: McTominay (13) Booked: McTominay, McKenna, McGinn.
Sommer 7; Schar 6, Akanji 7, Rodriguez 6; Widmer 6 (Stergiou 86), Frueler 7 (Sierra 75), Xhaka 6, Vargas 7 (Rieder 75), Shaqiri 7 (Embolo ), Aebischer 6; Ndoye 7 (Amdouni 86).
Goals: Shaqiri (26) Booked: Rodriguez
Ivan Kruzliak (SVK) 8
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