Why Scotland Are Out Of Euro 2024

Right, Hello everybody. Adam Cleary from 442 and Scotland are out of the EUR at the earliest possible opportunity. While we can stand here and talk about penalties not being given and I probably will at some point, Scotland nonetheless go out bottom of their Group 1.2 goals having offered virtually nothing. But The thing is, it wasn't supposed to be like this. Like this Scotland team honestly had enough about it that it really could have done something in this tournament. I mean, for Christ's sake, I'm the man who wrote this and I meant every single word of that headline. So why did that not happen? Well, so we'll start here with the 11 that started the hungry game. And after Steve Clark shifted it ever so slightly and how the front three were organized in the Switzerland game, he kind of went back to Scotland's tried and tested system that made them look so good in qualifying. But, and I mean, you probably watched the game, Scotland didn't just fail to win that must win game. They offered virtually nothing in the final third of the pitch. One shot on target in the whole match and it falls to Grant Hanley. But The thing is this 11 and this system theoretically was the right move by Steve Clark because the Scotland system thrives on sitting deep, being tight, winning the ball in good areas, then getting up the pitch really quickly. And against the Hungary team that needed to win as well. The thinking was obviously, well, they're going to come on to us, so it'll leave that space. But as became painfully clear as that first half war on when Scotland had all of these passes in all of this possession and nothing to show for it at the other end was that Hungary were very happy to sit deep and try and get them on the counter at the same time. And Scotland's with this system cannot deal with that. And just to show you how ineffective Scotland are against an opposition that aren't going to give them space, right, this is the team's entire pass map from that match before it opened up in the final 10 minutes and they successfully made two passes, two passes into the box. One of them is just this hopeful cross into the box from John McGee, only goes down as a completed pass because it hit a Scotland head before nothing came of it. And the other one is that penalty. They should have had Scott Matominate plays in, I think it was Stuart Armstrong. And that's the only other time they got in. And there's a sort of really cruel irony to them not getting that penalty because if they do and they score and they go on to win, which they very easily could have done, I think all day that's a penalty. Then this Scotland team sat back, they were compact, they kept the ball, they kept hungry out. And then when they're one chance came when they made that one opportunity at the end, they then take it, win the game, advance out with the group. And you would probably say that's an expertly executed tactical master plan. And if you think that sounds like I'm being incredibly generous to what was an otherwise like negative nothing performance, then that's kind of what this Scotland team are. We did a massive preview video for them before the tournament where we basically pointed out that this is not a team that creates a lot of chances, but a team that is very deadly with the chances they do create. And actually, apologies for just recycling footage from an old video here, but this is what we said about them before the tournament. And the way of looking at this system, right is it doesn't make Scotland some free flowing powerhouse. It doesn't give them loads of chances, right? But the movement it allows them to have, the way they slip free of their markers, it means that when the chances do arrive, they're usually very good chances. In fact, I've got an absolutely extraordinary stat view about all of this. Alright, OK, So like take all the teams that were in European Championship qualifying, right? Or like 100 and whatever of them, right? Of all of those that actually qualified that got to the tournament, Scotland had both the fewest number of shots and the fewest number of shots on target. Now you might think, oh, that's a terrible start of the least attacking team in the whole tournament. That's really bad news, Adam. Like, why would you? Why would you tell us that? That is one way to read that data, but there is another start that sort of forms a a second part of this, right? They have the highest, the best goals per shot and goals per shot on target numbers. So on the one hand, they are the least attacking side at the EUR, but on the other hand they're the most lethal attacking side. See. So as bad as they were, that opening sixty, 7080 minutes of that match shouldn't really have come as a surprise to anybody because that is what this Scotland team is. That is how Steve Clark has got them set up. That was their whole identity through qualifying and if they were going to get anywhere in the tournament, they needed to keep that going here. But should we just have a really quick look at how those same graphs and numbers from qualifying translated to the tournament itself? You're not going to want to, but I'm going to show you anyway. So just like in qualifying we're of all the teams that made it to the tournament, Scotland were absolute rock bottom for their total number of shots and total number of shots on target. In the tournament itself. On a per 90 minute basis, Scotland were only getting 6 attempts on goal per match and only one shot on target. But unlike in qualifying where they were the top chance converters, getting a goal every nought points like 1-8 shots. So basically pouring every five times they get an effort in the tournament that drops down to nought point, nought 6. Basically the way they were playing, they would need about 20 shots to get a goal and that is way too steep a drop off at this level. Just as a catch, how do you kill a family? And just as a total aside there, I didn't notice that until I pulled the graph up right there. Did you see who is currently second bottom in the tournament for shots per 90 minutes? That's that's probably funny, isn't it? So for all you're going to hear over the next couple of weeks stuff about negative tactics and not going for it and not being ambitious enough, that's not really the story of Scotland's tournament. Like here we have a team that specializes in not making a lot of chances, but making a few quality ones, got into the really big games and just did not have that quality. And it's probably not fair to pick out specific examples of this, but that's just sort of the reality of it. Like there were a couple of times in that game where Scotland found themselves in those kind of positions where they normally make these chances happen. And for whatever reason, that final ball just wasn't there. There's two in particular that just are right at the top of my head. John McGinn makes a really industrious classic John McGinn run. He skips past one or two challenges, he gets into the box and in qualifying you would just expect this ball to come right across to Scott Mccominy and he would get that goal. But for whatever reason, he gets into the position this time and the movements just not as good. He doesn't find himself in as much space. The pass isn't quite right and nothing comes of it. That fly is doing my head in. But the biggest one, I think by a mile, comes very, very near the end of the game. There's a flurry of chances. It actually ends up with Grant Hanley having their best chance of the game. And if we just pause it right here, I think truly and honestly in qualifying, there's a bit of calmness, there's a bit more composure. This ball arrives at the back post here and Scotland knock that in one nil and go and win the game. But for some reason, the decision making in this moment, with the the pressure and the fans and the expectation, whatever you want to put it down to, he just makes the wrong choice. He shoots from an impossible angle. Chance goes, and this might also sound incredibly harsh, but the reason for that sort of poor decision making, that lack of quality in the final third is the same reason for this perceived negative setup. Like Steve Clarke has Scotland set up in this way to sort of mask the overall technical level they've currently got available. Like if we look at the 11 Scotland finished that game with and they actually sort of went to more of a 4231 after they took Andy Robertson off. Not trying to have a pop at any of these players individually, but just look across this eleven, look at the names involved. Who do you really think is going to be the difference maker there? Who's adding more quality off the bench than the player they're replacing? They just don't have those sorts of options. Players who work hard, certainly players who give you absolutely everything, but when you're trying to break down a really resolute defence at an international tournament, who's jumping out with you? As well as all the nerdy stuff about the stats and the numbers and how they sort of set up, that was the other major thing we said in that preview. Once you start taking away players from that Scotland starting 11, the quality available just is not there to go and really trouble anybody. Like you have to be able to make changes from the bench in a tournament. You have to be able to use your squad beyond the starting 11, whether it's because of fitness or injuries or just game state, trying something different, anything like that. And Scotland finding themselves in that desperate position, nil, nil. They need to get that goal. These are the players they have available to do that. There's no Hickey or Tierney because of injury. Robertson's come off because he was having an ineffective game. John McGinn and Billy Gilmore, they're both not there. And for everything I've said so far, like there is still like a positive angle to this video because for all we're looking at these players and going as no wonder they couldn't compete at an international level, it was nil, nil right up until the 100th minute. If they get the penalty that they almost certainly should have got, this 11 gets them out of that group. Which is why I'm kind of hesitant to sort of lay too much of the blame at the feet of Steve Clark. Because you show me any manager that has to go into the last sort of 1015 minutes of a crunch, must win game at the European Championships with these players at his disposal and has it go that far to the end to get that close to doing it. I don't, I don't really know what else you do. And if you've watched these videos before, you know, I'd normally be showing you loads of other things that happened in this matches. So give you examples of all the stuff I'm talking about. But I mean, you probably watched it. There wasn't really anything else Hungry sitting back and not giving Scotland the space just nullified everything. Like I said before about Andy Robertson, who's arguably, in my opinion, Scotland's best player, their most effective weapon on the counter attack. This is his heat map from the game. Like it's pretty unusual for him because it more or less just stops bang on the halfway line. He wasn't really able to offer any kind of threat down the left hand side. And this wasn't purely because Hungary was sitting deep, because you still want the width from the fullbacks. They're still expected to do that. Like I'll show you Ralston's HE map. He was still able to do that on the right hand side. It was more than Hungary had targeted Robertson. They'd locked that side down and taking away that weapon completely nullified their threat on that flank. And again, I hate to keep coming back to this, but they shut down one side, left more space on the other, and Ralston, who I actually thought had a really, really good game, was able to be the threat out wide. Now this is his pass map. Using that opportunity gets the ball out-of-the-box only three times and most of his passes in a dangerous area are just backwards. And then after Andy Robertson, you'd probably say Scott Mcdominey is their other major goal threat. He got them all those goals in qualifying, Scotland were really cleverly trying to use Shay Adams to move out to the left to drag a defender, to give Mcdominey that space to burst into the middle off the opposite, the opposite flank. But let's look at his heat map from that match. Look how few times I've knocked him, overlook how few times he was able to get on the ball in the space that had been created for him. Hungary denied Scotland the space they wanted to play in and they specifically targeted a handful of their best players. And once you take away that key part of the system and those key individuals, they offered nothing. Not sure you Billy Gilmore's past map as well. Like, it's so important for getting in front of those defenders, taking the ball off the moving upfield. He was forced to play so much further forward to try and do anything. But you can see even here, when he does get on the ball in a dangerous area, where's the incision? Where's the balls into the box? Where's the guys running on the overlap? Nothing was happening. This is how this is how television works. Kind of, yeah, it's Matthew. Everyone say hello Matthew in the comments. And I know it's not all about numbers and statistics and stuff, but I just wanted to show you this one thing because I think it might be the most damning sort of statistical element in the whole thing, right? Scotland, they're going to go out of this tournament having completed 3.3 passes into the penalty area per game, every game. Like you are not going to do anything if that's as much box threat as you're offering. And but that's it. If you can't play the system the way you need to play your system and you can't get your best players into the game. And when you do, you can't make all the things happen that you're supposed to be able to make happen. You simply won't score goals. And if you can't score goals, you get eliminated from these tournaments. And that's that's it. It's, it's, it's not about like negativity or mentality or any of this other stuff that's being levelled at Steve Clark. It's just he has this Scotland team set up in a particular way for very good reasons and over the three games they've played at the tournament, that particular way didn't work. And I mean, I might as well throw this as well because it's analysis, isn't it? If you want any further evidence that Hungary were doing the exact same thing as Scotland, waiting for their opponent to open up so they could exploit the space, think about what their two best chances were. They were after Andy Robertson went off attacking this space that was being left open for the first time in the entire match. They hit the post the first time and then for the second one. The cut back is just of the kind of quality that Scotland normally have when they're in this position. And that's how they finished. Scotland were ultimately eliminated. I'm going to kill this fire. They were ultimately eliminated by conceding the exact kind of goal they've become famous for scoring. So there you are. That's that's the autopsy. That's why it all went wrong. Scotland fans, if you have been able to bring yourself to watch this entire video then first of all fair, but second, please let us know what your read of the whole tournament was in the comments. Is it actually they should have been a bit more aggressive? Should they have played a back four? Should they have made the substitutions earlier? What would you have done differently? Or was there just nothing you can do with just playing the cards they had were dealt? Whatever the expression is now, I come up with a straight face, sit here and tell you that if you are a Scotland fan, there's going to be loads more Scotland content over the course of the EUR, because that's not how being eliminated works. But there's going to be loads of cool stuff is some other time I presume, so please do hit the subscribe button if you have enjoyed what you've watched of us covering Scotland so far. It won't be the last thing we ever do and it does really help us grow the channel and having a nice big subscribers thing across the euro. So that would be is silver lining for me if not for you. Meanwhile, you can get me across all the social medias at Adam Cleary Cle. I'm going to kill that. Meanwhile, you can get me across all the social medias at Adam Cleary Cle or where I will of course be posting an update later. Whether or not I killed that flyer, it just flew out the window. So please do go grab me there. It's on absolutely everything before 4/2 socials are in the corner of the video. The EUR preview edition of The Bag, which is still on sale because there's still lots of nice fun stuff to talk about. There'll be a new one soon, don't worry about that. All good retailers, bad ones too. I'm spiralling here because I'm really, really good. But that's it. Bye everyone, see you at the World Cup.