Roy Keane tears into Scotland after being thrashed by Germany at Euro 2024: ‘It’s rubbish!’
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ITV pundits Roy Keane and former Scotland international Graeme Souness had no sympathy and no mercy for Steve Clarke’s side after a brutal Euro 2024 defeat at the hands of Germany.
Florian Wirtz put the tournamant hosts ahead within the opening ten minutes and Germany rarely let up, eventually winning 5-1 with Jamal Musiala one of the stars of the show as Scotland failed to find any way to stop them.
Souness, who won over 50 caps for Scotland and represented them at the 1978, ‘82 and ‘86 World Cups, decried his national side as being so poor as to not really being able to give a good gauge of whether Germany had actually performed well or not.
“We were miserable. I’m so disappointed, we let ourselves down badly tonight,” he said after the match.
“I can’t really tell you how good this Germany team are because Scotland were so bad. We’ll have to see how they do against a decent side.”
In part-mitigation, he pointed to the wide gap in quality level between the sides when referring to one key first-half moment: Ryan Porteous’ horror tackle on Ilkay Gundogan, which resulted in a red card for the Scotland defender and a penalty for Germany, dispatched by Kai Havertz.
“That sums it up: A Watford centre-half committing a terrible foul on a Barcelona star,” he lamented.
While fellow pundit Ian Wright acknowledged Scotland should have been more “resilient” he also reserved plenty of praise for the “brilliant” Musiala, who created chances all night and scored one himself.
Keane, meanwhile, did not hold back in criticising a lack of tactical discipline, willingness to show fighting spirit and technical ability from Scotland.
“They were second best in every aspect of the game tonight. Physically, tactically, even mentally,” he said. “They showed a little fighting spirit in the second half as you’d expect, but the difference in quality was chalk and cheese. They were out of their depth.
“The goalkeeper [Angus Gunn] lacks international experience and was found out tonight, not quick enough [to get down to save].
“I love watching talented players but my goodness, playing football at this level you’ve got to be aggressive, you’ve got to hit people, but do it in the right way. The penalty was madness but football’s a physical game and they didn’t lay a glove on [Germany].
“When you’re playing football at this level, you’ve got to hit people! Hit them properly, aggressively, in the right way. It’s no good saying after the game, ‘we had a gameplan,’ it’s rubbish! It’s rubbish coming out, you knew it before the game, what’s at stake.
“After, it’s no good saying, ‘we’ll regroup and be angry tomorrow’. You should be angry for a long time. They spoke about creating history, they’re creating history alright, by playing as bad as that and letting their manager and supporters down.”
Scotland captain Andy Robertson offered a sobering assessment of his team’s performance, noting they had badly underperformed on the night and acknowledging they’d have to find improvements quickly.
“First half we got it all wrong really,” he said. “We didn’t really show up, we weren’t aggressive enough. We had a game plan but theirs worked a million times better.
“Second half with ten men the lads dug in really well to be fair and we could have drawn the sceond half, but its no consolation. We have to bounce back quickly because there was a lot wrong today and it’s a quick turnaround to Tuesday.
“It’s a reminder of how tough this tournament is. You’re playing against world class teams, their big players showed up and they had an answer for everything we had. We havent played to our maximum and you have to against the pot 1 teams.”
Scotland’s next match is on 19 June against Switzerland, who themselves play their opener against Hungary on Saturday.