USMNT v. Scotland Open Thread
Words like "pish" (instead of piss) and "lads" really tickle my ribs. lol
Is Scotland any good?
As you've probably gathered, no.
...not quite good enough to qualify for a major tournament. Sort of in the Belgium/Hungary/Armenia/Israel/Wales/Estonia/Finland range, if that helps. Everyone you're probably familiar with is a lot better.
If they were in CONCACAF they'd probably be competing with Guatemala and Honduras for the last spot in each time.
And this, tonight, is not full strength--they've left half their first team at home.
FIFA Rankings USA (29) and Scottland (48).
That said they most recently tied Slovenia (28) 1-1 in February. So I highly doubt this team was a walk over. The USA played their best game in years tonight.
Only 2 of the 11 that played against Slovenia played tonight.
They haven't left half their first team home. Adam, Naismith, and Fletcher are really the only guys missing.
Just came back from the game, great to see Jax support the team with over 44,000 in attendance. US passed well from back to front and really played well. Hard to tell if US played well or if SCO ABU was on a bit of a holiday tonight. Gooch kind of had some scary moments in the back when he went in, but everyone else looked solid. It was very hard to see who was on the field as the numbers did not show very well from the stands. Can't wait to Brazil in a few days to see how far this team has come.
Being a Scotland fan must be crappy. For weird historical reasons, they field their own team, despite not actually being an independent country. If FIFA were more consistent about enforcing its rules about such things, Scotland could be instead of sending players to a UK team that might be a world power. Scottish fans don't want that (such a team would probably be predominantly English) but the price of "freedom" is a lousy national team that will probably never win anything.
The Olympic Committee doesn't allow for sub-national teams to compete, so there will be a unified UK team this year in London. Fans of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all acting like it's crazy, but I bet they'll rally behind it if it succeeds.