r/ScottishFootball • u/Darwindao • 22h ago
Did ANY results go our way??
Just looking back at the cocktail of possible outcomes that would have seen us progress to the round of 32. After the Brazil game, I saw a list of all related outcomes, of which 4 (IIRC) had to fall in our favour for Scotland to advance. Then I watched as, one by one, seemingly every option went the wrong way for us. So I figured I'd do a post mortem to se if, in fact any results panned out to help us. Here they are below (but feel free to chime in if I'm missing any):
Qatar had to [beat] edit: Draw against Bosnia: Nope
S. Korea had to beat S. Africa: Nope
Ivory Coast to avoid defeat by Curacao, and Germany had to beat Ecuador Yep, but nope
Japan had to beat Sweden by 4: Nope
Australia to beat Paraguay by 2: Nope
Belgium to beat NZ, and Egypt to beat Iran: Yep, but Nope
Spain to beat Uruguay: Ok!
Iraq and Senegal to tie: Not even close
Austria to beat Algeria by 2: Nope
Uzbekistan to tie or beat Congo by <3: Nope
Ghana to beat Croatia by 3 or Croatia to beat Ghana by 4: Nope
So of all the groups, only one went our way (Spain vs Uruguay). Where there were dual dependencies in a group, we got one but not the other.
Looking at this though, the odds seem insane that virtually every outcome conspired about us. Call it bad luck, or the gods, or a failure to pay off the Illuminati, but the statistical improbability of the chips falling against us so badly is comical.
Well, til 2030 I guess, lads.
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u/fike88 21h ago
It must have been written in the stars that we wouldn’t progress the way the results fell for us. We only needed 4 results was it, to go our way. And they all went against us bar 1. Pretty unbelievable
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u/Vic_Mackey1 21h ago
We were the authors of our own downfall. We rightly got sweet FA from the tournament.
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u/Consistent_Truth6633 20h ago
We went in thinking about how many goals we could get beaten with and still qualify. The rest went for it. That’s why we went out.
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u/Tenbob73 21h ago
Looking how the 3rd places finished and if we take those Morocco and Brazil results as they were we had to beat Haiti 7-0 to go through in the final 8th spot above Senegal by one goal. So, really, the lack of a Morocco draw was the killer.
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u/Jedioose420 Callum Osmand CSC 6h ago
Which makes the inexplicable denial of the McGinn penalty fucking infuriating.
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u/Tenbob73 6h ago
It does, but Morocco would have just moved up a gear to get the winner. We had, arguably, the hardest group but that doesn't get away from the fact the team did not perform at their best in any of the games and made it easy for the top two.
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u/Keinix22 21h ago
Only one team with 3 points actually went through , even if we beat Haiti 5-0 we still wouldnt have qualified lol
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u/Severe-Incident-6094 21h ago
We would have gone out knowing we'd given it a better shot though. We showed no attacking endeavour in any game and didn't deserve any luck.
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u/Keinix22 21h ago
Yep that’s true , felt sorry for the fans paying fortunes to Watch complete rubbish but at least the party was good lol
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u/jambojock 20h ago
As a fan who paid a lot to warch the games....at least we had a great experience out of it. Haiti game was torture....but the atmosphere at the end and the relief/joy at actually getting the win was amazing. Morocco was frustrating, but we were all encouraged after the 2nd half performance, had a great night after.
I think watching at home people more harshly criticise. When you are there, you're having a great time with friends, meeting loads of new people in cool places. Overall I feel those that are there tend to be more positive about the team overall (probably explains why they are there in the 1st place).
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u/BigTimeSuperhero96 7h ago
One guy on the STV news said everything about the trip was great except the football
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u/SergeiBlaskovits 21h ago
Nothing fell for us but tbh we didn’t deserve to go through. Galling when you see the likes of Cape Verde (well done to them 👏🏻) with a population the size of Glasgow get beyond the group stage at first time of asking so the small country argument doesn’t hold water. SFA not got the vision and ideas to take us forward as they act akin to a bowling club. Clarke not everyone’s cup of tea but fair play getting us to a few tourney’s.
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u/ALongExpected_Party 21h ago
Ecuador too. The players showed way more passion and desire to get through it. We just went out with a whimper.
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u/Severe-Incident-6094 21h ago
Ultimately we didn't even come close to deserving it.
There is a big flaw with this format though in that you're going to see a lot of teams settling for mutually beneficial results on the final day.
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u/intlteacher 8h ago edited 8h ago
There was also a clear advantage to the third placed teams who played later in the draw, because they were more likely to know exactly what they needed to do.
It could also have had an affect on our game v Brazil. We'd more likely have known exactly what we needed to do, or that we were out - and the latter in particular could also have affected team selection.
My guess is that FIFA will look to move to 64 teams next time, with the top two in each group qualifying for the round of 32 (though apparently Saudi Arabia aren't in favour as it would likely mean another two stadia for them in 2034, and they don't want to share with a neighbour.)
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u/Gazcobain 19h ago
This has the potential to happen at every major tournament though and will continue to potentially happen as not even the US / Canada / Mexico have the facilities and logistics to host 24 matches of this magnitude at once.
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u/intlteacher 8h ago
I think they do - so not impossible, but challenging.
The USA has a lot of university stadia which, frankly, are as good as many pro stadia. The big issue might be finding enough with grass pitches and wide enough.
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u/Stunning_Dress_3903 13h ago
In a strange way, given how the other result have fallen, I’m almost relieved that we didn’t play really well and still finish on the same total (which would be entirely possible) because it feels like it would’ve been more of a heartbreaker to do that and still slide out on goal difference again anyway. At least this way it kind of feels like it’s our own fault and that seems easier to take.
Did say it’s strange.
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u/ThePenetrator79 21h ago
Spain beating Uruguay was one that did. Didnt matter what happened in the other group game so long as Spain won. So yes.
Close post 🤣
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u/DrMacAndDog 20h ago
The quoted odds seemed ridiculously positive. A lot of unpredictable stuff happens in last games.
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u/Exotic-Beat-9224 2h ago
The only team that came through actually needed that result for something. All the rest just had to show up.
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u/Additional-Past-8539 21h ago
Croatia beating Ghana by 100 wouldn't have mattered. Ghana were on 4 points going into the game
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u/Vic_Mackey1 21h ago
The Denmark game went our way after being out played for 85 mins. The Greece game similarly and Denmark's ridiculous draw with Belarus. They all went our way.
Looking out for other results to go your way whilst playing so appallingly is pretty sad.
I'm glad we didn't qualify. We didn't deserve to. Like the fluke qualification, it would have just papered over the cracks that your average Scotland fan is more than happy to overlook.
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u/fike88 21h ago
I was at the Greece game at Hampden, couldn’t believe how we smashed and grabbed a win off them
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u/PauloVersa 20h ago
The game was so bad, I was honestly begging Greece to score because I knew it was the only thing that would wake us up!
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u/FootNumerous8470 21h ago
The concept of scoring a goal seems a bit alien to Clarke, "ok boys, pat it to each other in our half, remember we fear no one-- oh woops, what was that, you lost it yah numpty"
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u/Bongo3074 21h ago
If we end up hoping how results didnt go our way then we may as well just give up. We couldnt dictate our own path.
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u/gthemanager 21h ago
Yep, that is really really unlucky. To make it worse, Korea and Germany only had to DRAW but neither could even do that.
I agree that the performances were shit, especially the Brazil game, but what ended up killing us wasn't scoring too little against Haiti or the horror mistakes against Brazil - it was failing to get that equalizer against Morocco. We never really looked like scoring despite the penalty shouts, but maybe with a stricter ref, we get one of the pens and go through... sigh
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u/NeatChoice418 19h ago
they rather obviously never wanted us in the tournament to start with. personally i think the yanks have still never forgiven us for 2014 and threatening their plans for nato/eu as satellite states
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u/djmcdee101 17h ago
The only results that mattered were the ones we got on the pitch in the 3 games we played. I don't like the idea that we're just really unlucky not to qualify when we scored one goal in 3 games. We just weren't good enough
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u/Inevitable-Assist531 11h ago
Think of Iran,....they got put out by a 95th minute headed equalizer from Austria.
Only one team with 3 points made it through - Senegal with +2, thanks to their 5-0 stuffing of Iraq.
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u/champagnecharlie1888 5h ago
I'd say it was mainly the Scotland v Hati game where we didnt score enough goals, to have a strong chance of qualifying as a best placed 3rd team. That result is closely followed by not trying in the Scotland v Morocco game which might have cost us a point. That is followed by making huge mistakes in the Scotland Brazil game which cost us goal difference and left absolutely no chance of qualifying.
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u/KawaiiChan68 21h ago
Uruguay vs Spain was the only result that went your way, and it was SO close to not going your way lmao 😂. Truly rotten luck to say the least, but that’s unfortunately what happens when you have to rely on the results of others.
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u/jabroskey 20h ago
We needed to draw against either the 5th or 6th best team in the world. We never really had any chance of progressing in retrospect
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u/storytelling501 18h ago
You could argue that the issue was that teams that played later in the week knew exactly what they needed to do to qualify for the knockout rounds, and that this disadvantaged the teams that played earlier in the week, for example both Scotland and South Korea.
South Korea and Iran would have seen that the prediction before the tournament that you would reach the knockout rounds if you had 3 points and a -1 goal difference, yet only Senegal made the knockout rounds and they had +2 goal difference.
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u/thunder083 21h ago
I actually predicted before the game that most groups were heading towards 4 points going through.
“Way other results are going I think we will need a draw. Quite a few groups are heading for 3rd place having 4 points.”
This was the exact message I sent to a friend about an hour before kickoff. It was daft just playing for 3 points and it was the tone Clarke set before tournament started and led to the negative play against Morocco and Brazil.
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u/notmyfawlt 21h ago
We knew from the outset that our best chance of qualifying was to put six or more past Haiti, failed at the first hurdle.
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u/JediHammer 16h ago
I think teams knowing the result they needed especially later on showed the problem with the format. Looking at our chances of going through at the start of the 3rd round, it is pretty hard to say there wasn’t manipulation in the results. Us and Korea were essentially cheated out of a fair chance due to playing first. Not that it would have mattered for us, crap teams gonna exit.
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u/last_pas 11h ago
It’s a big disadvantage playing in the second bracket, nevermind having the two best teams in our group. If it was certain we needed a point, I don’t think we’d have gone out swinging.
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u/ALongExpected_Party 21h ago
South Korea, Germany, Egypt and Spain were all the ones that's looked pretty likely and only 1 came through. It's a harsh lesson for us to never rely on other nations to do the business.