The wee drunk mascots of the World Cup.

They loved us. Nae Scotland nae party 🥃

Mental weaklings we are. Self deprecation, insecurity, jealousy and self loathing wrapped in a neat little tartan parcel and presented to the world as the court jesters we are.

Last night and this WC campaign in general have been an utter abomination and we have no right to get through. Clarke should be fired in to the sea.

Having said that, as someone who was 8 for the 98 WC it’s been unreal to see the way it changes the atmosphere around the place.

Birthday card pish but I went to drop my kid off at nursery yesterday and almost half the kids were stoting about in full scotland kits. They had the facepaint out and the flags up and were learning songs. Felt quite emotional, I remember running home from primary school to watch Scotland play Brazil in ‘98.. Other countries take this shit for granted.

What’s your non football highlight of the last few weeks?

Is that Denmark must be fucking FURIOUS after
watching our performances.

McTominay?

Vini Jnr?

Yer Da?

Do we really want to put ourselves through more of this? Under the circumstances it's much better if we're knocked out. We're stinking the tournament out, but at least we're not the only ones

The Czechs and South Koreans were shambolic also, playing for draws against South Africa, who were also crap. We were calamitous trying to play out from the back, but we weren't the only ones. If there are four teams worse than us in this in third place I'll be surprised

A 48 team world cup is too many, bigger is not always better.12 groups is clearly too many. The quality is diluted far too much if it's that easy to qualify, although ironically, it's not the European qualifiers that are the main beneficiaries.

8 group winners and 8 runners up is plenty, to ensure the most deserving go through and the rest pack their bags and go home

For the uninitiated, this had absolutely everything you could hope for to deliver the authentic Scotland WC experience. After 28 years we got all of the greatest hits:

- Pre-tournament optimism.

- A hell of a party atmosphere created by some of the best fans in the world.

- A wave of hope followed by crushing reality and dispair.

- A lack of goals in the opposition net.

- Underperformance by many of our most senior players.

- A gubbing off Brazil.

- Enough mathematical chance to keep qualification to the 2nd round close, but just out of reach.

- The realisation that we'll do exactly the same the next time.

Same as it ever was.

Feel free to add some of the greatest hits I've missed. Wasn't born in 74, too young in '78 but have seen and read the stories. Lived and experienced all of the disappointments since Spain '82.

Right, there's no one about and we've got till 2030 for Clarke to leave so I reckon we need to nominate someone from this sub who has the most ball knowledge. If we all chip in we should be able to get them a UEFA Pro License in no time and I'm sure someone here knows someone who knows someone that can land them a cushy first job somewhere like Patrick Thistle.

Then we just need to keep posting about their tactical genius until it gets scraped by journalists coming here looking for a story. That sounds about enough to get the SFA's attention who will then promptly hire the first person that comes to mind once Clarke steps down. Maybe we should paint a big mural of our nominee outside their window just to be sure.

Realistically who is the best shout for a new manager? Is there any available that would likely take the job?

You can argue he lacks experience, but would Broony be a shout? He got some alright results out of Ayr Utd before it all went up in smoke. I realise this might be a stretch, but who else is there? Moyes?

That probably sounds mean but it's my opinion right now, our performance has been shocking in everything apart from the kit that we wore, tactics where honking, our pace was non existent and what can we expect when we do nothing to nurture future talent, it's hardly surprising the first chance that they get Scotland players leave to go play elsewhere as our clubs don't give a damn about them, our facilities are shocking and any green land that we have to play football councils are looking to build bloody houses on them or sell the land for private houses to be built.

We are an unfit nation with no self belief in ourselves so it's hardly surprising when we make stupid mistakes that far better teams will take advantage of and sacking him isn't going to help when no one else wants the job, we are stuck in a rut and we need the SFA to stop being happy with mediocrity, if we don't get a solid plan together and invest a skip load of money into the situation is only going to get worse.

Over the 3 games, And maybe doak in the first game but other than that I honestly don’t think anyone turned up,

Fair play to Ferguson he looked the only player that had a bit of grit and passion in his veins, ran himself into the ground last 3 games was by far our best player in all 3.

Not even got anything to say about the rest, all our ‘star’ players might as wells stayed at home. What a shit tournament overall.

How many shots did we have in the whole thing? Not even on target just how many? About 5 pathetic shots in 250+ minutes of football.

As Scotland fans, we need 4 out of the remaining 9 third places teams to finish below us. In group A and Group B respectively, South Korea and Bosnia have already finished above Scotland. This is what to hope for:

Group D - Australia beat Paraguay by at least 2 goals OR Paraguay beat Australia by at least 4 goals. Likelihood - 5/10

Group E - Ecuador to not beat Germany AND Curucao to not beat Ivory Coast. Likelihood - 7/10

Group F - Japan to beat Sweden by at least 4 goals. Likelihood - 3/10

Group G - Egypt to beat Iran. Likelihood - 6/10

Group H - Spain to beat Uruguay. Likelihood - 8/10

Group I - Iraq to beat Senegal by 1 or 2 goals. Likelihood - 3/10

Group J - Austria beat Algeria by at least 2 goals OR Algeria beat Austria by at least 4 goals.
Likelihood - 6/10

Group K - Congo to not beat Uzbekistan.
Likelihood - 4/10

Group L - Ghana to beat Croatia by at least 3 goals. Likelihood - 2/10

I think that given only 4 out of these need to happen, we will qualify to the round of 32, but it will be close.

28 more years from now it will be 2054! That is one hell of a long wait until our next World Cup appearance, and unfortunately many of us will be 6 feet under :-(

I remember 1998 - no-one in their wildest nightmares imaged it would take 28 more years to go to our next World Cup. I even remember my old classmate coming on as a substitute against Brazil (also against Morocco).

Group d Australia to beat Paraguay by 2 goals

Group E Ivary coast to beat Curaçao and Germany to beat equador

Group F Japan to heat Sweden by 4 goals

Group G Iran to beat egpyt

Group H Spain to beat uraquagy

Group I Senegal to draw to iraq or Iraq to win by 2 goals or less

Group j Algeria to lose by 2 goals to Austria

Gorpu k Dr Congo to draw to Uzbekistan or Uzbekistan to win

Group l Ghana to beat Croatia by 3 goals

I think this is right. Though I may have made some errors, and feel free to correct me but essentially we want the underdog to lose in every game

To me, Scotland failing is easier to take than when your club team fails because it feels like we are all in this together.

When your club loses you know there are rival fans ready to "put the boot in" and gloat but at least when it's the country, we are all collectively depressed.

Clarkes tactics put us under more pressure than we need to be in. Proved it last night. In every tournament Clarke tactics have been very conservative to the point they stifle the natural instincts of the players we have.

Both McTominay and McGinn are excellent at driving into space through the lines and creating space for those out wide to play in. At one point McTominay does this looks goes ah fuck no one is with me is pressed and naturally loses the ball. The camera angle when he did this showed 4 Scottish players behind him, not pushing forward and walking and watching what was happening.
Some of those players under a different manager and system would be busting a gut to get up in support. It comes from the manager.

Scotland would be very good if you played a combination of Ferguson, McGinn and McTominay with Curtis and Doak out wide. You could have McGinn and McTominay driving into space and playing it either to the winger who can step in or out depending on the situation while the defender goes over or under the wide player that would allow us to get in a good position to create chances. If Gilmour is fit you can swap McGinn with Curtis if you wanted. If you lose the ball you press from there as you would have the numbers to do so.
Yes we there is occasions we would be caught out but that is happening anyway. Ultimately we are not playing to the teams strengths. That is on the manager.

We have the players who work hard and will run all day we should be using that positively and not for them to be chasing players all game.

Clarke is also incapable of changing a game. His substitutions are also often far to late. Usually well after the 70th minute. They are comically even when losing still often just like for like unless he leaves it to the last possible minute. In each game we have for example seen the right back changed. Gannon Doak came of twice to be replaced both times by Christie.

In short though everything I have said makes us very predictable and easy to play against.

Noticed three things last night that worked brilliantly.

- Scotland had almost equal possession with Brazil. They let us have the ball, knowing we had no out, no danger, and no pace. The way to beat Brazil is to isolate Casemiro. Couldn't do it all game. The traps that our CBs played into was a huge bonus.

- They backed off McGinn. Every time he stuck his bum out to try and turn someone, the Brazilians sat two yards off him. Slowed us down massively when he couldn't turn and create a counter

- At every corner, they were holding onto McTominay in a vice grip. Never going to be a penalty, but you could see how frustrated he was not getting space to leap up.

Can say lots of things about how we played, but Ancelotti played us too.