History of the Scotland national football team

The lack of games against other opponents was largely due to the assumed dominance of the Home Nations in football and the logistical problems of arranging internationals in the days before air travel was commonplace.

Scotland contested more friendly matches against continental opposition and enjoyed wins against Germany, the Netherlands and France before being beaten 5–0 by the Austrian Wunderteam and 3–0 by Italy.

[19] The team earned their first World Cup point with a 1–1 draw with Yugoslavia, but they lost their other two matches to Paraguay and France and therefore finished bottom of their group.

Towards the end of the match, Scotland winger Jim Baxter famously played keepie uppie at walking pace as he tormented the opposition.

The Herald writer Glyn Edwards described the scene as follows:[21] I shall cherish for a long time the memory of Baxter slowing down the game to almost walking pace, insouciantly juggling the ball with instep, forehead and knees while Stiles, no more than a couple of yards away, bobbed up and down, unsure whether to make his challenge at knee or head level.Despite the famous victory at Wembley, Scotland missed out on the chance to play a quarter-final match against Spain in the 1968 European Championship because they finished one point below England in their qualifying group.

At the finals in West Germany, Scotland remained unbeaten but failed to progress beyond the group stages on goal difference after beating Zaire 2–0 and drawing 0–0 and 1–1 with Brazil and Yugoslavia respectively.

During the buildup to the tournament, MacLeod fuelled the hopes and dreams of the nation by stating that even if Scotland didn't win the World Cup, they would most definitely come home with a medal of some kind.

An opening 5–2 win over New Zealand was followed by a 4–1 defeat by Brazil, despite Scotland taking the lead through a goal from David Narey which pundit Jimmy Hill infamously described as a "toe poke".

[22] As the players and fans celebrated the final score of 1–1, rumours began to circulate that manager Jock Stein had suffered a heart attack, from which he soon died.

Scotland won the qualifying play-off against Australia 2–0 on aggregate, but they went out of the World Cup with just one point from their three matches, as the team lost to Denmark and West Germany.

Scotland looked on course to qualify comfortably, but they then lost heavily in both France and Yugoslavia, leaving them needing to avoid defeat at home to Norway in the final game.

The Scotland fans won an award from UEFA for their superb behaviour in the tournament, which changed the stereotype that had been set by the Wembley pitch invasion of 1977.

[26] Andy Roxburgh's final match in charge was a 1–1 draw against Switzerland at Pittodrie in September 1993 that mathematically ended the chance of qualification for the World Cup.

Ally McCoist scored the only goal of the game, moments after coming on as a substitute, in what was his first match for his country since he had broken his leg in the thrashing by Portugal two years earlier.

An Alan Shearer header early in the second half gave England the lead, but Scotland were awarded a penalty kick with less than 20 minutes left.

David Seaman saved Gary McAllister's penalty, and Paul Gascoigne scored a wonder goal minutes later to end the game as a contest.

Scotland moved onto the 1998 FIFA World Cup qualifying section, where they earned a good position by beating qualification rivals Sweden and Austria at home.

[27] Despite this debacle, the team eventually sealed qualification in October 1997 with a 2–0 home victory against Latvia thanks to goals from Kevin Gallacher and Gordon Durie.

Gary McAllister was booed by a section of the crowd during a 2–1 defeat by the Czech Republic at Celtic Park, which led to his decision to retire from international football.

Four days later, Scotland went 2–0 up through goals Paul Ritchie and Allan Johnston against the Czech Republic in Prague, but the team eventually collapsed to a 3–2 defeat.

When Scotland were well beaten 2–0 in the away match in Brussels, it sparked the end of several international careers with Paul Lambert, Billy Dodds and Tom Boyd all announcing their retirements after the defeat.

Lambert would be persuaded back by incoming manager Berti Vogts but not before Craig Brown officially resigned from his job after 8 years in charge.

The Faroes disaster was still lingering in the minds of fans but Scotland would go on to finish second in their group to Germany to secure a play-off position for qualification for UEFA Euro 2004.

These were crushed days later in the return match when a 6–0 thrashing, one of Scotland's heaviest ever defeats at the Amsterdam Arena gave the Dutch a 6–1 win on aggregate.

Vogts did introduce a number of young players to the Scotland team, including Craig Gordon, Darren Fletcher and James McFadden.

He was, however, heavily criticised by the media for his "scattergun" approach to selection, naive tactics and taking Scotland to an all-time low in the FIFA rankings.

The Berti Vogts era in Scottish Football is looked back by many people as the worst period in Scotland's history but was not helped by a considerable lack of international-quality players available to him during his reign.

[38] Scotland's improved results in the last two campaigns meant the team were seeded second for 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying, and they were drawn with the Netherlands, Norway, Macedonia and Iceland.

[44] George Burley made five changes in all for the match, which ended in a 2–1 win for Scotland, with Ross McCormack and Steven Fletcher both scoring on their competitive home debuts.

In UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying, Scotland appeared to have a better chance of qualification as the finals tournament was expanded from 16 teams to 24, but were drawn in a tough group with Germany, Poland and Republic of Ireland.