Over the moon: Hungary’s Kevin Csoboth celebrates after scoring against Scotland. — AP
HAMBURG: Scotland fans have lit up Euro 2024 with an estimated 200,000 in Germany with or without tickets, but their team have not matched their passion. They failed yet again to progress from the group stage after a dozen major tournaments.
Needing a win against Hungary to reach the knockouts for the first time in eight World Cups and four European Championships since 1954, the Scots had only four fairly tepid attempts before succumbing to a last-gasp goal.
Their latest tournament – one point from three games and two goals both of which went in off opposing players – did not even follow Scotland’s pattern of cruel but heroic past failures.
“We felt everyone behind us, and we knew the excitement back home – sorry for letting you down,” said captain Andy Robertson as the Scots put down their flags and bagpipes in Stuttgart and digested a familiar losing feeling.
“We’ll take a long time to get over this one.”
It could all have been so different. Traumatised by their opening 5-1 defeat to Germany, the Scots had shown pride and fight in their ensuing 1-1 draw with Switzerland and were arguably favourites against Hungary who had lost both their opening games.
But despite having 60% possession and space for Scott McTominay and John McGinn to pull the strings as the defence pushed up high, Scotland could not carve out clear-cut chances against a well-marshalled Hungarian defence.
The closest they came to a goal, in fact, was a late penalty shout after a knock to Stuart Armstrong which should have at least gone to the Video Assistant Reference (VAR) for a check.
The Scots’ only shot on target came in stoppage time.
So once again it was crushing disappointment for the Scots, without even the consolation of another “nearly there” – such as their great 1978 World Cup win against Holland which saw them go out narrowly on goal difference.
“Yeah, we couldn’t score,” was the frank assessment of goalkeeper Angus Gunn after the loss in Stuttgart.
The Scots have in fact only won twice in the Euros: against CIS (Russia) in 1992 and Switzerland in 1996. A poor return indeed for their loyal and massive “Tartan Army”, which consistently outperforms most other nations’ support.
For Hungary, it was the opposite story: goalscorer Kevin Csoboth shed tears of joy after his last-ditch winner gave his team a chance of reaching the last 16 in one of the places reserved for the best four third-placed finishers.
The win was specially emotional for the Hungarians after a horrible injury to Barnabas Varga. — Reuters
