SCOTLAND THE EUROS AND THE WORLD CUP

On June 23rd, Scotland, in the 2016 World Cup, were defeated by Morocco 3-0, leaving the Scots bottom of their group, making their record of 8 out of 8 appearances in the FIFA World Cup, when the Scots have failed to progress to the knock-out phase of the competition. 

The Scots have appeared eight times at the FIFA World Cup including five consecutive tournaments from 1974-1990. The team has never advanced beyond the first round of the finals competition. They have missed out on progressing to the second round three times on goal difference: in 1974, when Brazil edged them out in 1978, when the Netherlands progressed at their expence and in 1982, when the Soviets qualified.

Scotland did not compete in the first three World Cup competitions, in the first three tournaments (1930, 1934, 1938) because of a dispute with FIFA over "broken-time" payments to players. The SFA, with the football associations of England, Ireland and Wales, withdrew from FIFA in 1928 and did not rejoin as a permanent member until 1946.

The readmission of the Scottish FA in 1946 meant that Scotland were now eligible to enter the 1950 World Cup (photo below). FIFA advised that places would be awarded to the top two teams in the 1949-50 Home International tournament, but the SFA announced that Scotland would attend the finals only if Scotland won the competition. Scotland won their first two matches, but a 1–0 home defeat by Engkand meant that the Scots finished as runners-up. The SFA stood by this proclamation, despite pleas to the contrary by the Scotland players, supported by England captain Billy Wright and the other England players. Sportswriter Brian Glanville later described the SFA as showing "baffling insularity and pique" in their refusal to send a team to the World Cup.

The same qualification rules as in 1950 were in place for the 1954 tournament with the 1953-4 British Home Championships acting as a qualifying group. Scotland again finished second, but this time the SFA allowed a team to participate in the Finals, held in Switzerland. To quote the SFA website, "The preparation was atrocious". The SFA only sent 13 players to the finals, even though FIFA allowed 22-man squads to turn up. Despite this self-imposed hardship in terms of players, the SFA dignitaries travelled in numbers, accompanied with their wives. Scotland lost 1–0 against Austria in their first game in the finals. After falling out with the SFA, probably due to the poor preparation of the team, manager Andy Beattie resigned hours before the game against Uruguay, the reigning champions and who had never before lost a game at the World Cup finals. The gulf in class was exposed in horrific fashion as Uruguay won 7–0.

Scotland qualified for the 1958 tournament and manager Matt Busby had been due to manage the Scotland team at the World Cup, but the severe injuries he suffered in the Munich Air Disaster with Manchester United in February meant that trainer Dawson Walker took charge of the team instead. In their first match at the finals Scotland achieved a creditable draw against Yugoslavia. Squad member, Tommy Docherty, and a colleague were sent to watch next opponents Paraguay and they reported back that Paraguay was a "rough, fit and good" team. Walker chose to ignore this advice and left out some of his combative players, including Docherty, and Scotland lost 3–2. They exited the competition after also losing to France. Between 1974-90 the Scots reached Round 1 only. They failed to qualify for 1994, reached Round 1 only in 1998 and then Scotland failed to qualify from 2002-2018.

In European Competitions Scotland did not enter in 1960-4. In 1968-88 they did not qualify. In 1992 and 1996 they reached the First Round only, did not qualify from 2000-2016 and in 2020 reached the Group Stage, as we know from recent results, ending bottom of their group. They now hope to qualify for Qatar:The squad has been drawn in Group F against Denmark, Austria, Israel, Faroe Islands and Moldova.