Scotland have looked a little out of sorts since qualification, but with victories over Spain and Norway on their way to Euro 2024 Steve Clarke has clearly assembled that team that, on its day, can hurt anyone.
Adam Clery looks at Scotland's innovate system, as well as the players key to implementing it, and tells you why they could spring more than one huge shock in Germany this summer.
Adam Clery looks at Scotland's innovate system, as well as the players key to implementing it, and tells you why they could spring more than one huge shock in Germany this summer.
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00:00Hello, Guten Tag and Dear Chut, that's Gaelic Adam Cleary from 442 here and this is your
00:08Scotland tactical preview for the European Championships.
00:12That's right, in qualifying they stunned Spain, they knocked out Norway, they now find themselves
00:17in the opening night showpiece event against host Germany and yet the Optus supercomputer
00:22gives them a less than 1% chance of actually winning the tournament.
00:26But you've come to the right channel, my wee pals, because we're going to show you today
00:30why the Optus supercomputer can suck.
00:35Actually, before we start, very aware of the big tartan elephant in the muck room here.
00:39You may be sitting there as a Scottish person going, am I really going to listen to someone
00:44from England tell me about my football team?
00:46Do you even watch us, bro?
00:49Well in what is sort of like the genetic equivalent of getting your medals on the table, this
00:53is my father.
00:55And thus if you think I grew up with anything other than just a constant voice in the back
00:59of my head telling me that I'm supposed to support Scotland as well, then I don't know
01:04what to tell you.
01:06Also hi dad.
01:07Anyway, yes, so qualifications established, this will almost certainly be the Scotland
01:11team that starts against Germany and, injuries permitting, starts every game thereafter.
01:17Now we will get into the specific personnel in just a moment but I'm going to get rid
01:21of the names because it's actually this team shape and this system that Steve Clark has
01:26devised which has got Scotland where they are now.
01:30And actually by where they are now I don't just mean qualifying for the Euros out of
01:34a tough group, I actually think Scotland's record since the last European Championships
01:38has been like really, really overlooked.
01:41In the 21 competitive games this Scotland team has played since the last European Championships
01:47they have won 15 of them.
01:50That gives them a 71% win rate in competitive games over the last three years, that puts
01:56them second in this whole tournament behind Portugal.
01:59And just for context, in that same amount of time England are only like 61-62% so this
02:04is a team in real form.
02:07And that is largely down to this system that Steve Clark has devised which makes them incredibly
02:11difficult to break down but also maximises their attacking threat against opponents of
02:17any stature.
02:18Okay so there's a couple of different ways of looking at this but it's primarily a 3-4-2-1.
02:24We have three centre backs here, two wing backs who push right up into the midfield
02:29and then sort of dual number 10s behind a striker.
02:31Now it's pretty easy to see what Scotland are going to do when they're defending, obviously
02:35they'll go back towards their own goal, that back three very easily becomes a back five
02:40and then they can even have a full bank of four right in front of them.
02:44Now as both Spain and Norway found out in qualifying, when you execute this well it's
02:48incredibly difficult to try and break down because against an organised and deep defence
02:53you want to get loads of movement going on to pull players out of position but because
02:57there's just extra players here and they've got all the different areas quite nicely covered,
03:02they can move with that and still stay solid.
03:04So for example if a striker wants to try and drop deep into the pocket here to get a bit
03:08of space from the centre backs, because they've got three of them, one of them is free to
03:12step in and they can close that gap off.
03:14There's almost always an out ball to whoever the centre forward tends to be and because
03:18of the profile of player Scotland have selected in both of these wide positions, they're able
03:22to move up the pitch quickly and support for a counter.
03:26Now obviously none of that is going to sound particularly impressive, like defensively
03:29this is a system that allows Scotland to focus on the fundamentals and make it difficult
03:34for other teams but what is really clever about it where it starts to shine is how they
03:39utilise it going forward.
03:41Now as you no doubt will have picked up upon, the two 10s in this system are very narrow,
03:46you're not really getting a lot of wide threat from either of them and given that they tend
03:49to be John McGinn and Scott McTominay, more on them in a little bit, not really players
03:54you think of as like flying wingers.
03:56But the thing is, while the two wing backs are very attacking, you can't really expect
04:00all the width to come from both of those because that will leave Scotland hugely open at the
04:05back.
04:06They'll effectively be committing five players forward, including two defenders, which other
04:10teams will play right through, they'll stretch the hell out of this back three and they'll
04:15get in down the flanks all the time.
04:17But what Scotland have the ability to do, and I honestly think this makes them one of
04:20the most tactically interesting teams at the entire tournament, is rotate from this system
04:27to a 4-2-3-1 in possession across both sides of the pitch depending just on the circumstances.
04:35So with McGinn and Christie, you've got two players who definitely prefer to be a number
04:3910 who are better in this central area, but can, if needs be, play out wide.
04:44McGinn finds himself out there for Villa quite occasionally, Christie will do it for Bournemouth,
04:48like it's not beyond them.
04:49So when Scotland move the ball up the pitch in order to give themselves enough options
04:54without overstretching themselves or leaving them really open, one of these two 10s will
04:59float out to the flank.
05:01Let's say in this example, McGinn has floated out to the right hand side, Christie is the
05:05number 10 all of his own, and that enables Andy Robertson to then play along the left
05:10hand side.
05:11Gives him the freedom to move into that space and attack with the ball.
05:14Now, okay, that's pretty good, you've got some good attacking options, but obviously
05:17you're really lopsided now and you're quite open down this side, but that is what's really
05:23clever about Steve Clarke's system.
05:25The profile of player he has selected to play both the wing back roles and the wide centre
05:31back roles.
05:32When they move up down one side of the pitch, the rest of the defence shuffles across into
05:37a regulation back four.
05:40You can really see it in sort of the combined heat maps from the qualifiers as well, because
05:43if I show you Andy Robertson's, that's not a wing back or a left back, that is somebody
05:48playing the entire length of this pitch, getting into so many different attacking areas, not
05:54worried about the space behind him.
05:55But if I show you Kieran Tierney's, you can see that is very much a dual role.
05:59He's spending a huge portion of his time in this left centre back slot, but also being
06:04asked to play as a left back and get up occasionally as well.
06:07Like both the bits here and the bits here being deep, deep red, you tend not to see
06:12in these heat maps, because either you do most of your work here, that'll be red and
06:15the rest will be yellow, or you do most of your work here, that'll be red and this bit
06:19will be yellow.
06:20But such is the swinging, flexible nature of the Scotland system, Tierney's doing both
06:25loads.
06:26He's able to do this because the two wing backs are equally comfortable as either an
06:29attacking option further up the pitch, or as a regulation full back, and the two wide
06:34centre backs are equally comfortable as either a full back or a centre back.
06:39And that gives you the option to move all seven of these players effectively around
06:44one, if that's what the situation requires.
06:46Robertson would drop back to here, Tierney would go in at centre back, Ralston would
06:50then push up onto the right hand side, McGinn would come into the middle, Christie would
06:53go out to the left, and the whole thing pivots round.
06:56And the way of looking at this system, right, is it doesn't make Scotland some free-flowing
07:00powerhouse, it doesn't give them loads of chances, right, but the movement it allows
07:04them to have, the way they slip free of their markers, it means that when the chances do
07:08arrive, they're usually very good chances.
07:12In fact, I've got an absolutely extraordinary stat for you about all of this, alright, okay,
07:16so like, take all the teams that were in European Championship qualifying, right, all like a
07:21hundred and whatever of them, right, of all of those that actually qualified, that got
07:26to the tournament, Scotland had both the fewest number of shots and the fewest number of shots
07:32on target.
07:33Now you might think, oh that's a terrible stat, they're the least attacking team in
07:37the whole tournament, that's really bad news Adam, like why would you, why would you tell
07:41us that?
07:42And that is one way to read that data, but there is another stat that sort of forms a
07:47second part of this, right, they have the highest, the best goals per shot and goals
07:53per shot on target numbers, so on the one hand, they are the least attacking side at
07:58the Euros, but on the other hand, they're the most lethal attacking side.
08:03This system has made Scotland not a team that beats you with quantity of chances, but one
08:08that beats you with quality of chances, but what that does also mean is that there are
08:13two players in this squad for whom the weight of everything falls upon their shoulders.
08:20If they don't turn up, Scotland will be going home very early, but if they do turn up, well
08:26anything's possible.
08:27Those two men are John McGinn and Scott McTominay, because Scotland did not have a lot of chances
08:32in qualifying, but they, by far and away, had the bulk of them, they had 35 attempts
08:37on goal across the campaign, and that is almost, not quite annoyingly, but it is almost more
08:43than the entire rest of the squad put together.
08:46McTominay in particular was absolutely lethal in qualifying, he played eight matches, had
08:51eight attempts on target, and scored seven goals, again, because the quality of chance
08:56that was being created for him was very high.
08:59Now where he plays in this system can vary from match to match, like sometimes he finds
09:03himself as one of the sitting players, sometimes you just stick him over there, even though
09:06he's not that very comfortable moving out into the flanks, but I'll just show you when
09:10this works, how it works.
09:12So Scotland had a routine 3-0 win against Cyprus in September, and if you've watched
09:16Scotland international football, you will know there's no such thing normally as a routine
09:20win, so that's why that was particularly interesting, and this is the combined touch map of both
09:26McTominay and McGinn, who are playing as the 10s, and from this you can see exactly what
09:30I was talking about, like there's a lot of work being done sort of in the central area
09:33in the times they were defending, but also they're playing Cyprus, they're happy to be
09:36on the front foot, they're out into the channels, into the flanks a lot, as well as being in
09:41the middle, like for two players playing as narrow 10s, it's very easy to describe
09:45this as they were everywhere, and you can see what I mean about how this system moves
09:49Scotland from side to side here, can't you, because for two players who are both technically
09:52playing as a number 10, there's enormous coverage across the width of the pitch, as well as
09:57a lot of work being done in their own half.
09:59Now up front that day was Che Adams, and let me show you all of his touches from that game.
10:04Now bear in mind you're playing Cyprus, Scotland won 3-0, they were really on the front foot,
10:08this is not sort of the touch map of a centre-forward you would expect in that position, there should
10:12be loads going on in the box, you should be driving the opposition back, but that's not
10:17how the centre-forward in this system works, he has to receive the ball and bring the other
10:22two into play.
10:23Now it can't be much fun for the centre-forward to play that way, but it is definitely effective,
10:27like this is Che Adams' shot map from that game, he gets one solitary shot away some
10:32point, I forget when, but here is the combined contribution of McGinn and McTominay, they
10:37managed to get 10 efforts on goal with this system.
10:40Now of course this has all been very positive and very good, and I will absolutely be getting
10:43a can of iron brew for lunch, but what are the potential pitfalls?
10:47Well, in a word, depth.
10:51Now Scotland have lost Aaron Hickey, he was one of the players who really felt like he
10:54made this thing, he was every bit the equal of Robertson on the other side, and they've
10:58been very fortunate in replacing him with Anthony Ralston, who has looked good in the
11:02two sort of warm-up games, but there's a huge difference between doing it there, and where
11:07Hickey was doing it against Spain.
11:09And around the rest of the squad, there's like maybe one or two options that Steve Clarke
11:13has, like if McTominay's not going to be one of the 10s, then he sort of goes into the
11:17mix with McGregor and Gilmour, and you've kind of got a decision to make there, but
11:21other than that, one or two injuries to key parts of this Scotland squad, and the system
11:26almost completely falls away, and we'll have to do something else.
11:30And then, of course, if you do wind up changing systems, then having a centre-forward who
11:33doesn't have to be a goal threat, it's just supposed to bring everybody else into it,
11:37stops being a tactical choice, and becomes a major, major problem.
11:41In Lauren Shankland and Che Adams, you've got two players who will absolutely give you
11:45everything they've got, but at this level, remains to be seen how much that's actually
11:50worth.
11:51So just to start editorialising ever so slightly here, if Scotland can keep this first-choice
11:55XI fit, I think they'll give any team in this tournament a game, and should get out of that
12:01group with something to spare.
12:02And once you've done that, well, anything can happen.
12:05But it's been a long, old season, and injuries are going to be a major, major part of this
12:10tournament, I suspect.
12:11So if the hammies start to go, so might Scotland.
12:15I think it is a shame the Hickies are going to miss out on Paterson as well, I thought
12:18he was really important in qualifying, and I just like Lewis Ferguson because I had him
12:22on Football Manager once, so it would have been good to see him there, but Scotland really,
12:26really do, really do have something clever here.
12:31Something clever and wily and streetwise and, if nothing else, determined.
12:37But that is it until the Germany game, or maybe, I don't know, maybe watching it a month
12:42after the Germany game, and they've made it all the way to the final, and you want to
12:45come and see how far they've come, that would be funny, wouldn't it?
12:49Either way, though, we will be covering all of the Scotland games at the European Championships.
12:53You'll be getting the exact same love and attention as England are, as we are doing
12:57in the magazine.
12:58So if you don't want to miss any of those, my pals, please do consider subscribing to
13:01us here at 442.
13:03You won't miss a single one of them, you can get me on the social medias, they are here,
13:07where I'll be talking about them an awful lot, because, as I said, it was a hell of
13:12an upbringing.
13:13In the meantime, though, the 442 socials, they're in the corner of the video, the latest
13:16issue of the mag, the special Euros one, how pretty is that?
13:20Get a good look, that's in sale from all the good retailers, and all the bad ones also
13:24as well, and yeah, let us know in the comments, Scotland fans, how are you feeling?
13:30Are you confident?
13:31Are you apprehensive?
13:34I'd like to take the temperature, so feelings, thoughts, all welcome below.
13:38Until next time, though, as I say, I have been Adam Cleary, this has been 442, and if
13:41I sound unwell, that is because I genuinely do have a fever to go along with my Euros
13:48fever.
13:49I'll live, goodbye.