Young guns eye another Euro party

Lewis Ferguson won’t have to look f ar f or i nspiration when he and his scotland under- 21 team-mates bid for european Championship qualification in Athens tonight.

scot gemmill’s squad shared a nation’s joy as they watched their senior counterparts reach the euro 2020 finals with a penalty shoot-out victory over serbia last Thursday.

now they aim to bring more pride to the country by defeating greece to top their qualification group.

‘we take so much inspiration and confidence from that,’ said the Aberdeen midfielder.

‘we all watched the A squad on Thursday night and everybody enjoyed celebrating it.

‘i think we were just like every other household that was watching the game because we are fans as well. so we just reacted the same as everybody in scotland did and celebrated that penalty save.

‘it was massive for the nation as a whole. it was so good to see everybody celebrating after such a hard year.

‘we looked at that and thought: “why can we not go and do that at this level?” Hopefully, we can do that and make the nation proud again.’

The euro 2020 feat has also given many of gemmill’s squad further hope that they could be involved in next summer’s tournament.

ryan Porteous and twins robby and ross McCrorie have been in Clarke’s squad, while Ferguson is among a number of players who are tipped to make the step up at some stage.

‘it’s inspiration for us to go and qualify, but it’s inspiration to go and push at club level for the next eight months,’ said the Pittodrie star.

‘And you never know what can happen in football. we are all fully focused on our game, but i’m sure everybody in this squad will have it in the back of our mind that there could be a possibility of going to the euros next year, which is unbelievable, to be honest.’

scotland kept their fate in their own hands by coming from two goals down to draw with Croatia at Tynecastle last Thursday.

Victory t oday will seal t op spot ahead of the Czech republic courtesy of head-to-head records, but a draw would see t hem overtaken i nto second place if Croatia beat Lithuania at home.

Ferguson gave an insight into the relaxed atmosphere ahead of such a big game.

The 21-year- old said: ‘it’s been 20- odd years since the u-21s last qualified, so everyone knows what’s at stake. everyone knows how big a game it is, but the lads are relaxed.

‘we are looking forward to it. we will go to the pitch and train on it and see the surroundings but everyone is relaxed and we are confident we can go and do a job.

‘ The s t af f have done t heir homework. All of us are experienced, all of us play week in, week out.

‘everybody is up on the roof just now, lying about enjoying a bit of sun, and we are just chatting away. There’s no nerves. everyone is just looking forward to it.’

Kick-off: 4pm Apostolos Nikolaidis. TV: LIVE Premier 1. Referee: Benoit Millot (France).