A WINNING START KEY FOR SCOTS
Gordon’s warning over Armenia tie
GIVEN the possible ramifications of topping Nations League B1, Scotland really shouldn’t have required any kind of jolt to get them back in the moment over the weekend.
While the hope is that a place for Euro 2024 can be confirmed by the conventional means of finishing in the top two positions over the course of next year’s qualifiers, the importance of guaranteeing an insurance policy cannot be overstated.
With three places in the finals in Germany going to Nations League sides who come up short in their regular groups, the same gilt-edged opportunity which ultimately led to Scotland reaching Euro 2020 is upon us again.
Armenia at Hampden on Wednesday may have looked, for all the world, like shoo-in win to get the ball rolling and it may yet turn out that way.
But the Armenians’ shock victory over the Republic of Ireland in the searing heat of Yerevan on Saturday has surely underscored the folly in assuming anything in football.
In some respects, this was a jaw-dropping result: Not only has the former Soviet Republic never made it as far as a major tournament, they’ve never been close. They shipped nine goals without reply in Norway in March on the back of conceding five at home to North Macedonia in November. Henrikh Mkhitaryan, formerly of Arsenal, Manchester United and now of Roma — far and away the best footballer they have produced — has recently retired from international football. For all that, there has been tangible progress. Armenia were promoted to League B after winning their C group, which contained North Macedonia, Georgia and Estonia. Their Spanish manager, Joaquin Caparros, has to largely select from home-based players, although there is a growing spread of Armenians throughout the European game, which points towards better days lying ahead. Sargis Adamyan, a striker, has just won the Belgian league with Jack Hendry’s Club Brugge, while midfielder Eduard Spertsyan was named player of the year with Russians Krasnodar and scored a screamer to beat Ireland. Craig Gordon’s sole experience of Armenian opposition to date was a 6-0 aggregate win for Celtic against Alashkert in 2018. But the Scotland keeper’s recollections of those games under Brendan Rodgers was that a meticulous preparation made the task look easy.
It wasn’t. And nor does the Hearts’ veteran believe Scotland will coast to victory on Wednesday simply because that’s what will be expected of them.
‘Every international game is difficult and the countries we’ll play wouldn’t be in this league if they weren’t a good team,’ warned the 39-year-old (pictured).
‘They’re all going to be close matches and difficult ones for us. We’ll need to play well and if we play well we’ll always fancy our chances.
‘But if we have an off day we know we can get beat, like we did against Ukraine.
‘With Celtic, we won 3-0 over there. It was pretty warm and it wasn’t the best of pitches but we put on a fairly decent performance.
‘Armenia will be desperate to start this league well and get themselves into a play-off position, so it’ll be two teams who will look to start with a win.’
Steve Clarke’s players have now had sufficient time to digest last week’s letdown against Ukraine. Bouncing back from such blows is simply part and parcel of the top end of the game. Gordon holds no fears that they will.
‘We have to,’ he added. ‘We’re professionals and that’s what happens — you get disappointments in your career.
‘We want to be known as a team that gets to tournaments and to do that we need to win these (Nations League) matches.’