Scotland -V- Italy

[918loyal]

For anyone planning on watching the game in the city centre, MOTION NIGHTCLUB will as always be screening the game on the biggest screen in town - 12 foot by 12 foot, along with 5 plasma screens.

Free entry and free half time pies to everyone.  Promises to be the busiest venue in the city as per usual, so get there early if you are planning it, doors open 4pm, shut at 8pm.  Then doors re-open at 9pm for Radio 1's Eddie Halliwell.

:003:

[+Feb82000]

what buses do you get  to  the stadium from the bus station,need to go the Ticket Collection Porta-cabin  behind west stand to pick it up

forcast for 5pm on sat rain-snow-  :001: :001: :001:

then going to the dome pub not far from the station,cheap drink in there before game

[clacher_holiday2]

Met somebody from the flight taking the Italian team north.  The good news is BA are on our side and locked all their luggage up and flew it back to London on arrival.

We probably shouldnt wind them up.

[VIVA LAS TOKLEY]

Only 1 more sleep to go,  I feel like a kid on Xmas eve don't think I'll sleep tonight with excitement..

[TSTtiger]

Met somebody from the flight taking the Italian team north.  The good news is BA are on our side and locked all their luggage up and flew it back to London on arrival.

We probably shouldnt wind them up.

nah i think we need all the help we can get. if only i knew what hotel they were in.  :024: ding a ling a ling at 4 am  :tic01:

[Dmacca]

Good luck to the Scotland boys tonight, shall be watching in the Bass Terrace club house at the Memorial Stadium, hopefully after having watched Bristol Rovers get their first league win at home in 3 months against Millwall.

I think i can collectively shout come on youe Blues  :boldblue: :boldblue: :boldblue: :boldblue:

[Fanoffooty]

  We beat world cup holders in 67 & we'll do the same again in 2007 :021: :021:

 

 

Come on Scotland :clapping03: :clapping03: :clapping03: :clapping03: :clapping03:

[Yngwie]

Aye, and pick it out Buffon!

[caleyblue]

mon macfadgen one more time

[A96]

Needed some cheering up after that miserable game v Motherwell the Saturday before. So at least we had a goal to cheer - and it was nice to see 11 men still on the park after the game was finished!!

[Scotty]

After a couple of days to reflect on the match, the final result and the manner in which it was obtained still makes me angry .....

I have no complaints against the Italian side. They are world champions and in spells they showed why. However, at times, a neutral would have struggled to pick which side were the champs as we matched them for long periods of the game. They are the only side in the group to beat us home and away.

I have no complaints about the Scottish side. They have been a credit to the nation throughout this qualifying campaign (with the possible exception of the Georgia game). It would be hard to single out one of these heroes for more praise than others as they have all done their part but I am sure James McFadden may get more plaudits than others. For what its worth, I thought Hutton was superb in Saturday's game.

I have no complaints about the manager(s) who took us so close this time. Walter Smith and Alex McLeish have brought the pride and passion back to the national side that was almost completely gone in the darkest days of Berti's reign. Walter was slated when he went back to Rangers but it seems obvious that he had laid foundations that McLeish could build on and I will be chomping at the bit to see who we get in our next qualifying campaign for World Cup 2010. Will we get the Italians for a third time in a row? or will we maintain a high enough position in the rankings that we get an easier group .....

[edited to note: The draw for the WC qualifiers takes place this weekend !!!

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/preliminarydr...ste+things+come

The Tartan Army now seems rejuvenated and back to a place where it was many years ago. I have special praise for the "enlisted members" who have been with the side through thick and thin but cant fault the 'reservists' either who were 'called upon' in the latter stages of the campaign. They have all done us proud.

They say you have to win your home games in any competition to stand a chance - and we did just that. With the exception of the blatant assist by the referee against Italy on Saturday we did not let a single point leave Scotland after a game ..... and even away from home we didnt do too badly, failing to take all 3 points in only 3 games - Italy, Ukraine, and Georgia.

The Georgia result was always one that was going to come back and haunt us but even if we had won there, and events unfolded as they did on Saturday we would still have been be on 27 points and hoping the French would lose to Ukraine or Italy to the Faroes !!!

However, if we had won in Georgia and the referee did not commit that scandalous act that handed the Italians a winner, and it had finished as a draw, then we would be sitting proudly on top of the group as winners with 28 points, the French would be next with 25 and a game to play (Ukraine) and Italy would be on the ropes with 24 hoping for something to happen in the Ukraine as they humped the Faroes in Italy.

So if I cannot complain about the Italians, Scots, French, Supporters, Managers or anyone else who can I complain about. Thats right, my complaint is about Senor Manuel Mejuto González and his two sidekicks Senor Juan Carlos Yuste Jiménez and Senor Antonio Artero Gallardo.

In my opinion, these gentleman have (by accident or design) CHEATED Scotland out of at least the (slim) chance of qualification from this group with a blatantly erroneous decision that undid two years of hard work by a team that was written off before a ball was even kicked. I will leave others to come to their own conclusions about whether the decision was made due to ineptitude or for a more sinister reason, but I certainly know what I believe.

Was this the only decision they got wrong? NO. To be fair, there were questions of offside for Ferguson's goal (i certainly thought he was when watching it) and for the Italian 'goal' that was chalked off (which didnt look offside) as well as a few other decisions that went the wrong way or were inconsistent. However, this decision right at the death, during a period of play where Scotland were pounding the opposition and just might have grabbed a winner killed the dream and they should be ashamed of themselves for the second best screwjob I have ever seen. (referee who did the final of USA V Canada in Gold Cup still wins that award)

You could argue the offside/not-offside questions I noted above and say it evened out over the course of the game, but at least for those decisions you could argue that it may have been hard to see or the play was going too quickly and they could get it wrong. However, this final decision was mere yards from the linesman and the referee was also in good position and yet they still gave it. I have to question that decision and how it was made ....... and when I do I can only ever come up with answers that I have to carefully word (or suppress) !!!!

[Johnboy]

There wasn't all that much between these two sides... a draw would have been a fair result...

I still find it hard to accept that in a game of such importance, we somehow contrived to lose a goal with hardly 1 minute on the clock.... and that despite the fact that we kicked off....

Ach well - we've got real footie to look forward to now...starting this Saturday..

There can't be many more mouth-watering fixtures in Scotland that ICT vs St Mirren... :023:

[jaggedthistle]

Couldn't agree with you more Scotty.  A blind man and his dog could see that that was NEVER  a free kick to the Italians.  I've even read in the papers that the Italians themselves agree with us that it shouldn't have been a free kick to them.  The bit that really gets me thinking something doesn't add up is that it's been reported the ref had an Italian strip in his bag at the airport.  Ok, part of me agrees, it could be completely innocent - a souvenier of the game.  However the other part of me is now more convinced than ever that someone wanted Italy to win that game on Saturday.

On a more positive note though, I'd just like to pass on my congratulations to the boys in blue.  They did us proud and we got a lot further than most people thought we would.  The Italians were wasting time from early on in the game - and if we can reduce the World Cup winners to that, then God help the rest of the nations when we make it to the World Cup.vv :crazy07:

Mon the boys in blue!!!!!!!!

[RiG]

*Petition*

[Guest TinCanFan]

Sounds like someone who can't take losing to me.

[RiG]

Sounds like someone who can't take losing to me.

And someone who can't spell.

[Johnboy]

Is Kingsmills behind this..?  :023:

[Scotty]

That petition is an embarrassment. Badly worded and badly spelled it would get laughed at if it ever reached anyone of power.

As angry as I am, I cant put my name to that piece of nonsense .... now if someone wants to word one properly and put the text through a spell checker first ...........

[Caley4eva]

I was soo heartbroken on saturday night  :019: :019: :019:

I was in Glasgow itself on saturday the atmosphere was immense and scotland were everywhere to be seen (even miny pipeband on Sauchiehall street!!!!!)

I'm proud of you boys, bring on the World Cup, that's hat we're really here for in Football :D

[Kingsmills]

I get the impression that the petition is probably the work of a ten year old. If the petitioner is much older than that he or she should feel every bit as embarrassed as the match officials.

[troublegum007]

As ridiculous a decision as it was to give a free kick to the Itaians, it shows how far this team have come in the last 2 years how gutted we are that it cost us the match. From expecting to lose to countries like Belarus not so long ago, to being genuinely disappointed we didn't turn over the world champions in a match we could have won. The Scotland squad have been outstanding through the campaign (Georgia away aside, which is the one that really cost us qualification as it turned out) and played for the shirt. Let's look forward to 2010 in South Africa now  :021:

[Yngwie]

Georgia was bad, but I think the defeat in Ukraine has turned out to be a worse result than we thought at the time. They have turned out to be no better than the likes of Lithuania.