Euro 2024 Group A: Scotland 1 Switzerland 1 Scotland and Steve Clarke have a point to call their own. Perhaps as pleasingly they have a goal too. With 81 minutes gone here, UEFA gave belated notice that they’d awarded Scotland’s early opener to the midfielder.
Within the next 60 seconds McTominay almost scored a stunning second and then watched as Breel Embolo scored a Swiss winner that wasn’t, hundreds of beers hurled into the Cologne night for nothing as VAR intervened. At the other end the Tartan Army howled in derision, at the waste of perfectly good pilsner but also at another utterly compelling contest not being stolen away from them. They deserved something, maybe everything.
In they end they got their draw, courtesy of McTominay’s moment and also Billy Gilmour’s essential influence in midfield, the Brighton man bringing calm and cohesion to a team devoid of all of that five days earlier. They didn’t win, so this positivity had to be offset somewhere. It was: the cheap giveaway which Xherdan Shaqiri arrowed in for an equaliser and the costly loss of Kieran Tierney to a hamstring injury.
But they’re alive and will go to Stuttgart on Sunday knowing victory over Hungary will keep this dream rolling on. Much as UEFA trumpet their shiny, happy ‘football unites’ PR lines, this ultimately is a tournament which reminds us how different we all are. A continent coming together to explore its contrasts.
In the platzes and parks of Cologne they were all too clear.
