Euro 2024: Poor poor Scotland

Germany - Switzerland 1-1

Scotland - Hungary 0-1

I love it when I have to make a choice. It happens a lot in tennis, not so much in football. But in tournament finals, last round of the group stages, it's a mirror of life: what do you care about the most, what can you stand to lose? And you can try and go for both games, on separate screens, but I find that an unsatisfying experience more often than not. In fact, I've given it up in 2006, for the World Cup in Germany if my memory is not mistaken, when I was watching the games in the now defunct WettPunkt in Bucharest.

Germany - Switzerland is of course the higher rated game, and the one with a promise to be more spectacular, but in all honesty, there was no real stake to it, was it? Just watched the highlights, it seems to have been a good game, but very much in the vein of a friendly. Germany already qualified, Switzerland only in mild danger of falling third with 4 points, which pretty much ensures qualification anyway. Good on them to go for winning the group, good on the Germans for not letting them. I'm almost ready to call it for Germany, just bear with me until the knockout fixtures shape up.

McTominao didn't show up

But Scotland - Hungary, that's gonna be a battle, I thought. Two fairly rudimentary teams when it comes to technique, this was gearing up to be a battle between the Scottish heart and capacity for effort and the Hungarian ruggedness and rawness. And I thought Scotland will eventually prevail, thus writing a bit of history for the Tartan Army. But Scotland could literally not score a goal to save their life.I am sorry for McTominay, and I am sorry for the passion of their supporters, but the level of attacking threat I saw from Scotland was simply not good enough.

The whole game was a fairly drab affair, and I was wondering what the Hungarians are playing at, though the much simpler answer might be that they can't do much more than they did.

The winning goal, grabbed on a counter-attacking action in the very final moments of the game, says more about Scotland's shortcomings than about Hungary's capacity to fight it out.

The four percent of the Scottish population who was in Germany for this tournament is now returning home from the last position and with only one goal and one point to show for their efforts. If their supporters were deserving of more, the team wasn't, really.

Hungary await their fate on a 3-pointer that sounds like 50:50 to me, but if there's any justice, they shouldn't go through. They are not among the best 16 teams at this tournament.