Gemmill’s Scotland Team lose to neighbours England

Authors: Mark Szczuka & Roddy Speirs

Tuesday 16 October 2018, Tynecastle Park (Edinburgh)

In the final match of the Group 4 Euro 2019 Under-21 qualifiers, Scotland lost at home in Edinburgh to league winners England. The match was effectively meaningless in terms of qualification for next summer’s tournament in Italy and San Marino given that England had already won the group while Scotland’s defeat away to Ukraine last Friday had meant they could no longer finish second in the group and potentially qualify as one of the best second-placed teams. However, such is the rivalry between these two sides historically, even at under-21 level there was still a lot of pride at stake. England’s youngsters also had the impressive unbeaten record of 34 consecutive qualifiers to maintain as well, which they did comfortably.

England took the lead in the 60^th minute through a well taken free kick from Arsenal striker Reiss Nelson (who is currently out on loan to German Bundesliga club 1899 Hoffenheim). England sealed the victory with a second goal in the very last minute of the match through a goal by Everton’s Kieran Dowell (another player out on loan from his parent club, this time to Nottingham Forest). It was a well-deserved victory for England who had significantly greater possession and chances than their hosts, unsurprisingly given that 5 of their starting 11 players (and 3 of their subs) had won the 2017 under-20 World Cup in South Korea.

The match was played in front of a crowd of 4,122, many of whom were local kids taking advantage of the early kick off time of 17:30 (set to avoid clashes with the UEFA Nations League matches kicking off at 19:45 across Europe).

England finished the group eight points ahead of The Netherlands who secured second placed after a comfortable 3-0 victory at home to Ukraine. Scotland meanwhile finished fourth in the group of six three points behind Ukraine. It was a disappointing end to the tournament for Scotland manager Scot Gemmill (son of Archie Gemmill who famously scored the best goal of the 1978 World Cup Finals against The Netherlands and who named his son Scotland Gemmill !). Despite the defeat, Scot was still upbeat after the match about the future of Scottish football. He is confident that there are several players in the current under-21 squad as well as in the younger national team squads that are capable of breaking into the main Scotland team in the future. This will be pleasing news for Scottish fans who are currently having to endure a painful run of poor results, with 6 defeats in their last 8 matches, including a poor defeat away to Israel last Thursday evening in the UEFA Nations League.

Scotland

12  Ross Doohan         Celtic (loan to Ayr United)

2    Liam Smith             Ayr United

3    Greg Taylor            Kilmarnock

5    David Bates            Hamburg

6    Ryan Porteous             Hibernian

7    Chris Cadden         Motherwell

8    Allan Campbell      Motherwell

10  Lewis Morgan        Celtic

15  Oli Shaw           Hibernian

16  Billy Gilmour          Chelsea

20  Ross McCrorie       Rangers

England

1    Dean Henderson   Manchester United

3    Jay DaSilva             Chelsea (loan to Bristol City)

12  Aaron Wan-Bissaka    Crystal Palace

14  Joshua Onomah    Spurs (loan to Sheffield Wednesday)

15 Jake Clarke-Salter (C) Chelsea (loan to Vitesse Arnhem)

16 Fikayo Tomori       Chelsea (loan to Derby County)

17  Kieran Dowell        Everton

19 Reiss Nelson          Arsenal (loan to Hoffenheim)

20  Dominic Solanke   Liverpool

21 Harvey Barnes       Leicester City (loan to West Bromwich Albion)

23 Tammy Abraham  Chelsea (loan to Aston Villa)