Scotland midfielder Scott McTominay has praised the team’s manager Steve Clarke for his team talk which lit a fire under the players to go out and beat Spain.
The Tartan Terriers pulled off a shock upset to beat the visiting Spain in their UEFA Euro Championship qualifier fixture on Tuesday evening in front of thousands of fans. The victory is one of their most famous ones in their national team history and at the same time, one of Spain’s most famous losses.
It was a game that did not carry much expectation for the United Kingdom nation who were looking to make headway in their bid to seal a Euro Championship place for the second straight tournament. However, they came into the game with much confidence following their 3 – 0 win over Cyprus a few days back.
Spain were also coming into the match on the back of a 3 – 0 win over Norway and we’re looking to cap their international break with two wins and seal their fate before the next international break in June. They met a surprise at Hampden Park, however.
A seventh minute goal from Manchester United midfielder Scott McTominay was followed up by his second in the 51st minute to seal the deal for the hosts and confine Spain to one loss and one defeat in the first two games of Luis de la Fuente’s reign as head coach of La Furia Roja.
It was a win McTominay said was inspired by Clarke, whose team talk charged the Terriers to “create legacies”.
“Look at this place! I’ve never seen anything like it, incredible,” McTominay began by talking about the atmosphere of the stadium created by the Tartan Army, Scotland’s fans. “The manager said this is our chance to create legacies as Scotland players and these are the nights in 20, 30 years that people remember. We can’t thank the fans enough.”
McTominay, who has scored three goals in the international break to add to his only one in all his games for Scotland, spoke also about his manager’s talk at half-time that spurred the team on to victory in the game.
“We did really really well, we didn’t have a lot of the ball but the manager said we had to be clinical when we had the opportunities,” he said. “I thought we had more than enough opportunities tonight to really hurt them and score some goals.
“As a kid I was an attacking midfield player and I got a bit too big for that but now I’m more of a sitting midfield player but I like to do both like to get in the box. For me I’ve got to keep doing that and score more goals and assists to my game.”
Scotland are now the only team with a 100% record in their group and will be heading to Oslo in June to face Norway in the next round of qualifiers.
