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Scotland miss out


Scotland missed out on the Euro 2008 qualification when they lost to Italy at Hampden Park and now France and Italy qualify from Scotland's group B.

It has been a dream run for Scotland who earlier in the campaign looked all set to qualify for Euro 2008 especially after beating Ukraine at home but the result that made things a bit difficult was the one against Georgia four days later when Scotland lost 2 nil at the Lokomotivi Stadium.

When the draw was made it looked to me like it was going to be a straight fight between France and Italy but Scotland shook the group especially with the away victory against France which will long be remember for James McFadden's spectacular shot for the only goal of the match.

At Hampden Park I thought Italy deserved their win and I think that the referee's assistant made a mistake in disallowing Italy's goal in the first half.

I now hope that Scotland will be encouraged by this campaign and be there in South Africa for the 2010 World Cup. The team should be more experienced then and more confident knowing that they are a very good team and can pull out results even in difficult matches.

Elsewhere I was surprised by Turkey's win over Norway and that gives them given a huge advantage to join Greece and qualify from Group C.

Also now England know that anything other than a loss will see them at Euro 2008 and this is something that looked very unlikely before Russia surprisingly lost to Israel.

I will also be interested to see what happens between Portugal and Finland where a win for Finland will block Euro 2004 finalists from going to Austria and Switzerland.

Austin
I think at the end of the day the quality teams like France and Italy will go through although there could be scares along the way. Once in a while teams like Scotland will go through and I am also hoping that they will go to South Africa in 2010.
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Wes
Thanks for the comment Austin. I think the gap is narrowing between the so-called big teams and the small teams and there have been a few interesting results in this campaign including Northern Ireland beating Spain. The problem I think is being consistent for example Scotland should have beaten Georgia away if they could beat France away.
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