Making it hard on ourselves: Georgia 2-0 Scotland

By: Ian Rose | October 17th, 2007

Scottish fans have greeted this long run of wins with a combination of joy and worry. Obviously, we’ve been pleased with our position on top of a group that contained two World Cup finalists and a quarter-finalist, but we’ve also been in a promising position before and blown it. A lot of us have been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and now it has, as we fell to a really talented Georgian team today in Tblisi.

There are plenty of excuses to throw out. Our side is riddled with injuries, and the replacements, though experienced, are on the older side. Georgia is a good and under-rated side, with young talent and a bright future. But when it comes down to it, Georgia just simply outplayed Scotland today, and forced us into the not enviable position of needing a win against Italy on November 17th. That match will be winner-take-all … unless it’s a draw. Really the only difference that this loss made, on paper, was that in the event of a draw, Italy now moves on.

I have to say, as unimpressed as I was by the Scots tonight, I have to take my hat off to the young Georgian side. Malkhaz Asatiani may not have scored either of the goals, but he is still my Man of the Match for Georgia. He put on an absolute clinic on defending, and even though the criticism that will come Scotland’s way for their lack of offensive spark is well-deserved, what little spark they had was quickly put out, time and time again, by Asatiani. Locomotiv Moscow needs to hold onto this guy. If they don’t, I’d love to see him in the SPL.

A gutting loss for Scotland today. More even than the loss of points will be the loss of confidence. We know now that we need to take all three points from Italy, and Italy knows that they can go through on only a draw. The heights of optimism will be replaced by more familiar Scottish realism, as we look at the daunting task ahead. Yes, we have won all of our matches at home this campaign, and yes, Hampden is one of the great home grounds in Europe. But still, this is not where we expected yesterday to be. Recover quickly, Scots, and get healthy. The Italians are coming.

(( EDIT: With France’s win today, Scotland can now get through either with a victory over Italy or a draw combined with a Ukraine win over France. ))