Scotland u17s

A big congratulations to the young team who have brilliantly qualified for the semi final stages of the u17 UEFA tournament for the first time ever after a brilliant 3-1 victory over a strong Switzerland side yesterday to finish second in the group ahead of the Swiss and the Germans.

I missed the first 20 minutes but in the first half Scotland weren't particularly great and deservedly went in behind. At that stage I thought the Swiss looked bigger, stronger and quite frankly better. They are a good side though as shown by the fact they put out Spain in the previous round. However, the second half was completely different. Coach Scott Gemmell took off Miller of Celtic and Bannatyne of United and brought on Wighton of Dundee and Hardie of someone else (Hibs I think, but I might be wrong) and the subs totally changed the game. Scotland absolutely bossed the game and goals from Wighton, Sheppard and Hardie put the Scots through. We even had the luxury of McCrorie saving a (very soft) penalty.

I've watched two of the three games (I missed the opening 2-0 defeat by Portugal who topped the group) and I've been impressed by this group of players. They don't seem as athletic as their opponents physically but they appear to me just as good technically. There was a lovely wee pirhouette from Sheppard last night that summed it up. The future looks bright if these boys can keep progressing, especially when you consider our u19 squad are also competing in the elite round I think next month (interestingly Gauld and Souttar are being kept out of the u21 squad to go and play in this competition).


The u17's now face Holland in the semi on Sunday, while in the other semi Portugal face England.