THERE are 26 players in the Switzerland squad.
Tony Ralston had the misfortune to pass the ball to the only one who could find the top corner from 20 yards without breaking stride.
4
The Scotland wing-back endured a horrible moment with his first-half mistake in Wednesday’s 1-1 draw.
But can we just take a second to talk about Xherdan Shaqiri’s finish?
It was magnificent — a one in a hundred hit.
Ralston was unlucky to misplace his pass and was DEFINITELY unlucky Shaqiri was the man to pounce on it.
read more football stories
If that was me running on to that ball on my right foot, I would never have attempted the shot.
Most players would take a touch or try to dribble through on goal.
Not Shaqiri. It was one of the best strikes of the veteran Switzerland forward’s career.
Sometimes you get away with mistakes like that.
Jack Hendry and Kieran Tierney misplaced passes back to Angus Gunn in the first half, and nothing came of it.
Ralston’s error was punished, and it was a tough one for him in such a big game.
But whatever you say about that kid, his character and workrate can never be questioned.
If you had asked me five years ago if I expected Ralston to be out there starting for Scotland at a major finals, I’d have said no.
How did he get there? It was all down to attitude. He worked hard and never gave up.
Ralston was sent on loan a few times, he was out of the Celtic team for a long time and suffered plenty of knocks in his career.
Wednesday night was another one of those, but he has a level of resilience that has been built over a long time now.
He had to recover quickly after that mistake, but he knew that deep inside he had something that could get him through it.
He has handled a lot of character-building moments in his career, and he dealt with another one admirably to play his part in Scotland’s best performance for a year.
Steve Clarke cracked a joke afterwards when he said it was nice to see his players again after what happened in the first game against Germany.
4
He was right. It was probably our best display since qualifying — and the result has put our destiny back in our own hands.
It was good to see the Scotland players determine their own future and what happens next at the Euros.
In the first game, we let Germany dictate to us.
It felt like it was a case of, ‘We are up against a top team here, let’s just hope they don’t play well’.
On Wednesday night, the Scotland boys said, ‘Right, let’s show the world what WE can do’.
They all sent out a signal right from the start against Switzerland.
There were a couple of occasions early on where I thought to myself, ‘That’s it, they have got it’.
Scott McTominay put pressure on a Swiss midfielder and the ball went back to the centre-half.
Against Germany, he would have just stayed in his shape and been cautious.
4
This time, McTominay chased after the centre-half and put him under pressure too. He wasn’t worried about the consequences of stepping out of his position.
He wasn’t thinking, ‘Someone might pass the ball past me’.
McTominay’s first thought was, ‘I am going to put this defender under pressure and see how good he is’.
That summed up Scotland’s approach on the night.
It was a case of, ‘Let’s find out how good Switzerland really are’.
Sir Alex Ferguson always used to say that to us when we played European games at Aberdeen.
His message would be, ‘Find out how good they are first and if they are THAT good, we have another plan’.
One of the best examples I have seen of that recently was Atalanta playing Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League final last season.
Their approach was basically, ‘We know you can pass it about, but can you pass it when we go one-on-one against you?’.
New YouTube channel
Subscribe to our new Scottish Sun Sport YouTube channel for all the latest football news, views and videos as Scotland heads to the Euros.
Watch our daily GoBallistic podcast with Roger Hannah and our SunSport team in Germany as the Tartan Army marches on Munich in search of glory.
Subscribe now and don’t miss a moment. Herr we go!
Bayer Leverkusen were spooked, and we found out that their defenders weren’t actually that good at passing it under that kind of pressure.
Scotland also got on top of Switzerland’s best players.
Granit Xhaka was magnificent against Hungary on Saturday, but the Leverkusen skipper wasn’t magnificent against Scotland.
Our group of four in there — Callum McGregor, Billy Gilmour, John McGinn and McTominay — are better than what both Switzerland and Hungary have.
Xhaka didn’t have a shot all night and he didn’t make a through pass of any note.
The Scotland boys really put Switzerland under pressure, and made them go back towards their own goal.
Clarke and the lads got the approach right.
They met the Swiss high up the pitch and played common sense football.
The defensive line stayed close to the halfway line and the guys at the back were just so brave, right to the end.
Scotland got the ball in the right areas, they won flicks, and then played good stuff from there.
Let’s also not forget that the result was secured having had to deal with the loss of another key man.
My heart went out to young Kieran Tierney when he was carried off, and he is now the seventh squad member that Clarke has lost to injury.
That’s the harsh reality of football though.
It’s now up to someone else to take their chance.
Read more on the Scottish Sun
It’s all about recovery ahead of Sunday, and Clarke planned to take the squad for a dip in a freezing river to recover from the Switzerland game.
That’s fantastic. Although personally, I’d prefer to sit down with a hot cup of tea and reflect on a job well done!
Keep up to date with ALL the latest news and transfers at the Scottish Sun football page