Gordon Strachan proud of Scotland’s Germany fight

GORDON Strachan stressed how proud he was in his players last night after they fell to narrow defeat against Germany at the start of their Euro 2016 qualifying campaign.

Ikechi Anya celebrates after his equaliser gave Scotland brief hope of a positive result. Picture: Getty

He took plenty of positives from an encouraging performance against the newly-crowned world champions that underlined again how Scotland have become a hard team to beat. After Ikechi Anya’s second half equaliser, Strachan said he genuinely thought Scotland could go on and secure victory. Two goals from Thomas Müller meant Germany secured the three points but a thrilling solo goal from Ikechi Anya after 66 minutes saw the visitors draw level in the Westfalenstadion.

Müller put his side ahead again five minutes later but while Scotland had only themselves to blame for his, there was some unhappiness at the performance of Norwegian referee Svein Oddvar Moen, who gave a second yellow card to Charlie Mulgrew near the end after the defender kicked the ball away. He also did not play the full three minutes of time added on and prevented Scotland from taking a corner kick when he blew the final whistle.

>>> Read the match report from Dortmund here <<<

There was further disquiet over the referee’s decision to punish Erik Durm with only a yellow card when the defender pulled Steven Naismith back on the edge of the box, with the striker about to break through on goal. Strachan was unimpressed. However, he explained that he strayed on to the pitch at the end not to confront Moen, but rather to ensure neither of his assistants, Mark McGhee and Stuart McCall, allowed their emotions to run away with them.

“I wasn’t incensed with him,” said Strachan. “I went onto the pitch to make sure my coaching staff didn’t overstep the mark and to congratulate the lads. I think we try our best not to speak about referees but I would love to see the referee’s assessment of that performance. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.”

After this encouraging performance, there was no sense that Scotland’s improvement over the last year has in any way been interrupted by defeat. Rightly, Strachan sought to accentuate the positives. It was noted by more than one person that just over eight weeks ago, Germany defeated Brazil 7-1.

Strachan expressed pride in his players for having run an excellent side so close. “I did the easy bit, I just had to sit there and tick things off on my sheet and write notes,” he said. “The players should be proud of how they played. I think in the first 20 minutes we could have done things better as a group. But once we got that sort out we had no fear of the game, which I thought was great. And the longer the game went on the more a threat we became. So the players really should be proud of their performance.

“All we have to do is work on how we play in the first 20 minutes and when we get that sorted out we’ll be fine, we’ll be good.”

He dismissed one question about Scotland’s poor defending when Muller scored the opening goal with a header past goalkeeper David Marshall.

“If you can find me someone who is 6ft 4in and can head the ball for miles and jump about 8ft like Müller can then it’s avoidable,” he said. “But we don’t have anybody like that and I think most countries in the world are the same. When you are dealing with an exceptional machine like Müller then you’ll have a problem. That’s always going to be the difference.”

But Strachan not only believed in his players’ ability to earn a point, he thought they could go and win the game after Anya’s equaliser. “At 1-1 I genuinely thought we could win the game. The first twenty minutes, they tied to rush the passes and we lost the ball quite a lot. We gave the Germans easy possession.

“It allowed their system to be more positive than our system. So we had to adjust things after 20 minutes and settle ourselves down a bit. In the second half we played with no fear. As I say at 1-1 I genuinely believed we were going to win the game.”

He praised Marshall, who was surprisingly picked over Allan McGregor, and also applauded the contributions of his substitutes. But he reserved most praise for the supporters, who gave Scotland strong backing throughout.

“Everybody has their strengths so you pick a team with the strengths to play the team you’re playing,” he said. “I could actually have picked another team and it would have given us the same performance. That is how good our squad is getting. And by the way, how good were our fans? They made the whole occasion such a fantastic one. That’s one of the reasons we have to get to a major finals.”

Germany manager Joachim Löw admitted his side were given a tough test by Scotland but he admitted he has a very special talent in Müller. “Nothing Thomas Müller does astonishes me,” said Löw. “He is always clinical in front of goal and is always there when you need him.

“That’s what he does. Scotland hasn’t lost for a year now and won two times against Croatia and in Poland so we knew they would be a very difficult opponent. We did make a few mistakes at the back and they capitalised on that but I always believed we had it in us to score a second goal and in the end we did.”