| Scotland 1, Lithuania 0 Fletcher 70 11 October 2003 Hampden Att: 50,343 
Scotland battle past Lithuania
Teenager Darren Fletcher was the hero as Scotland made sure of a Euro 2004 play-off place with an unconvincing victory over Lithuania. The 19-year-old Manchester United starlet came off the bench to score a 70th minute goal and keep Scotland hopes of playing in Portugal next summer alive. Prior to Fletcher's introduction, Scotland had made heavy weather of breaking down stubborn opponents. With group winners Germany beating Iceland, Scotland finished the qualifying section as runners-up. Roared on by the first sell-out crowd at Hampden Park for four years, Scotland made a brisk start, with James McFadden looking lively wide on the left flank. The Everton youngster linked up well with Kenny Miller after brilliantly beating two men near the corner flag before setting up the Wolves striker for a shot that was sliced well off target. The Scots found it difficult to find space behind well-organised and physically-imposing opponents and with half an hour gone Lithuanian goalkeeper Gintaras Stauce was yet to get his gloves dirty. Scotland were given a real scare after 36 minutes when a fierce 16 yard shot from Nerijus Barasa was pushed away instinctively by Robert Douglas. The game was very disjointed with both sides committing a number of niggling fouls and neither set of players capable of holding on to the ball for long. Soon after the interval Lithuanian defender Rolandas Dziaukstas was given a free header at goal from a corner but the ball flew straight at Douglas. A few minutes later, a goal-line clearance prevented Stevie Crawford's glancing header, again from a corner, finding the corner of the Lithuanian net. Scotland were showing a greater appetite for the fight and McFadden's promising surge into the penalty box ended with his cut-back being deflected on to the post by Lithuania's Tomas Zvirgzdauskas. Scotland were given a let off after 62 minutes when Robertas Poskus hopelessly misjudged a header from six yards out. With 66 minutes gone Miller and Colin Cameron were replaced by Don Hutchison and Fletcher and the Manchester United youth wasted no time in making his mark on his Hampden debut. Full-back Gary Naysmith made it to the by-line and his low cross found its way into the teenager's path on the edge of the penalty area and he lashed home a sweet strike. With 10 minutes remaining Crawford swung in an early cross from the right but the stretching Hutchison could only divert the ball over the crossbar from close range.
Scotland: Douglas, McNamara, Pressley, Dailly, Naysmith, Cameron (Fletcher 66), Ferguson, Rae, McFadden (Graham Alexander 90), Crawford, Miller (Hutchison 66). Subs not used: Neil Alexander, Webster, Wilkie, Harper. Lithuania: Stauce, Dziaukstas, Dedura, Barasa, Regelskis (Beniusis 86), Zvirgzdauskas, Vencevicius (Maciulevicius 80), Baravicius (Cesnauskis 45), Jankauskas, Razanauskas, Poskus. Subs not used:Zutautas, Alunderis, Buitkus, Skerla. Referee: Claude Colombo (France).
That's all vogts as Berti gets it right IN FOOTBALL, the end doesn’t so much justify the means as make it largely an irrelevance. The record books will detail that on October 11, 2003, in front of a wonderfully noisy Hampden full house, Scotland qualified for the play-offs of Euro 2004. This makes the promptings of Berti Vogts in his side’s Group 5 campaign a success, whatever the torturous trail followed to arrived at an acceptable conclusion. It doesn’t matter that Vogts’ side produced another masterclass in mediocrity against the Lithuanians. It doesn’t matter that the visitors were probably worthy of a draw which would have caused Scotland’s exit from the tournament. Neither does it matter that until Darren Fletcher replaced Colin Cameron in the 65th minute, Vogts’ men gave little indication that they would have the means to breach the Baltic State’s goal. The Manchester United midfielder’s arrival was the turning point of a nerve-shredding encounter, the youngster thrown on along with Don Hutchison, who took over from Kenny Miller. A glorious time to open an international goal account, Fletcher, earning only his second cap, deserves plaudits aplenty for lashing the ball low in at keeper Gintaras Stauce’s right-hand post after a Gary Naysmith cutback have broken to him at the edge of the area. With a number of top-notch sides potentially lying in wait for Scotland in next month’s play-offs, yesterday’s success may yet prove a minuscule mercy. But considering Vogts’ men opened their tilt for the finals with a 2-2 draw away to the Faroe Islands, subsequently securing a play-off can only be deemed creditable. This notwithstanding, it was amusing to hear Vogts proclaim in radio interview broadcast pre-match that he had changed "lots of things" about the Scotland set-up since taking charge in February 2001. This took in "players, the system and training". Typical Vogts loose talk, it tickled because of the 11 starters in dark blue yesterday, all but one had made their international debuts under Craig Brown. The exception was James McFadden. And he was only 18 and had played a mere eight senior games for Motherwell by the time of Brown’s resignation. Denied Paul Lambert, Neil McCann, Steven Thompson and Paul Devlin through injury, with Maurice Ross suspended following his red card in the defeat away to Germany last month, Vogts fielded a pretty balanced looking line-up but one far removed from the sort of team he envisaged moulding in his initial months at the helm. No bustling targetmen, no real wing play and early discards such as Colin Cameron, Jackie McNamara and Stevie Crawford filling key roles, Vogts’ selections have begun to perform with a semblance of proficiency because he has changed lots of things back to how essentially they were before. A first Hampden sell-out crowd in four years gave a mighty good impression of not even being willing to countenance such a nightmare scenario as they, and The Three Tenors, created a genuinely stirring atmosphere in the minutes before kick-off. Indeed, the saltire waving that engulfed the Hampden bowl during Flower of Scotland conjured up memories of the old lady of Mount Florida, 100 later this month, rocking during the country’s international golden age of the early 1970s. Sadly, the football subsequently produced by those now representing the country alarmingly conjured up memories of the creatively-challenged performance of which Scotland were guilty in losing 1-0 away to Lithuania in March. Though they had nothing to play for, there was never any prospect of Lithuania simply making up the numbers at Hampden yesterday. Disparaging comments made by Vogts and a number of his players about the Baltic State’s diving antics ensured that Algimantas Liubinskas’s team had ample reason for wanting to ruin Scotland grand plans. Lithuania’s disreputable gamesmanship ensured the encounter was desperately niggly. The visitors played on this and the histrionics and pratfalls of which they were guilty in Kaunus were evident on at couple of occasions in the opening 10 minutes. Athletic and unyielding though they might be, the visitors were not always the cause of the match’s nasty undercurrents bubbling to the surface. Referee Claude Colombo is infamous within these borders for an over-officiousness that led to an enraged Celtic manager Martin O’Neill being banished to the stand during last year’s UEFA Cup tie with Celta Vigo. Yesterday, he was well within his rights to caution Celtic defender McNamara for bringing down his boot on the back of Donatas Vencevicious. The full-back looked all too desperate to make amends for the challenge that brought Lithuania their penalty winner in the teams’ previous meeting. Throughout the home ranks there was a sense of quiet desperation and little in the way of imagination. This can be a recipe for errors, and a misplaced pass from Naysmith in the 36th minute almost proved a deadly one. Allowing Tomas Zvirgzdauskas to centre for Nerijus Barasa, his driven-in shot looked netbound until Robert Douglas acrobatically punched the ball to safety. The home side exerted no more of a firmer grip in the early stages of the second half, though substitute Deividas Cesnauskis was forced to hook from the line a headed back-flick from Crawford in the 49th minute. The head that was a saving grace for Scotland was the one on the shoulders of Robertas Poskus, the striker inexplicably failing to find the target with a cross, despite being in acres of space. Despite Iceland falling 2-0 behind away to Germany within an hour to put paid to their finishing above Scotland under their own steam, a sense of foreboding enveloped a never-less-than raucous Hampden, and it appeared to have transmitted itself to Vogts come the 65th minute. Replacing Cameron with Fletcher and sending on Hutchison for Miller looked every inch like a last throw of the dice. It was a gamble that paid off in the most golden of coinage when Fletcher netted the play-off clincher four minutes later. Vogts’ judgement, or perhaps the fates, came good for him when he most needed it.
RESULTS 2003 Oct 11: Sept 10: Sept 6: Aug 20: June 11: June 7: Apr 2: Mar 29: 2002 Oct 16: Oct 12: Sept 7: |
