How Scotland almost won a World Cup at Hampden in 1989
Pele. Sellouts at Hampden and Tynecastle. Future superstars. Saudis with suspicious passports. Facial hair. Penalty shootouts. Being stood up by a girl. An Amsterdam nightclub. Bus drivers buying booze for kids. A house party. And Craig Brown.
"He threatened me, really," says Brown, recalling his embarrassment at supplanting his former Clyde colleague. "He told me that the success of the tournament depended on the success of the Scottish team, and that I had to succeed. He told me if there was anything they could do to help, just ask." That trio started the opening game of the finals and went on to play significant roles in a tournament that, belatedly, captured the imagination of the Scottish public.12/06 Scotland 3-0 Cuba. Fir Park. Att: 9,000"Meeting Pele before the first game at Hampden was some start, shaking the great man's hand," recalls winger McLaren, but that was one of the few highlights of a drab beginning to the tournament.
Failure to win the the group meant a last-eight meeting with Brazil - South America's strongest representatives - had been avoided, but the second-best side in Europe remained ominous, if familiar, opposition for the Scots. But, as the regulation 80 minutes edged into stoppage time, Scotland pushed forward in search of a winner. "Lindsay picked up a loose ball in the centre circle and headed for goal," reads Fifa's technical report. "With the GDR indecisive, he beat the last defender and shot low and hard to score, sending Scotland into the semi-final.
None more so than Bain, with the Fifa report stating that "Gil Gomes, the star Portuguese striker, was marked with great awareness and authority by the Scottish captain".
O'Neil talks about the surreal nature of the build-up and the fact that "we'd be walking down the street and people would recognise us". And Bain recalls the TV cameras and comedian Andy Cameron turning up at the team base in Largs the night before the final. Regardless, the Scots were two up inside 25 minutes after goals by Ian Downie and Dickov. Arsenal prospect Dickov created Downie's seventh-minute opener, eluding his marker and crossing for the Aberdeen midfielder to angle a header high into the net, then he doubled the advantage himself, pouncing on a loose ball and, from an acute angle, chipping Saudi goalkeeper Mohamed Al-Deayea, who would go on to win 178 full caps and play at four senior World Cups.
However, O'Neil is less ready to believe that he was cheated out of winning a World Cup. "Some cultures are just a lot more physically mature at that age," he says. "Lads in that culture tend to have facial hair at a younger age, just like lads in our culture tend to be peely-wally with freckles. It's just grasping at straws."
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