Bill Leckie: I haven’t re-watched any of our Euro campaign

IN Istanbul and Tbilisi, in Bratislava and Maribor, they’ll be talking about it for years.

The thrilling highs, the moments when they dared to dream, even the crushing disappointment when it all proved just that half-inch beyond their heroes.

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That incredible goal. That night they won against the odds. That last-gasp moment it was all snatched away.

For the Turks, the Georgians, the Slovaks, the Slovenians and more besides, what happened to them at these Euros will live in the memory forever.

But in Inverness and Tarbert, in Bellshill and Moffat and all points in between?

We have no thrills to babble about, no magic moments to cherish forever.

We never got close enough to a dizzying high to know what it felt like to plummet to the lowest of lows.

For us — unlike those other wee diddy nations who punched so far above their weight — the Euros started badly, sort-of-nearly got going for a few minutes in the middle, then ended in a horrible, inevitable porridge of chaos and recrimination.

And so, in the most Scottish of ways imaginable, we seem to have dealt with it by making an unspoken pact to forget we were ever there in the first place.

Since roughly an hour after we were eliminated, we’ve heard nothing from manager Steve Clarke.

There’s been not a peep from the SFA. None of the players involved have opened up about their heartache or vowed to bounce back stronger.

Since coming home I haven’t re-watched one minute of our three games.

Staying beside the team in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, I swore to remember ever paving stone for the rest of my life, but have just had to Google our hotel’s name.

As for that opening game in Munich, the one we’d talked about solidly since the draw was made in December? It’s now little more than a bad dream.

In fact, I’ll bet there are pals out there who’ve met up these last couple of weeks after not seeing each other in a while and the conversation’s gone like:

• “Awright, big fella? How was Germany?”
  • “Germany? What about Germany? Ah’ve no’ been in Germany.”

• “Aye ye were — ye filed about a million pictures from Fan Zones and the stadiums. There was one in that big square in Munich, another one outside the cathedral in Cologne, one from the walk to the game in Stuttgart.”
  • “Nah, no’ me, pal…”

• “And about five minutes before every game, you posted one o’thae panoramic photos of the stadium with a shot of you and your mates and the message C’MON, SCOTLAND, THIS IS OUR TIME!”
  • “Nope, not guilty. Me and the troops spent the whole o’June cyclin’ in Millport. Didnae even know there was fitba on.”

• “What about a’ that stuff on Instagram and Twitter, though? What about a’ the selfies?”
  • “Somebody must’ve hacked my account.
    And ma face.”

The whole, rank-rotten experience is like a repressed memory.

It’s a trauma we’ve shoved into a strongbox that’s then been lined in lead and buried beneath ten feet of concrete.

But you know what?

The new Premiership season starts 19 days from now. There are three rounds of fixtures plus a League Cup weekend, then there’s a break — during which we play Poland at home and Portugal away in the Nations League.

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So even if we’ve chosen to cram what either did or didn’t happen in Germany into the deepest, darkest recesses of our minds, the reality is that we’ve fought our way in the top division of a competition every bit as tough as the Euros we may or may not have taken part in.

And that we’d better get our a**** back in gear in time to make a decent stab at it — or things could REALLY start to unravel.

Now, it could well be that I’m worrying needlessly and that the gaffer has been speaking to his staff and squad every day of the week.

He could be emailing them video clips as homework so they meet up at the start of September fully clued-up and ready to rock.

It may well be the case that he and the SFA have been debriefing the events of Group A down to the teensy-weensiest detail and are 100 per cent confident of hitting the ground running again as soon as the starting pistol sounds.

It’s just that… well, it would be nice if someone said so, y’know?

It would be good to hear from someone in a position of responsibility, just to set our minds at ease that they’ve actually remembered we have these two pretty big games coming up.

Because right now, it’s hard not to get the sense that we’re in hiding.

Sticking with Steve

STICKING WITH STEVE

by Derek McGregor

SCOTLAND chiefs are backing Steve Clarke — despite our Euro 2024 nightmare.

Clarke’s position is NOT under threat — and he will be allowed to carry on as national gaffer if he still wants to.

SunSport understands Clarke retains the unwavering support of SFA president Mike Mulraney.

Clarke, who was appointed in May 2019 and is under contract until 2026, has yet to speak publicly on his future in charge of the national team.

Mulraney, too, has also still to formally comment on the flop in Germany.

It’s understood Clarke, 60, and Mulraney have yet to directly discuss why we underperformed so badly, or what Clarke’s intentions are for the way ahead.

It’s believed both are happy for now to have a summer break.

On that basis, it’s likely it won’t be until the end of the month at the earliest before there is a proper Euros debrief and discussion on Clarke’s role.

Mulraney is keen for Clarke to remain in the role, with Scotland’s next game being the Nations League Group A1 opener against Poland at Hampden on September 5.

Clarke ended our 22-year wait to reach a major finals by steering us to Euro 2020 but that also proved a major disappointment, finishing bottom of our group with one point.

The 2-0 friendly win over Gibraltar — ranked 203rd out of 210 teams by Fifa — in Faro last month is our only win in 12 games stretching back to September.

At a time when the armies of fans who went to Germany plus the millions watching back home haven’t so much had their bubble of optimism burst as shredded, melted and evaporated, we really could do with someone — ideally Clarke, but really anyone from the hierarchy — to say something that starts lifting some chins up off carpets.

Or do the Blazers just expect to put tickets on sale for the Poland game and Hampden will sell out as a matter of course?

Do they think the Tartan Army starting saving up for their next trip the minute they touched down from the last one?

That’s kind of how it comes across, a bit like after our women’s team were knocked out of the 2019 World Cup and no one tried a leg to capitalise on the fact that we’d been there in the first place.

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It was a glaring error of judgement back then and the longer we wait before trying to rebuild some momentum now, the more of a blunder it will be once again.

Hey, I’m all for a period of quiet reflection after something goes as pear-shaped as our Euros did.

No one was asking Clarke or anyone else to come out with a fake smile painted on in the raw early days after what they and we had gone through.

But the Euros are over now. A new domestic season’s already underway.

And the harsh reality is there are only 52 days until Scotland need to go again.

So let’s stop feeling sorry for ourselves, let’s take our fingers out of our ears — and start planning for the future.

Or it’ll be past us before we know it.

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