Ryan Porteous: Scotland red-card fallout ‘hardest thing I’ve had to go through’

Scotland defender Ryan Porteous says having to deal with the fallout from his sending-off against Germany in Euro 2024 was the “hardest thing I’ve had to go through in my career.”

Porteous was shown a straight red card following a Video Assistant Referee review in Scotland’s opening group game against the hosts for a crunching tackle on Ilkay Gundogan that resulted in a penalty converted by Kai Havertz as Steve Clarke’s side were thrashed 5-1 in Munich.

And the Watford centre-back has spoken to Sky Sports News in an exclusive interview about the fallout from the incident in Germany.

“It was obviously really tough, probably the hardest thing I’ve had to go through personally,” he said.

“When you are away at the Euros, then you cannot really think too much about yourself, you still have a pretty big job to do for the team, you can’t be sulking or feeling sorry for yourself, you have to help the boys.”

Porteous was suspended by UEFA for Scotland’s remaining two group-stage games, but it was only when the 25-year-old returned home from the tournament that the fallout from his red card hit him.

“I thought I did that to the best I could, but when you leave the camp, that is when it hits you,” he said.

“But I have a lot of good people around me and they looked after me well. I feel like I am in a much better place now, but it was really tough.

It was an experience I have to learn from

It is an experience, however, that Porteous believes he can learn from going forward and one that other players can do too.

“A lot of disappointment. It is one of those things. It is hard to excuse anything, but at the same time it is gutting for everybody who was there and for the fans there as well, but it was an experience I have to learn from,” he said.

“I wanted to come back to work straight away because you are not going to feel better by sulking or feeling sorry for yourself, you are going to get back by reacting and I think I’ve shown I can bounce back from adversity a lot before and I will do that again,” Porteous added.

“I’ve trained myself to deal with that [reaction] quite a long time ago and to not look at that, that has been a big asset for me and if I had any advice for young people coming through, it would be not to look at your phone and social media, it can only benefit you.”

As for Scotland, Porteous feels that despite their early exit from Euro 2024, the team should not just settle for qualifying for tournaments and must now bounce back in their upcoming Nations League campaign, when they face the likes of Croatia, Poland and Portugal in League A.

“You want the manager to back you. He is the type of gaffer who will never chuck you under the bus, he was always going to back you and that was a positive,” he said.

“It was more about dealing with it myself and looking at it from a personal point of view, rather than have anyone sticking up for you, you have to deal with it yourself.

“We have set a really high standard over the course of the last three or four years, and we have to live up to that – we cannot be a squad that just settled for going to tournaments, although it was fantastic for the nation and it showed how much it meant getting there, but it was so disappointing not reaching that next level, but as a group we have to bounce back and go again.”