Scotland Spared Blushes by Beating Liechtenstein With 97th Minute Winner

Scotland Get Out Of Jail in 97th Minute

Scotland's European double header is finally over, thankfully!

Once again, in true Scottish fashion, we made it difficult for ourselves against the so called minnows of Lithuania and Liechtenstein, leaving to it to an incredible 97th minute against lowly Liechtenstein at Hampden Park, to manage a winning goal. On Friday evening, the Scots fought out a tough match against an ever improving Lithuania side, who are no pushovers, as they proved in their fixture tonight against Czech Republic, winning 1-0 away.

In hindsight, the Scots walking away with a point from that fixture seems like a good result. Tonights match though, against the tiny country of Liechtenstein was seen as an opportunity to get some goal difference on the board and settle some nerves in the battle to qualify for the Euros in Poland and Ukraine in two years time.

Things did not go as planned as Craig Levein played as strong a team as he could pick with Boyd returning up front, along with McFadden. Kenny Miller was also in a front line that on paper should be able to score barrowloads of goals.

The visitors took the lead in the 46th minute and silenced the Hampden crowd, who outnumbered the entire Liechtenstein country population the night and to that point, no one could begrudge them their goal.

The Scots looked at sorts with themselves with no cohesion and were struggling to make a breakthrough and only forced a save from the visitors keeper in 57 minutes. However, up stepped Kenny Miller in the 63rd minute to ease the relief of the 37,000 strong tartan army in the stands, with a superb strike from around the penalty spot straight into the the top of the net.

Scotland had plenty more chances before the end to tie the match up but it took a 97th minute header from defender Stephen McManus to win the game and perhaps more surprisingly, put the Scottish top of their group that has Spain and Czech Republic in it.

Craig Levein is no doubt relieved that the result went our way tonight but he must be worried about the performance and where he can change it to improve our chances as we face the Czechs and Spain next month in the next round of matches. However, tonight there were a combined 5 million sighs of relief as the winning goal went in and this must surely be our get out of jail free card used up already in these championships.