Quote Originally Posted by bobh View Post
They were really unlucky in two WCs in the 70s -
74 and 78 I think, haven't looked it up,
but IIRC they went out on GD in one year and drew their games in the other, becoming the only unbeaten side in the finals - the winners having lost one of the group games.
Crazy stat
That was in 1974, when they went out because they didn't beat Zaire by as many as Brazil and Yugoslavia did after are all of the games ended in draws except the ones Zaire were involved in.

Scotland were a joke in 1978 when "Ally's army" went over to Argentina as if they were going to win the thing and their squad, almost all of whom had horrendous perms for the occasion, ended up being stuffed by Peru and embarrassed by Iran - they also had Willie Johnston sent home after failing a drugs test. They did manage to beat the Netherlands in their last game when Archie Gemmill scored that great goal, but as soon as it looked like they might have a chance of qualifying, the Dutch went straight up the pitch and scored to consolidate their position.

Scotland had a good squad in 1982 and were involved in some entertaining games - they best New Zealand 5-2 and drew 2-2 with Russia, but ran into the great Brazilian team that everyone thought was going to win that tournament and were beaten 4-1 after having the temerity to take the lead.