Argentina 1978
- Thread starter BlueBaloo
- Start date
Brother Crockett
Well-Known Member
Because Big Derek was never in the same league as Joe Harper. The only surprise was Archie Gemmill getting in ahead of the International Superstar that was Drew Jarvie.
theweebarra
Well-Known Member
DJ scored more goals that season than Jordan had scored in his whole career at the time.
BlueBaloo
Well-Known Member
Joe harper has a fat wee barrel of shite... DJ was Britains top scorer
Weren't we going to win this WC.
Drew with a team that didmt understand the free kick rule.
Souness not playing in the first 2 games was bizarre.
Typical Scotland
Drew with a team that didmt understand the free kick rule.
Souness not playing in the first 2 games was bizarre.
Typical Scotland
Treble Kings
Well-Known Member
DJ would surely have put a couple of chances away over the three games. God only knows why MacLeod wouldn't play him.
An absolute shambles of a campaign, botched by a shambles of a manager.
And that send off from Hampden was a pure riddie looking back on it
We were third favourites or something going into the finals.
monkey magic
Well-Known Member
Hubris, thy name is McLeod. An incredible squad of players and Ally McLeod's misplaced arrogance and delusion destroyed it all.
Brother Crockett
Well-Known Member
I could maybe just about understand Joe Jordan keeping DJ out the starting 11, but Joe Fucking Harper coming on instead of DJ when you need a goal. I think one of those big rolls of Maryhill Carpets hit McLeod on the heid.
HandsomeHead
Well-Known Member
Jordan had served Scotland well and he and Dalglish were our first choice pairing up front. I was always okay with that, but . . . Johnstone had just finished as the country’s top scorer - a massive 38 goals in all competitions - and scooped up the Player Of The Year award in the process. He had been the driving force in Rangers winning the treble and really was a man on fire.
And to top it all off he scored both of the goals we recorded in the Home Internationals that immediately preceded our leaving for Argentina, yet when McLeod needed to throw someone on in search of a win against Iran who did he go for?
31 year old Joe f**king Harper, a guy with a dodgy knee that McLeod had felt was a better pick for the squad than Andy Gray who was scoring goals for fun with Aston Villa.
ibrox1975
Well-Known Member
Andy Gray was top scorer in the top English league in season 1976-77 with 25 goals for the relatively unglamorous Aston Villa and yet we somehow did not take him to Argentina.
Gray scored 13 the following season and was fit.
Ally McLeod clearly had his favourites and had the relative luxury of Dalglish and Jordan at the time.
Why is took Joe Harper is beyond me.
Gray scored 13 the following season and was fit.
Ally McLeod clearly had his favourites and had the relative luxury of Dalglish and Jordan at the time.
Why is took Joe Harper is beyond me.
IMO we actually had a chance of a very, very good WC in 78. 74 was good and we were even better in 78.
the squad selection, team selection for each game gubbed us. NoDJ v Iran will always baffle me. we had to score so left the UK's best striker on the bench..
The fact we beat the runners up-who were a post from winning it-reflects on the squad we had.
That being said: being a Scotland fan then was just the best:it was simply the best
the squad selection, team selection for each game gubbed us. NoDJ v Iran will always baffle me. we had to score so left the UK's best striker on the bench..
The fact we beat the runners up-who were a post from winning it-reflects on the squad we had.
That being said: being a Scotland fan then was just the best:it was simply the best
Teddy Casablanca
Well-Known Member
He took Gordon McQueen who was injured and had no chance of playing
Skyy Bluenose
Well-Known Member
Arrogantly didn't scout Peru or Iran. Paid the price for that arrogance.
williewoodburn
Well-Known Member
That might have been the SFA refusing to pay for long haul spying trips.
stonewall Jackson
Well-Known Member
McLeod made a c unt of the first two group fixtures. A mixture of the man's arrogance, over reliance on his favourites and a SFA who wouldn't fund the Scotland team adequately doomed us to failure. DJ should have played from the start against Iran and why he didn't has gone to the grave with McLeod as DJ hasn't said anything to shed light on this.
MO_TxTruBlu
Well-Known Member
It made absolutely no sense whatsoever at the time.
It makes even less sense today.
Joe Jordan had made the big move from Leeds to Man Utd that Jan 78', but scored only 3 goals in 16 games for Man Utd, who finished in 10th place in the English Div 1
(4 points behind Leeds Utd in 9th position).
Joe Jordan's goal for Scotland in the 3-1 win v Czechoslovakia (Sep 77'), was the ONLY goal he had scored for Scotland in the previous THREE years.
Derek Johnstone had just scored 38 Goals in 47 games in that 77-78 season.
Derek Johnstone had just won the Treble for the second time in three seasons with Rangers
(90 Goals in the last three seasons)
.
Johnstone's 2 goals in 2 games in 4 days (v N.Ireland and Wales) was not only Scotland's only goals scored in the Home Internationals, it was also twice as many as Jordan had scored in his previous 12 games in the past 3 years for Scotland!
Johnstone was arguably the best all round Striker in Great Britain that season, and was awarded both the SFWA Footballer of the Year, and the PFA Scotland Players' Player of the Year (the first to do so), and he certainly posed a much greater goal threat than Jordan.
This was probably Derek Johnstone at his peak, in a career that saw him collect 14 Winners medals.
Joe Jordan, who was at the time struggling to score goals, in a team that was struggling to win points, collected 1 (one) winners medal in his entire 20 year playing career.
Forzabear1872
Well-Known Member
Have heard a rumour of shenanigans with a married woman whilst the squad were staying at Dunblane Hydro ended DJ's Argentina '78.
gordon_blue
Well-Known Member
walt mcmurty
Well-Known Member
Anyone under 50 will find this hard to believe but if DJ and Souness had played all 3 games Scotland would have been in the last 8 of a World Cup .
Klos the Boss
Well-Known Member
My memories not the best but did that score not suit Holland? Had they beat us, or lost by more than 1 goal against us would they not have faced tougher opposition in next round or something?
Mason Boyne
Well-Known Member
An absolute shambles of a campaign, botched by a shambles of a manager.
And that send off from Hampden was a pure riddie looking back on it
We were the first unbeaten team at a World Cup not to win it in Germany 74. In 78 we created a new first and a record that still stands. We are the only team to have held a victory parade before the tournament had even started!!
Jaws
Well-Known Member
22 curly perms getting on a bus in front of 30,000 at Hampden
We had just won the domestic treble and would go on to beat the cream of Europe in the big cup the following year, yet only three Rangers players in the squad. No Cooper or Russell or Smith all of whom had been instrumental in our success. Rioch and Masson were in the twilight of their career and we had Souness sitting on the bench fresh from winning the European Cup. He selected an unfit Gordon McQueen yet left another European Cup winner in Alan Hansen out of the squad and the failure to play DJ after the season he had was an absolute scandal!
In my opinion Ally McLeod was more of an enthusiast than a manager and he was found to be out of his depth in Argentina. I also think that the period leading up to 1978 was the beginning of the 'anti-Rangers' movement within the SFA. DJ was Scotland's top goalscorer in the team that had just won the treble, had scored in the Home International Championship just before Argentina, yet he was not given a sniff.
allmodcons
Well-Known Member
And Gray was injured I think.
Smkz23
Well-Known Member
Macleod’s logic behind not taking Gray was that he already had 2 target man type strikers in Jordan and Johnstone and so took Harper so that he had a different option.
Marstonbear
Well-Known Member
From Scotland’s perspective, everything to do with Argentina 78 was a shambles
mulguy1953
Well-Known Member
I went to Argentina & couldn't believe Harper came on before DJ.
However later on in the tournament ( Scotland were back home by then ) I was talking to this guy ,a bookie who flew out on the same plane as the team, & he said DJ , a young lady & Grahame Souness were involved in a bit of a barny at the Dunblane Hydro , DJ apparently went for Souness?
The "bookie "was a bluenose & i have no idea how credible his information was but when GS took over at Rangers in 1986 the first person out the door was DJ ?
The Huguenot
Well-Known Member
Scotland had great players back them and McLeod made a pig's ear of it. Big jock made a mess of the game against ussr in 1982 world cup in Spain to halt progress. The international team then went into terminal decline and is now dead.
Blew up in his face big time. I remember I was desperate to see him play.
senefelder
Well-Known Member
Make no mistake that was a seriously talented squad, remember the finals consisted of only 16 teams, a better manager should have seen us reach the quarter finals minimum and semis possibly.
Cammy frasers mouser
Well-Known Member
I had the strip, the record, pint glasses ,beer mats , towels all with the squad and there autographs on it, I was certain they were coming home with the cup... I was 8
stonewall Jackson
Well-Known Member
Didnt know that. Will have to read it over the holidays.
Clicker
Well-Known Member
Masson in particular was no more than a journeyman for most of his career, he had a wee purple parch at QPR during the qualifiers but by by the time the finals came round he was past it.22 curly perms getting on a bus in front of 30,000 at Hampden
We had just won the domestic treble and would go on to beat the cream of Europe in the big cup the following year, yet only three Rangers players in the squad. No Cooper or Russell or Smith all of whom had been instrumental in our success. Rioch and Masson were in the twilight of their career and we had Souness sitting on the bench fresh from winning the European Cup. He selected an unfit Gordon McQueen yet left another European Cup winner in Alan Hansen out of the squad and the failure to play DJ after the season he had was an absolute scandal!
I think the send off from Hampden was on the telly. I was convinced we would win the world cup that year (10-year old). When you look at the teams in the competition and look at the players Scotland had available we definitely should have got a lot further than we did. The Peru game has really stuck in my mind. We were 1 nil up and I'm sure had a penalty to go 2 up but missed it. Peru then score 3. We never scouted them and had no idea they were dangerous with free kicks. Comedy gold really when you think about it.
Arkansasgerstill
Well-Known Member
A great World Cup to watch, and such a disaster for a Scotland fan all at the same time. The ticker tape welcomes, a sublime Holland, Kempes at his glorious best, no England, being on The March With Ally's Army (all to a Rangers tune), and then reality kicked in. The biggest under achieving Scotland Squad of all time for me, given their collective talents. Ah...14...glorious days.
Jan Žižka
Well-Known Member
Alex Venters
Well-Known Member
McLeod liked the big guy/wee guy pairing up front. His two big guys were Jordan & Johnstone with Dalglish and Harper as the wee guys. It was Jordan & Johnstone who kept Andy Gray out of the squad, not Harper.
hawkfalcons
Well-Known Member
don't think any right minded person could argue with your points mate spot on
hawkfalcons
Well-Known Member
lifted in what sense or for what ?
hawkfalcons
Well-Known Member
I was there that day for my sins and bought a programmes for it, yes they actually brought a programme for it
Ally MacLeod was an idiot. Plain and simple
HandsomeHead
Well-Known Member
DJ, Souness and Gemmill for Jordan, Rioch and Masson and you’d have fancied us to have gubbed Iran, but Scotland being Scotland we’d probably have blown it against the Dutch if we had.
I’ve always found the trumpeting of that win a bit embarrassing anyway. Holland knew what they needed to do to go through. After Gemmill’s second they just went up the park and cracked in another. We were never pipping them for a place in the quarters, but we celebrate this game as if we’d won the World Cup itself.
Facts are Holland weren’t as imperious as they’d been four years earlier - they didn’t have Cruyff for a start - and they were sluggish in the group, only managing a draw with Peru.
It was a notable scalp, but the heroic failure thing is actually cringeworthy.
We’re losers on the international stage and we always have been.
Argentina 1978 completely summed up the ineptitude of the SFA at that time, an ineptitude that still exists now.
Leaving aside the fact McLeod was a complete fud of a man who was sorely out of his depth, the preparation for the tournament was a joke.
Scotland were the first squad to arrive, TWO WEEKS before the first game, and to a hotel that was an utter shitehouse. Whilst other countries had organized themselves bases with top facilities, Scotland's had poor training pitches and not much else on offer with the result that the players were bored shitless well before their first match.
It's worth remembering that Ernie Walker, the heid bummer at the SFA at the time, and McLeod had travelled over to Argentina some time before the competition and came back bumming to us that they had selected the perfect location for our squad which they said had potential to be one of the tournament favourites.
Added to everything else the squad had left Scotland not having the customary bonus situation finalised, and it was suggested at the time that some of the greedier players from the top English sides seemed to be overly distracted with this situation.
Hopes were still high despite all this, however, McLeod's myopic insistence in playing only his pet players, even when it was apparent it wasn't working, reflected poorly on him and the team's eventual chances.
On top of that he arrogantly dismissed Peru and Iran before a ball was kicked and hadn't even bothered to check them out.
The result against Holland was a great occasion for the fans, but by then it was practically all over for us.
This was at a time I was proud to follow Scotland to home internationals and to euro and world cup qualifiers, and there was a real sense of pain at the debacle that unfolded.
It was around this time that I decided to concentrate only on following Rangers as there seemed to be a malaise around the whole SFA/Scotland set-up. I think maybe many other Rangers-supporting Scotland fans were coming to the same conclusion.
Little did we know that things were only going to get steadily worse.
Leaving aside the fact McLeod was a complete fud of a man who was sorely out of his depth, the preparation for the tournament was a joke.
Scotland were the first squad to arrive, TWO WEEKS before the first game, and to a hotel that was an utter shitehouse. Whilst other countries had organized themselves bases with top facilities, Scotland's had poor training pitches and not much else on offer with the result that the players were bored shitless well before their first match.
It's worth remembering that Ernie Walker, the heid bummer at the SFA at the time, and McLeod had travelled over to Argentina some time before the competition and came back bumming to us that they had selected the perfect location for our squad which they said had potential to be one of the tournament favourites.
Added to everything else the squad had left Scotland not having the customary bonus situation finalised, and it was suggested at the time that some of the greedier players from the top English sides seemed to be overly distracted with this situation.
Hopes were still high despite all this, however, McLeod's myopic insistence in playing only his pet players, even when it was apparent it wasn't working, reflected poorly on him and the team's eventual chances.
On top of that he arrogantly dismissed Peru and Iran before a ball was kicked and hadn't even bothered to check them out.
The result against Holland was a great occasion for the fans, but by then it was practically all over for us.
This was at a time I was proud to follow Scotland to home internationals and to euro and world cup qualifiers, and there was a real sense of pain at the debacle that unfolded.
It was around this time that I decided to concentrate only on following Rangers as there seemed to be a malaise around the whole SFA/Scotland set-up. I think maybe many other Rangers-supporting Scotland fans were coming to the same conclusion.
Little did we know that things were only going to get steadily worse.
And that's when we had great players to select. We have no chance now.
