Big day tomorrow

I had a busy few days in Edinburgh and Dundee, with early mornings and late nights. Edinburgh was looking particularly nice in the crisp winter evenings (sadly I forgot my camera) though I am yet to come to any firm conclusions on Dundee, apart from that their taxi drivers are an interesting breed.

Today is a quiet day off, while tomorrow should be fun – it’s the Scotland v Italy match in the Euro 2008 qualifiers. Scotland need to win to go through, while Italy just need to draw. The country’s been increasingly on the edge of its collective seat these last few days, and there’s a mounting hope – expectation, even – that we can actually win.

And it’s really hard to call. Scotland excels at stumbling against weaker teams while surprising the giants (like France, twice) – yet on the other hand, we are masters of raising false expectations.

My prediction is that the match will be hard-fought, finely-balanced and full of tension, but lacking in open, attractive football because there is so much at stake for both teams. I reckon it will be 0-0 until the last minute, when Scotland gets a penalty, and the nation holds its breath…

But we’ll see.

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