00:00right hello everybody welcome to the adam cleary football channel and yes sir i can boogie thank
00:06you so much for asking and would you look at that now obviously those three points are not exactly
00:14a comprehensive explanation of the game the haitians for example will not understand how
00:20they haven't won that but fortunately for them by extension you as well i am going to uh explain
00:28that so this is how scotland won a game at a world cup uh despite what it might have been
00:33like uh to
00:35watch all right so first up this was actually quite nice wasn't it a proper meat and chips
00:42feed the ball 4-4-2 from scotland very little messing about to actual center forwards it did
00:49at least say hey we're the better team we're going to try and act like it now we are going
00:54to look at
00:54moments like this like the setup from the goal kicks and why having two center forwards is pretty
00:59much the entire game plan but first i do think it's worth saying that i personally thought this
01:06might be scotland's toughest game in the group and i know that sounds absurd doesn't it because
01:12brazil and morocco are power shaggers but scotland are a resilient robust and whisper it quietly clinical
01:21side when they need to be where they actually struggle is where they're presented with the
01:26ball presented with possession presented with a low block and told well go on then you're supposed
01:32to be the better side make something happen in fact no european team at this world cup had a lower
01:38average possession in the qualifiers the best they managed was 56 against group whipping boys belarus
01:45and then they scraped past them 2-1 and then you compare that to what was the hardest game in
01:51that
01:51group going away to denmark and they had like 35 of the ball but that was their best performance they
01:58ground out the nil nil that ultimately got them uh to this world cup and they probably should have won
02:05that game as well but the point i'm making here is that scotland don't ever really want the ball that
02:10much and they were always going to have the ball against haiti at least that was the theory and
02:17while they did in the first half like this is about as dominant as scotland get with possession
02:21it flipped dramatically in the second half and they had to somehow see that whole thing out so let's have
02:28a look at how they got the lead and then how they kept it and so they arrived with probably
02:33the strongest
02:34and just most big-brained in possession game plan i've ever seen from a steve clark side and the
02:41really really sexy bits were first of all andy robertson getting all the way up down this side
02:46which allowed john mcginn to play more centrally and when you had that sort of link-up play that then
02:52gave
02:53you the 3-2-5 in possession that teams who are going to see a lot of the ball really
02:59need to
02:59manufacture if they want to keep the pressure on the opposition keep them forced back in their own half
03:04and more importantly make chances against them that was nice but also by keeping hickey deep and
03:11stopping mctominay from drifting too far out into this side that allowed them to try and isolate
03:17ben ganondoke against martin experience and incidentally that is also the way that my friend
03:25martin describes it whenever somebody uh has sex with him that's not a joke by the way that's an actual
03:32true fact he calls it the martin experience but unlike the martin experience ben ganondoke
03:39was coming out on top every single time i'm here all week but anyway though the more fundamental plan
03:45was this right whenever scotland had the ball at the back you saw them do this like two or three
03:51whatever you want here four four with these players all really deep trying to bait haiti say that 10 times
03:58fast into applying enough men to the press so they can go man to man here theoretically then
04:04leaving you with this nice long wide 4v4 much further up the pitch where it's actually like
04:11very advantageous and like it's clever because you put this many players back here you look like you're
04:17going to try and play through but as soon as they restart it goes long like it looks here like
04:23they're
04:23panicked but this is mostly the plan it doesn't go back to the goalkeeper until there's pressure on
04:28the ball and then bang up the other end and there's the forward line waiting for it if you'd like
04:33a
04:34little graph to go along with this this is the angus gun pass map from that match that is not
04:39a
04:39goalkeeper my friends under any pretense of being good with the old feet that ball just goes doesn't it
04:47it goes along and it goes often and for the most part it was actually very effective like here they
04:52bait them in they set it up they fire it into the forwards you have got that 4v4 like this
04:58is how
04:59uh it's supposed to work but it just it doesn't stick and yet somehow despite it not working very
05:05well throughout the entire game it does also get them the goal they restart the play they get it up
05:13the other end quickly and oh would you look at that ganon doke gives them the old martin experience
05:19and in the ensuing chaos from the cross scotland get their first world cup goal since sailor v was in
05:26the charts archie if you're editing this and you don't know what sailor v is because it's too old
05:32just it's bewitched google it and the thing is this and the 325 that's all great right it's a good
05:37game
05:38plan it was clearly effective in its own way it was posing problems it was letting them keep the ball
05:42but the problem scotland found they were having as the game wore on was that haiti categorically
05:48were not shit and the problem with being the team who sees most of the ball is that you invite
05:54quite
05:54a transitional game or as people used to call that like uh two years ago you're quite easy to counter
06:01attack on and i thought haiti had like very little structure in terms of what they actually wanted to
06:07do on the ball which is absolutely fair enough by the way but what they were very good at was
06:12the
06:12physical aspects of the game they ran very hard they put a lot of pressure they challenged for the
06:17balls they stuck it in the air as often as they could so they gave isidor imperio something to
06:22actually uh try and attack in fact if anything was particularly impressive in the first half of
06:27scotland it was that they kept winning a lot of these headers or at the very least making it hard
06:32for the strikers to get any sort of clean contact on the ones they lost and it is it's an
06:37old cliche
06:38isn't it having to earn the right to play but haiti made it really really difficult for scotland
06:43in this game and the moments that were good on the ball they really did have to earn the right
06:49to do
06:50i can't stress enough i watched it it was not pleasant but i thought they battled really well
06:55and this year was the difference i thought like these are all the jewels from the first half of the
07:01game
07:01where it was a bit more a bit more even you can see on the ground jewels scotland are holding
07:06their
07:06own there's not really any advantage for either team there but the aerial jewels when haiti are
07:11constantly dropping long balls into the box trying to cross it to the center forwards winning 75 percent
07:18of those in a game where you've got a one nil lead that is absolutely massive like when it's literally
07:25your main way to get up the pitch and it's your opponent's only real route to goal and you
07:31are winning coming out on top three quarters of the time there you've got a really good chance of
07:37winning that game in fact you could argue you deserve to but the weird thing about this is if
07:42you look at this scotland team here right and then you look at the way haiti played against them
07:47you could make the argument that a technically better but physically less imposing side like say oh i
07:54don't know morocco and brazil would have had a harder time in this game than scotland did like
08:01brazil's midfield was playing like the three of them were wearing fucking jeans earlier on so how they
08:06cope with the haitians is if nothing else going to be quite fun to watch but anyway that's uh none
08:14of
08:14our business uh is it as the game wore on we got to roughly about the hour mark and the
08:18defensive need
08:19for scotland increased uh quite dramatically and pretty much bang on 60 minutes you saw this
08:26for the very first time scotland in the very deep very compact 4-4-2 block that ground out the
08:34aforementioned nil nil against denmark and you would expect we will be seeing significantly more of
08:40against morocco and brazil unless uh steve clark goes to a back five there which i don't think he should
08:47do unless he is a big big baby and in fact from the first moment we saw this that was
08:56pretty much
08:57uh all we saw scotland could not get the ball up the pitch and i will now show you some
09:03graphs for
09:05just how dramatic that all was this is every single cross and yes i know the numbers are backwards i've
09:10done this the wrong way around just don't worry about it right this is every single cross that haiti put
09:15into the scotland box from the 60th minute onwards this is only 30 minutes worth of crossing and that
09:23is that is quite a lot like it's an absolutely unbelievable amount of pressure to be under and
09:30yet when you go and look at all the chances they had in that same window literally only one of
09:37these
09:37crosses yields a shooting opportunity or header uh as your mother would call it and even that
09:43is not on target again i can't stress enough it was very difficult to watch it was not comfortable
09:50it was not enjoyable for long parts but given this was going on and they couldn't stop it they
09:56actually defended it really really well i thought so yes uh absolutely grotesque to watch in parts and
10:04i can't believe i'm standing here right now where i should be at some sort of nick's watch party having
10:10the greatest evening of my entire life but you know what three points against a team and a group
10:15who have proved they're going to be a massive handful for the two other teams in the group
10:21while you sit pleasingly on top of it all what more could you ask for what more could you ever
10:28ever
10:28ask for can you hear all the car horns uh that's really good scotland in five but yes it can
10:35you can you
10:36not can you hang on hang on i'm gonna open the window
10:43but yes it just it sounds absolutely nuts out there so i'm going to get myself away thank you
10:47very much for watching uh if you haven't done already please do subscribe to the adam cleary
10:51football channel we're doing every single england scotland and usa game plus all the other fun
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11:02uh why not we've launched a podcast up on the roof i keep appearing on like random other things
11:08yes running myself into the ground you're absolutely right but having a great time doing it and you can
11:12get me across all the socials at adam cleary c-l-e-r-y it's like what midnight or something
11:18now
11:19but the knicks have just won the nba championship so i'm gonna go out in this top and hope someone
11:26kisses me uh on the mouth i don't care who goodbye
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