Scotland vs Switzerland live updates: Euro 2024 match team news ...

Andy Robertson didn’t mince his words yesterday when addressing Scotland’s performance in the opening game.

“You've seen in qualifying a team that was full of belief and ready to fight for each other and ready to go for every single ball,” Robertson said.

“Maybe on Friday we played with a wee bit of fear. We can improve on pretty much everything we did on Friday night and we can improve it by quite a bit.

“If we do that, then it will give us the best possible chance to be together, to get three points, to get one point, whatever that may be on the night.”

Scotland’s manager was also full of praise for Switzerland for their victory over Hungary last week.

He said: “Very impressed with the Swiss. They were excellent, really good in the first half and controlled the second half well. When they needed a late goal, they managed to do that.”

Scotland manager Steve Clarke has said his side will be playing for a win today, because starting defensively in the hope of snatching a draw is “dangerous”.

Four points would likely see Scotland through to the knockout stage — but a loss today would almost certainly knock them out.

“It's about doing better, working better in the game. We thought we were well prepared for Germany. Obviously we weren't. This time I think it's better not to say too much,” Clarke said yesterday.

“But going into the game thinking you only need a point is dangerous.”

There will be plenty of heart-warming moments at this tournament, but Breel Embolo scoring Switzerland’s third and clinching goal against Hungary last week will be right up there.

The Monaco forward ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during a pre-season training session last August, training that was itself designed to help him recover from a previous knee injury. He missed most of the season and it was the main reason he didn’t start this game, despite being Switzerland’s most experienced striker.

But as he chased onto Jan Sommer’s long punt upfield, the brace he was wearing on that knee slipped off and was left just outside the penalty area as he ran through to lob Hungary ‘keeper Peter Gulacsi. If you want some symbolism, Embolo literally shedding the most obvious physical manifestation of his injury on his way to scoring is possibly about as good as you will get.

That he didn’t appear to notice, either in the process of scoring or in celebrating, should probably tell you that he’s back and ready again.

Scoring any international goal is pretty good. Scoring a goal at an international tournament is even better. Scoring a goal at a tournament in just your second appearance, with less than an hour of international football to your name, is what fantasies are made of. But that’s what Kwadwo Duah did after just 12 minutes to give Switzerland the lead over Hungary.

London-born and Swiss-raised, Duah was a surprise addition to the Switzerland squad, so when his name was included in the starting line-up by Yakin, it looked like a remarkable gamble from a coach who has fielded his fair share of pre-tournament doubts.

It was partly a risk based on necessity: Switzerland’s attacking options are on the light side, to say the least, given that Breel Embolo is only just returning from a serious knee injury and Zeki Amdouni had a tricky season getting relegated from the Premier League with Burnley, albeit with moments of individual excellence. Duah scored goals for Ludogorets in Bulgaria, but that is not a league that generally prepares players for international football glory.

This is part of the charm of international tournaments: you don’t necessarily need to be a big name for 48 weeks of the year to be a star in the other four.

Switzerland, on the other hand, got their Euro 2024 off to a winning start thanks to a hugely impressive first-half performance from Murat Yakin’s team — and a welcome late return from Breel Embolo.

Having gone 2-0 down in the first half, Hungary battled back after the break and halved the deficit through a Barnabas Varga header. There were some nervy moments for the Swiss until Embolo punished Willi Orban for a misplaced header and lifted in a third on his first international appearance since the 2022 World Cup.

Steve Clarke was understandably subdued after the game. “Obviously we didn’t play to our standard and I thought the German team were excellent. We feel as if we’ve let ourselves down. We’re better than that. We’re a better team than we showed tonight and hopefully we can show that in the next two games. Tonight was always going to be a tough game. We need four points from the next two games and hopefully we can focus on that.

“We’ll go away, analyse the game as we always do, then we’ll do more work on Switzerland and we’ll shape our team to suit that game.”

There’s bad first halves, then there was Scotland against Germany. Defensively, Scotland were fairly watertight for 20 minutes. The 5-4-1 was compact, the defensive line was high and they were busy on Germany’s central midfielders. But Billy Gilmour and Lawrence Shankland were surprise absences, and it showed in Scotland’s transition behaviours. They are not the most ball dominant side and can be direct but, at their best, Scotland like to play.

They kept launching passes upfield, which didn’t stick to Che Adams (eight out of 23 long passes completed), and failed to sustain possession to take the sting out. In addition, Scotland tried to transition out of the right-side too much, failing to get their better creators (Kieran Tierney, left centre-back, and Andrew Robertson, left wing-back) on the ball.

Germany ended up wearing them down with passes, as eventually No 10 Ilkay Gundogan found space between the lines, which led to the second goal and then a penalty which VAR overturned. Okay, Germany scored with their first two shots, but Scotland failed to turn up with the ball.

Euro 2024 got underway on Friday as tournament hosts Germany took on Scotland in Munich.

Thousands of Scots had travelled to support their side in Bavaria, hoping to see a team — who have never previously progressed out of a group at an international tournament — record a famous result.

Instead Germany taught them a footballing lesson, Julian Nagelsmann’s side 3-0 up at half-time and a man to the good after Ryan Porteous was sent off for a horror tackle on Ilkay Gundogan.

The second half was not quite as nightmarish for Steve Clarke’s side — they did concede again via a thumping effort from Niclas Füllkrug and an injury time goal from Emre Can, but an Antonio Rudiger own goal gave the Scottish fans at least a modicum of joy from a tough evening.

Xherdan Shaqiri, at 32, is hardly hobbling to retirement, but there is a feeling his most productive years are behind him.

A brilliant final year at Stoke in 2017-18 saw him move to Liverpool, where he became a popular impact sub, but injuries hampered his next two campaigns, and after a short, abortive spell at Lyon, moved to Major League Soccer with Chicago Fire.

His most recent season saw him score just two goals in 12 appearances in all competitions. When asked about Shaqiri before the tournament, Yakin said: ‘any player who can decide a game can still support the team in some capacity,’ which sounds to me like a hint that he’ll mostly be used from the bench.

When Granit Xhaka signed for Arsenal in 2016, he looked like he had been moulded precisely to fit the role of a deep-lying playmaker. The single midfield pivot with the stylish left foot, he could have been lab-grown, it looked so natural for him.

But not many imagined he could, or would, change genres so extensively throughout his career. The last two years have proven that theory incorrect.

Despite a revival at Arsenal, Xhaka was allowed to move to Bayer Leverkusen last summer in a deal that could rise to €25million (£21.2m; $27m), where he became metronomic, with possession flowing through him.

Switzerland, expected to line up in a 4-2-3-1 system, will look to him to progress the ball. The last time he did not start an international game was November 2021 and, given that time has packed in evolution and adaptation, he arrives at the tournament as the most well-rounded version of himself we have seen.

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The Radar – The Athletic’s Euro 2024 scouting guide

John McGinn’s hunchback dribbling style, backing into the opposition player and using his derriere as a human force field to pivot away, is an idiosyncrasy at the elite level. It is, however, remarkably effective.

He draws fouls and you sense he enjoys being in the trenches, but it is the more polished ability of driving possession that has defined his success this season with Aston Villa. He is a jack-of-all-trades who has significantly improved at Villa under Unai Emery.

For Scotland, Steve Clarke has similarly liberated him in the last five years. After not scoring in his first 14 caps, he has notched 16 goals and provided eight assists in 45 appearances under Clarke to become Scotland’s most reliable source of goals. A player who can be the king of attrition one moment and a classy finisher the next, McGinn is Mr Input for Villa and Mr Output for Scotland.

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The Radar – The Athletic’s Euro 2024 scouting guide

Big Lyndon Dykes is out injured. Che Adams is a grafter but has six international goals and only one since 2022. Hearts striker Lawrence Shankland has bagged for fun for Hearts in the Scottish Premiership but hasn’t yet cut the mustard at international level. Wingers Lewis Morgan and James Forrest are talented but aren’t guarantees of goals, either.

Scotland may have to rely on midfielders like John McGinn, Ryan Christie and Scott McTominay getting on the scoresheet — and their defenders to keep them out at the other end too.

GO FURTHER

Lyndon Dykes: Scotland forward out of Euro 2024 with injury

Goalkeepers: Yann Sommer (Inter), Yvon Mvogo (Lorient), Gregor Kobel (Borussia Dortmund).

Defenders: Ricardo Rodriguez (Torino), Fabian Schar (Newcastle United), Manuel Akanji (Manchester City), Nico Elvedi (Borussia Monchengladbach), Silvan Widmer (Mainz 05), Cedric Zesigner (Wolfsburg), Leonidas Stergiou (Stuttgart).

Midfielders: Granit Xhaka (Bayer Leverkusen), Xherdan Shaqiri (Chicago Fire), Remo Freuler (Bologna), Denis Zakaria (Monaco), Michel Aebischer (Bologna), Fabian Rieder (Rennes), Ardon Jashari (Luzern), Vincent Sierro (Toulouse).

Forwards: Breel Embolo (Monaco), Steven Zuber (AEK Athens), Ruben Vargas (Augsburg), Renato Steffen (Lugano), Noah Okafor (AC Milan), Zeki Amdouni (Burnley), Dan Ndoye (Bologna), Kwadwo Duah (Ludogorets).

Goalkeepers: Angus Gunn (Norwich City), Zander Clark (Hearts), Liam Kelly (Motherwell)

Defenders: Andy Robertson (Liverpool), Kieran Tierney (Real Sociedad), Jack Hendry (Al Ettifaq), Ryan Porteous (Watford), Liam Cooper (Leeds United), Scott McKenna (FC Copenhagen), Grant Hanley (Norwich City), Greg Taylor (Celtic), Anthony Ralston (Celtic), Ross McCrorie (Bristol City).

Midfielders: Callum McGregor (Celtic), Ryan Christie (Bournemouth), Billy Gilmour (Brighton), John McGinn (Aston Villa), Kenny McLean (Norwich City), Scott McTominay (Manchester United), Stuart Armstrong (Southampton), Ryan Jack (Rangers)

Forwards: Che Adams (Southampton), Tommy Conway (Bristol City), James Forrest (Celtic), Lewis Morgan (New York Red Bulls), Lawrence Shankland (Hearts).

It’s the final Euro 2024 match of the day which means it is scheduled to get underway at 9pm local time.

That’s 8pm BST, 3pm EDT and midday PDT.