Scotland’s u-17 side need a draw today against Switzerland to reach the semi-final’s of the European Championships with the backbone of the team coming from Celtic.
After losing 2-0 to Portugal in the opening match of Group B Scott Gemmil’s side bounced back to beat German 1-0 and face the Swiss knowing that a draw will see them through.
Sam Wardrop, Jack Breslin, Joe Thomson, Aidan Nesbitt and Calvin Miller all started the match against Germany and are fit and well to face the Swiss who are in bottom place in the group with one point from a draw with Germany. Aidan McIlduff came on in the 73rd minute against the Germans with Steven Boyd remaining on the bench with Aberdeen Scott Wright scoring the only goal.
Portugal are already assured of top spot and play Germany today with all matches being shown live on Eurosport.
After beating the Germans Gemmill said: “I was confident the players would execute the game plan; we just needed the bounce of the ball.
For players of such a young age to show such concentration and discipline is very pleasing
.
“In the first game against Portugal, even though our game plan was good and the discipline was good and all the little details that we speak about were good, we knew we should have kept the ball a little bit better.
“That helps everybody do their jobs better and it was definitely noticeable against Germany.
We’ve got to prepare for Switzerland in the same way. It’s a bit of a cliche, but it’s very difficult to play for a draw. We need to make sure that we’re confident and approach the game properly, but, like I said, I’ve got great confidence in the mentality of the group.”
If Scotland go through they will play England or Holland on May 18 for a place in the final with both countries having a 100% record in group A. The final will be on May 21.
On Sunday Celtic will face Ayr United at Somerset Park (kick-off 2pm) in the final of the u-19 SPFL League Cup. Celtic will use a mixture of their u-16 and u-17 squads for the match due to seven players being with the Scotland u-17 squad and four with the Scotland u-19’s.