CALLUM McGregor has absolved Ryan Porteous from any blame for Scotland’s harrowing defeat to Germany in their Euro 2024 opener and stressed that he and his team mates will rally around the former Watford centre half to keep his morale up in the days ahead.
Porteous received a straight red card from French referee Clement Turpin in added-on time at the end of the first-half in the Allianz Arena in Munich on Friday night after a reckless and dangerous two-footed foul on the hosts’ captain Ilkay Gundogan inside his own area.
The national team were trailing 2-0 at that stage in the one-sided encounter and Arsenal striker Kai Havertz converted the spot kick to put the home favourites three ahead.
READ MORE: Celtic man says Scotland will use criticism after Rangers great's flak
However, Celtic captain McGregor has nothing but sympathy for Porteous, who is now suspended for the second Group A match against Switzerland in the RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne on Wednesday night, and emphasised that all of Steve Clarke’s players are firmly behind the former Hibernian defender.
“It is still really early, we got back late last night so we had a later breakfast and then were just on the training pitch there. That (lifting players’ spirits) will come in the next few five, six, seven hours.
READ MORE: Scotland manager Steve Clarke on Austin MacPhee touchline bust-up
“That is the nature of it. You have your experienced players, your younger players and some process things differently. It is important you give people time even that they reflect on it themselves. We will be back for dinner tonight and then we start how we plan the route forward from there.
“But this is where it is important. It is a team sport and we feel it together. People can make mistakes. We are all human beings and everyone can make mistakes in every walk of life. It is an honest tackle, probably a bit too heavy for the UEFA guys and then ultimately we are down to 10 men and it is a difficult night.
“For sure none of the players won’t be labelling anything at him. It is an honest tackle and we have to make sure he is okay as well. It is difficult as human beings when you have disappointment in your life, you have to try and get over that.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel