Are Scotland the unluckiest team in world football? - ESPN

FRANKFURT, Germany — Scotland's recurring failure at major tournaments has become so etched into the nation's psyche that songs have been written about it. They are arguably the unluckiest team in world football, so they lend themselves to ballads of broken dreams.

When the Scots qualified for the 1998 FIFA World Cup — their last appearance at the competition — the Glasgow band Del Amitri penned the team's official song and called it "Don't Come Home Too Soon." It didn't work. Scotland were knocked out at the group stage to make it, at that point, 10 times out of 10 that they had qualified for a tournament, only to fail to reach the knockout stages. Don't come home too soon? They were one of the first to pack up and leave. Again.

If you want glorious failure and tales of what might have been, Scotland are the team for you, whether it is World Cups or European Championships. The final chapter has always been the same — heartbreak.

«We've had some of the greatest players in Europe, especially through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but have never managed to get out of a group,» ESPN FC pundit and former Scotland midfielder Craig Burley said. «It's amazing. There has probably been 100 better Scotland teams than this one, but [current manager] Steve Clarke has done a magnificent job as coach, and who knows? This team could be the one that finally gets Scotland out of a group.»

No country in the world comes close to Scotland's record of qualifying for 11 major tournaments — eight World Cups and three European Championships — and crashing out at the first hurdle each time, but Clarke's team now has the chance to make history on Sunday in Scotland's 12th tournament of asking and fourth Euros.

If Scotland beat Hungary in Stuttgart,