Confident Caldwell

05 October 2011 07:46
Scotland have surprised bigger countries in the past. Can they do it again and make the play-offs for EURO2012?

Gary Caldwell is confident that Scotland can overcome the odds and get a result against Spain. He points to games in the past where Scotland proved capable of delivering the goods against top nations. Caldwell and the rest of the squad travel tomorrow to Lichtenstein for the game on Saturday before heading to Spain for the final EURO2012 qualifying game on Tuesday. Six points are the target as Scotland, on eight points, are still two points behind the Czech Republic in Group I. Caldwell insists Scotland are up for the challenge to make the runner up spot. He said: "We would rather have qualified before going to Spain and we could maybe have enjoyed it a bit more. But it is what it is. Hopefully we find ourselves in the position where we are a point clear going into the Spain game and we can go there and try to beat the best team in the world. I think it would sum Scotland up that we go and do that to finally qualify. Everybody is looking forward to that challenge. You look at France a few years ago when we went there and won and they were a tremendous team. We can do it, we have done it in the past. We always seem to raise our game for the big nations and hopefully it can be a great night. But we have a big job to do on Saturday before we can look forward to that game." The Wigan defender believes Scotland have grown over the course of the campaign into a more attack-minded team who are now capable of controlling games, rather than allowing the opposition to dictate the game. He said: "Since the manager has come in, he has tried a lot of different systems and a lot of different players. I think we have found a system that suits us now and that is to attack and to have more of the ball and to try to control the games. In the past, I've played in a lot of Scotland teams who have been more defensively set up to play on the break, whereas now we try to control games more and play more offensively. Now, we've got a lot more attack-minded players and we do look a better side going forward. We can express ourselves and attack teams with more confidence and more ability to score goals. If you look at the squad, there is a lot more attacking flair than there has been in previous squads."

Source: FOOTYMAD