Scotland v Austria

SCOTLAND v AUSTRIA / EUROPEAN QUALIFIERS / FIFA 2022 WORLD CUP
TAYLOR SETTING SIGHTS ON
WORLD CUP QUALIFICATION
FOLLOWING EUROS SUCCESS...
By Michael Lamont, Scottish FA
36
Greg Taylor has qualified for a Euros
with his country and lifted the Scottish
Cup within the last six months. Now he
has a World Cup in his sights.
Despite a frustrating season for Celtic,
the 23-year-old has been a regular in
Steve Clarke’s squads of late and across
the next three games he will be aiming
to add to his four caps, the most recent
of which was gained in Scotland’s last
match at Hampden.
Against Scotland’s Euro 2022 group
opponents, Czech Republic, Taylor
started on the left flank as his side
marched to a 1-0 victory.
Scotland’s next match was the famous
win in Serbia and with the country still
on a high from that success Taylor is
confident this group of players can use
the feel-good factor to propel them to
a positive start in the group, starting
tonight against Austria.
QHow much are you looking
forward to these upcoming
games, especially given the buzz
around the national team right now?
AI love coming away with the
national team and every time
I see my name on that squad list I get a
feeling of immense pride. It’s just a huge
honour, especially for these upcoming
games. We want to start well and we’ve
got a great chance of doing that with
three consecutive matches. The last
thing we want to do is to be chasing our
tail come the end of the campaign.
We’ve avoided a lot of the so called
bigger nations in the group but at
international level, every side is top
class. I’ve noticed in the games I’ve
played that all of the players handle the
ball well and are tactically astute. We’re
up against top quality opposition tonight
and then we know that Israel are strong
having faced them a few times recently.
Prior to the last two games we were
unbeaten for a number of matches and
that really helped the belief within the
camp. It’s important to recognise that
we have lost the last couple though, so
we can’t be complacent just because
we’ve qualified for the Euros. We know
we need to bounce back and recapture
the form that enabled us to qualify.
QDo these matches also represent
a chance to stake your claim for
a place in the Euros squad, as well as
helping Scotland return to a World
Cup?
AWhether it’s playing for Celtic
or Scotland I’m always trying to
impress and I now have the ultimate
motivation in the summer of the
European Championships. That is
HAMPDEN PARK / THURSDAY, 25 MARCH 2021