Here is a knotty topic for me: why do so many Scots want anyone to win the World Cup, as long as it is not England? <\/p>\n
There are long and serious-minded meditations about a small country dominated and indeed ruled over by their overbearing neighbours throughout much of history. I am not sure I am buying that as the real reason, but it will be for some.<\/p>\n
As co-habitants on this island, familiarity could breed contempt, but it is more than that too. Obviously, there would be a certain amount of crowing about winning if they manage but then wouldn’t any country celebrate being world champions? It’s not an awful a thing to do.<\/p>\n
The thing that really seems to wind up many Scots are cultural differences. Players and ex-players mercilessly selling themselves can leave my compatriots seething. “Whatever happened to the old English virtues of humility, of gentlemanly, team spirited sportsmanship?” they complain.<\/p>\n
To many Scots, Jude Bellingham’s goal celebration screams, “Look at me, look how great I am,” while forgetting to notice that his team-mates actually helped a little in getting him the goal. <\/p>\n
There was a picture of Jude on the front page of the BBC Sport website with him pointing with both hands at the name on the back of his own shir. It’s the sporting equivalent of speaking about yourself in the third person.<\/p>\n
The Scots generally celebrate, on the rare occasions we actually get the chance to, with a little more self-deprecation. John McGinn almost immediately turned to hug his team-mates after scoring against Haiti. Look at Gordon Strachan after scoring against West Germany in 1986. Fun and joy shared with colleagues, not the indulgent celebration of the self.<\/p>\n
This is what many, if not all, Scots think. I must underline I absolutely do not see things in the same light. <\/p>\n
I backed England to win this tournament from the start so hopefully am fair-minded, but I can see where both nations differ having lived in both cultures. <\/p>\n
England are a fine team. The Scots worry that they know this only too well and will spend a lot of time reminding us of that fact if they triumph.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here is a knotty topic for me: why do so many Scots want anyone to win the World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-797383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}