Scotland ready for vital Greece match as qualification quest reaches crunch time

Greece v Scotland FIFA World Cup Qualifying Saturday, 15 November 2025 (7.45pm kick-off) Stadio Georgios Karaiskakis, Piraeus

Steve Clarke's side are potentially two games away from a historic return to the World Cup for the first time since Craig Brown led Scotland to France in 1998.

But standing in our way are two strong teams in Greece, who sit third place in Group C, and Denmark, who top the group, ahead of us on goal difference.

Scotland are already guaranteed at least a Play-Off place, after securing 10 points from the first four matches.

Top spot, and automatic qualification, is still an option though, with the Scots needing at least a point away to Greece and a win over the Danes at an already sold-out Hampden Park on Tuesday.

Scotland arrive in Athens this evening after spending the week at a warm weather training camp in Turkiye.

Pre-match thoughts

We caught up with Scotland vice-captain John McGinn at the side's warm-weather training camp in Turkiye this week, as he looked ahead to Saturday's crunch match.

He said: "We knew the job we have at hand to set ourselves up for Tuesday but the full focus is on Saturday and what we have to do and we're training hard. We've no excuses come Saturday.

"The last two performances weren't great, but like we keep touching on, the two results were really good and it sets us up for a really exciting finish.

"If you asked us at the start of the campaign, would you like to be in this position, I think the majority of us, and the majority of the country, would say 'yes'.

"I think we've given ourselves a chance to qualify directly and we're going to give it absolutely everything to do that.

"I'm sure the whole nation's excited but, for us, we need to bottle that up and use it to full us for Saturday.

"I've been lucky enough to do a lot of good things in the game. Not everything I've achieved has resulted in a medal but I've managed to do a lot of special things that'll live with me forever but I think qualifying for the World Cup would eclipse anything I've ever achieved in the game.

"We've got 180 minutes to put ourselves in the best position - starting Saturday. We know it's going to be difficult, Greece will feel like they owe us one so we'll need to go there and put in a similar performance to when we won there last time.

"We're going to have to suffer, we're going to have to defend and we're going to have to put bodies on the line but if we want to get to a World Cup you need to suffer at times.

"We're excited and prepared and ready to go."

You can watch the full interview on the Scotland National Team Youtube Channel below.

Team News

There was a blow for Scotland with the news that Billy Gilmour will miss Saturday's match, though the Napoli midfielder will join up with the group ahead of Tuesday's match against Denmark.

Lennon Miller and Ross McCrorie were also forced to withdraw from the squad at the start of the week and the pair were replaced by Andy Irving and Connor Barron.

Lawrence Shankland is aiming to make his first Scotland appearance in 12 months, while Scott Bain is back in the squad for the first time since March 2019 in place of Angus Gunn who is injured.

Previous Meetings

Incredibly, Scotland and Greece have met more times this year than they had in all the years previously.

The first two meetings came in qualifying for EURO 1996 and Greece won the first match 1-0 through a Stratos Apostolakis penalty, before Scotland won by the same scoreline the following August, securing a 1-0 victory in Mount Florida with a late Ally McCoist goal.

Scotland then secured a hard-fought 1-0 victory in Piraeus March in the first-leg of the UEFA Nations League Play-Off through a Scott McTominay penalty, but the Greeks were too strong at Hampden in the second leg, winning 3-0 to confirm their promotion to League A.

Greece then travelled to Glasgow last month and led through a Kostas Tsimikas strike early in the second half. Steve Clarke's side had not been at their best but hit back, with set-piece goals from Ryan Christie and Lewis Ferguson and a last-gasp Lyndon Dykes strike securing a 3-1 victory.

How to Watch

All of Scotland's qualifiers during the campaign will be live, free-to-air, on BBC One Scotland and the BBC IPlayer.

Scotland Squad

Goalkeepers

Scott Bain Falkirk Craig Gordon Heart of Midlothian Liam Kelly Rangers Defenders

Josh Doig Sassuolo Grant Hanley Hibernian Jack Hendry Al-Etiffaq Aaron Hickey Brentford Scott McKenna Dinamo Zagreb Anthony Ralston Celtic Andy Robertson Liverpool John Souttar Rangers Kieran Tierney Celtic

Midfielders Connor Barron* Rangers Ryan Christie AFC Bournemouth Lewis Ferguson Bologna Ben Gannon-Doak AFC Bournemouth Billy Gilmour* Napoli Andy Irving West Ham United John McGinn Aston Villa Kenny McLean Norwich City Scott McTominay Napoli