2019-21 UEFA European Under-21 Championship Qualifiers
Scotland v Croatia
Thursday 12 November 2020, kick-off 3pm
Tynecastle Park, Edinburgh
Live on Scotland National Team YouTube

Scotland are two matches away from their first European Under-21s Championship since 1996 as they go into their penultimate match of the group, against Croatia.

Scot Gemmill’s side currently lie one point behind Czech Republic with a game in hand, and are one point ahead of Thursday’s opponents Croatia. They will go into the game with confidence having defeated Lithuania, Czech Republic and San Marino since September.

Team News

Aaron Hickey, Harrison Ashby, Kai Kennedy and Kyle Magennis have all been ruled out of the squad with Lewis Fiorini and Stephen Welsh called up. Billy Gilmour has been included in his first Scotland squad for a year, after recovering from an injury in the summer.

Last time they met

Scotland faced Croatia in September last year where they won 2-1 in Sibenik with Connor McLennan scoring twice in the last 10 minutes to come back from an early Croatia goal.

Pre-match thoughts

Ahead of the game Fraser Hornby sat down to look ahead to Thursday’s crucial match against Croatia.

How much are you looking forward to these two matches on the horizon?

I always look forward to coming away with the guys when the squad is announced but these two games are massive for us. I’ve been in this set-up since the under-16s and it seems like every year this group of players is getting stronger and stronger.

This is definitely the strongest group I’ve been involved in and we are in a great position in the group right now. There’s no reason why we can’t go all the way.

How did it feel becoming the record goalscorer for Scotland after your hat-trick in San Marino?

Breaking the scoring record in San Marino was a great achievement for me personally and I think it set us up nicely in the group. As a striker I’m desperate to get goals for the team. In the last two games I’ve been able to do that and they’ve put us in a great position which has been pleasing.

This will be your third camp since September, has being together so often helped with morale in the camp?

We’ve been together a lot recently which has been great and created a club feel around the camp. We’ve had two great camps and we’ve looked stronger on the pitch. That has been down to us training on a daily basis and building up those connections on the pitch.

You are close friends with Billy Gilmour, how pleased are you to have him back in the squad?

It’s great to have Billy back in the squad. He’s not been annoying me too much yet off the pitch but I’m sure by the end of the trip I’ll be pulling my hair out.

It’s great he’s back from injury and having a player of his calibre around will only help boost our squad. He’s really confident in his own ability which is great to see from a player so young. He’s pushed into the Chelsea first team which is credit to him really and shows how good a player he is.

What would qualifying for the Euros mean to you?

Qualifying would be massive for everyone in Scotland. It’s not often that teams qualify for major tournaments. It would be huge if we were to get there but we can’t get too far ahead of ourselves. Thursday is big and then we’ll switch our focus to the Greece away match.

We’ll be watching the men’s A squad when we get back to the hotel after the Croatia game so hopefully it’s a successful day all round for the country.

You’ve faced Croatia already in a tough match last year. What were they like to play against?

They were a very good team when we played them last time. On our day we can beat anyone so we’ll be full of confidence and hopefully we can get a positive result.

Where you can watch

You can watch all the action from Edinburgh on the Scotland National Team YouTube Channel.