Karma? Why is Scotland the underdog of the tournament?

Among the Czech public, Scotland, and especially Rangers fans, are among the unpopular subjects. This is due to the display on social media following the controversial match between Prague Slavia and Rangers FC in the Europa League eighth-final. The Football God watched it all and swept the Scots off their feet!

We will not revisit the events at Ibrox Stadium. Anyone with an internet connection knows all too well what happened at Rangers FC Stadium in March this year. In any case, the British and Scottish media subsequently failed to present the events in a balanced way and both the Slavic fans and the Czech football public felt very damaged.

The football God, sporting luck or if you want karma, in short a higher power, worked 3 months later at the European championship. Why?

Scotland literally became the underdog of the tournament, as the following numbers speak of! The most telling statistic is the goals scored, of which the Scots got five. Moreover, all 5 goals came from teams that don’t kneel.

Even more interesting is a closer look at the goals conceded! Because their xG (probability of scoring from a given shooting position) is literally unbelievable.

According to the xG indicator, all 5 goals in Scotland’s net have an xG of 0.35! Simply put, this is a huge stroke of bad luck.

The Scots were unlucky on offense too! They scored only one goal in the whole tournament against Croatia. But according to the xG indicator they should have scored at least 4 goals (4.84 goals to be precise).

Steve Clark’s charges have the most blocked shots of the whole tournament after the group stage with Denmark 20! They are 5th in shot attempts so far with 42. In any case, they only got one point in the group stage and bid farewell to the Euro.

Sources: UEFA, The xG Philosophy