I hope I make my wee cousin SAD on Monday, says Scotland hero John McGinn

JOHN McGINN’S hungry to make history on Sunday night.

But his little cousin wants HUNGARY to chew us up and spit us out.

The buzzbomb midfielder is our man with a foot in both camps tonight thanks to his dad’s brother Joe living in enemy territory.

And he revealed that the Magyar side of the family are divided over who they want to win as qualification goes down to the wire.

McGinn grinned: “When the draw was made my uncle Joe and cousins Márk and Támas were straight in touch. The boys were born in Scotland, but live in a town called Sopron and are half-Hungarian. 

“Uncle Joe told me this morning that one of them wants Scotland to win and the other wants Hungary. 

“All I can say is that I hope young Tamas is sad on Monday morning.

“For them going to school every day, it’s nice for them to share the surname – though I’m not sure their pals believe who their cousin is.

“I had them over for Villa’s game against Liverpool at the end of the season and they were more interested in Dominik Szoboszlai than their big cousin!”

That 3-3 draw at home to the Anfield giants was a Villa Park party night after skipper McGinn mates clinched a place in the financial promised land of the Champions League place.

It will be the first time in 41 years that the claret and blue shirts run out in Europe’s premier club competition – but the former St Mirren and Hibs man says victory here would top even that.

He said: “I hope the Villa fans aren’t listening, but qualifying here would mean even more than it did reaching the Champions League.

“They’ve been at that level in Europe before, but this is something we’ve not seen – so, yes, it would mean a lot more to me. 

“I’m incredibly proud of everything we achieved in the season that’s just gone by, but this would eclipse it.

“You can’t compare compare club and international games of this magnitude. For a start, in European games the Villa fans wouldn’t be taking over the town squares and filling the fountains with Fairy Liquid!

“It’s great that we have players who’ve been involved in high pressure matches, but we’re not feeling pressure – we feel anticipation about being that team who changes things for Scottish football.

“I don’t think a lot of people across Europe thought we could do it, so we want to be the ones who do.

“We couldn’t make it happen at the last Euros, but experience makes us better now. 

“Back then, I don’t think we approached the games with the right mentality. It was a completely new thing, the magnitude of it, beiing at home, all that. Quite frankly, when it came to the last game against Croatia, we were beaten by the better team.

“This time, we made a poor start, then had a better second games even if the result would have been better with three points. Now we have a chance to make history.

“We’ve had a lot of injuries to deal with, but us Scots are at our best during adversity and we’re ready to prove a lot of people wrong.

“A lot of us still have a lot to give. I’ve not been involved as much offensively as I’d hope. Personally, the opening game as a write-off, then the second one was about grit, determination and running, all the things that had been missing from my game against Germany. 

“The workrate side is part of the reason the manager plays me where he does, the same as Unai Emery sometimes does at Villa, so I need to adapt when it’s the case.

“I’m there for a reason, not to be a natural striker but to make things difficult for our opponents. We all knew how poor the start we made in Germany was, but me, Che and Scott all sent out a message early in Cologne and managed to keep it up for the majority of the game.

“The front three left it all out there, though I definitely felt it later on.”

The squad rolled into teeming wet Stuttgart yesterday after a three-hour drive from sunny Garmisch-Partenkirchen, checked in at the Graf Zeppelin Hotel then headed back out for training.

Assistant coach John Carver revealed yesterday that they WOULDN’T be checking out of their base camp – and McGinn admitted he’d love to return a town that has taken him to its heart.

Footage of the 29-year-old performing traditional Bavarian folk dance the Schuhplattler just hours after the team touched down 16 days ago went viral.

And he said: “Garmisch is a brilliant wee place. I didn’t even know it existed until we were told we were going there as our training camp.

“It’s been a great place to prepare. We’ve had an amazing hotel, a brilliant pitch and wonderful scenbery.

“When we left, they told us come back and have another week or two – or maybe three!

“We’re definitely looking forward to going back there if we can.

“When we arrived, we were told we were going to a welcome party and to be honest I thought it would be a lot quieter than it turned out – it was mental!

“When the dancing started, I tried to impersonate the guy in front of me and got what I deserved. I grabbed my arm, pulled me forward and got me involved.

“I just tried to embrace it!”

Let’s hope every one of Steve Clarke’s men go about it tonight with the same passion.

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