McCall turns back the clock to big-stage battles with world’s elite

• Former midfielder has the unique distinction of being the only Scottish player to have played every minute of his three major finals appearances
• McCall scored for Scotland at his first World Cup, but it took a phone call from the legendary Jock Stein to encourage him to reject chance to play for England
• The ex-Rangers remains proud of Scotland reaching the eight-team Euro 92 finals, and reveals how Thomas Brolin instigated a celebratory conga dance
• McCall says Scotland can draw on impressive qualifying campaign to take confidence into summer showdowns with Germany, Switzerland and Hungary 

It’s a good pub quiz question. Who’s the only Scotland footballer to have been to three major international tournaments and played every minute of every game?

The answer is Stuart McCall, who came dangerously close to playing for England before making the right choice which took him to a World Cup and two European Championships.

The Scotland schedule for Euro 2024 has a familiar look to it for the 40-times capped midfielder, who jostled with Germany at Euro ’92 and squared up to Switzerland at the Finals four years later.

McCall’s first competitive internationals were at the Italia ’90 World Cup where he scored his one and only Scotland goal against Sweden in Genoa. In a matter of months, he’d gone from relative obscurity to the greatest football show on earth having made his Scotland debut against the previous World Cup winners.

‘It was a friendly against Argentina at Hampden and there were four senior debuts that night, which was really unusual with the squad having already qualified for Italia ’90,’ he recalls. ‘Craig Levein, Stewart McKimmie, Robert Fleck and me. Andy Roxburgh was looking at players to potentially take to the tournament.

‘Anyway, I knocked the ball down for Stewart to smash in the only goal and we’d beaten the world champions. I played a part in all the warm-up games and, in the space of a couple of months, went from being uncapped to heading for a World Cup.’

That 1990 World Cup got off to a memorable start — but for all the wrong reasons. The opening defeat at the hands of Costa Rica will always have a place in the Scotland Hall of Shame.

‘As we were coming back down the tunnel after the game, fans were throwing their scarves at us,’ says McCall (below). ‘It was so embarrassing to be involved in that defeat against Costa Rica who, let’s be honest, were pretty much unknown.

‘Thankfully, four days later we had the chance to bounce back, at the same stadium in Genoa, and we managed to beat Sweden.

‘Andy had told me to be at the edge of the box for corners. I must have thought he meant the six-yard box because that’s where I was to get my toe to the ball and score after 10 minutes.

‘It was a great moment but a bit of a blur. Then big Roy (Aitken) does his dying swan routine in the second half. Never a penalty but we get that bit of luck and Mo (Johnston) makes it 2-0.

‘We clawed back a bit of pride and then, again, same old story with Scotland. We went to Turin, held our own against a great Brazilian team. Big Jim (Leighton) spills a shot, they score. Two minutes later, I knock a ball down for Mo and (Brazil keeper Claudio) Taffarel makes the save of the tournament. We lost 1-0 but even the next day we could have qualified had other results gone for us. They didn’t and we were heading home.’

Until Steve Clarke and his players found a way to end the 23-year wait to feature in a major tournament finals, McCall had played in both the European Championships for which Scotland had managed to qualify.

‘Even though we didn’t progress from the group, I think, both times, we came back home with plaudits really,’ he reflects.

‘If we go back to ’92 in Sweden, lots of people won’t know or won’t remember that only eight countries qualified. So for Scotland to be one of them was a fair old achievement. There were a lot of big countries that weren’t there like Spain, Italy and Portugal.

‘Our first game was against the Dutch team and we were obviously underdogs. They had five world-class players. You had (Ronald) Koeman at the back and then the four who combined for the one and only goal, Ruud Gullit with the cross, Marco van Basten flicked it on, (Frank) Rijkaard knocked it down and (Dennis) Bergkamp scored. When I look back at the goal, I think: “Wow”. It took some really good players to beat us.

‘Germany next and, again, they were big favourites but that was probably one of the best performances Scotland had produced, at that point, against the Germans.

‘We had so many opportunities in the game but Karl-Heinz Riedle, another top player, scored for them in the first half. Then, early in the second half, the big boy (Stefan) Effenberg puts in a cross, it deflects off Maurice Malpas and just loops beyond Andy (Goram) and goes in at the far post.

‘So we’re out of the tournament and all we could ask, because the Tartan Army had been brilliant, was to see if we could get a goal, for one thing, in the last game against the CIS (a transitional team before the former Soviet Union became Russia).

‘I remember the CIS bus pulling up next to us and obviously two of my Rangers team-mates, (Alexei) Mikhailichenko and (Oleg) Kuznetsov were on it. I wasn’t one for chatting before the game but we found out they’d already booked their hotel for the semi-final and, having drawn with the Dutch and the Germans, their plan all along was to beat us. If we’d spread the luck out over the three games, we’d have qualified but we got it all in that one match.

‘Paul McStay’s shot comes back off the post, hits the keeper and goes in. Brian McClair shoots, gets a massive deflection and that goes in. In the second half, they’re on top of us but we get a breakaway, wee Pat Nevin wins a penalty and Gary McAllister scores it.

‘I remember we went out in Sweden that night and the Scottish and Swedish supporters got together in a big marquee. Coisty (Ally McCoist) got up and sang, there was a shock, so did Derek Whyte. Everyone was doing the conga and singing about Tomas Brolin, who’d scored the goal for Sweden that knocked out England the night before. It was the first time they had gone home before Scotland from a tournament, even though we’d been knocked out earlier, so we had a big party to celebrate.’

England hosted the next European Championships and Scotland went to Wembley after a reunion with the Netherlands ended in a goalless draw.

‘I think everyone remembers what happened at Wembley,’ says McCall. ‘We were probably better than them in the first half but they made a change at half-time and it caught us out for 15 minutes. (Alan) Shearer scored the goal but we got back in the game and (David) Seaman made a great save from Gordon Durie. Then he saved Gary McAllister’s penalty.

‘What a lot of people don’t know is that, if we had scored with that penalty, Gazza (Paul Gascoigne) was coming off. They were all set to make that change. And of course he goes on to score the goal of the tournament and that kills it for us.

‘Then it was Switzerland and we still had a glimmer of a chance to go through. It was probably one of the best games I’ve been involved in, football-wise. Coisty could have scored two in the first 20 minutes and yet he nails one later from 25 yards, top bin.

‘At the same time, England were 3-0 up against the Dutch so we needed to score again to get through on goal difference. All of a sudden we get the news from Wembley that England have gone four up. Then I go over to take a throw-in and one of our fans tells me we need another goal because the Dutch have scored but we just can’t do it and we’re out. We come off again, proud of the performance but just not to be — in that typically Scottish way of ours.’

McCall’s football career might have included none of the above, of course, had he not utilised legendary delaying tactics to avoid becoming an England player. Born in Leeds to parents from north of the border, McCall was picked in both the Scottish and English Under-21 squads on the same day.

‘They needed an answer inside an hour and I couldn’t get hold of my mum and dad,’ he says.

‘There were no mobile phones. Lots of advice was getting thrown at me. My head was spinning and I went against what my heart was telling me.

‘Back at home that night, my mum answers the phone and tells me Jock Stein (Scotland manager at the time) wants to speak to me. I pick up the phone and say how’s it going big man, totally thinking it was my team-mate John Hendrie from Kirkintilloch playing a prank on me. Then I realise it actually is Jock Stein telling me it must have been a difficult decision and wishing me all the best.

‘He also told me that my dad, who’d gone to the same school as Jock in Hamilton, had written him a letter about me and someone had been sent to watch me play. I didn’t know anything about this and, as he was speaking, tears were rolling down my face. I decided I was changing my mind. I’m Scottish through and through.

‘But somehow I ended up going to Turkey with England. They told me I was coming off the bench with five minutes to go in the Under-21 game. I did everything to avoid going on and, by the time I was standing on the touchline, the ref had blown for full-time. That changed my life so much. If I’d come on for England I probably don’t come up and play for Rangers because of the three foreigner rule. I don’t play 40 times for Scotland and go to the Euros and the World Cup.’

So how does McCall rate the Class of 2024’s chances?

‘There must have been a feeling among some of the lads who qualified for the last Euros, Andy Robertson, Kieran Tierney, John McGinn, lots of them, that they’d let themselves down, they were better than that,’ adds McCall.

‘Of course, two of the games were at Hampden. This time there’s not that weight of expectation on them but they’ve got that tournament experience. Same with the manager, same with the staff.

‘We’ve got a few injuries in certain positions. Any Scotland team, even when I played, needs to be at its strongest.

‘Since we’ve qualified, we’ve lost a bit of momentum. These upcoming warm-up games give us the chance to get some confidence back. If we can get a point in the opening game against the hosts, that would be brilliant. Then it’s Switzerland, then Hungary.

‘If you’ve still got a chance going into your last game, like we had against the Swiss at Euro ’96 and playing Brazil at the World Cup, I think that’s all we can ask for.’