Scotland must improve on ´little details´ – McTominay

Scotland are falling short in big matches due to the finer details, said Scott McTominay after a “self-inflicted” defeat to Poland.

McTominay scored a 76th-minute equaliser at Hampden Park on Thursday, as Scotland looked all set to take a 2-2 draw from their Nations League opener.

Yet deep in stoppage time, Nicola Zalewski put away Poland’s second penalty of the night to condemn Steve Clarke’s team to defeat.

Scotland, who crashed out of Euro 2024 with a whimper, are now winless in their last five home games, their longest such run in 16 years.

“It’s a difficult one to be honest,” McTominay, who has now scored nine in his last 16 appearances for Scotland, told ITV Sport.

“I thought we were good in the game, I felt like at half-time when we were 2-0 down it was unjustified. That’s football, it’s cruel at times.

“We had a lot of box entries from our sides. It’s disappointing but we showed great character to get back into the game and we can take belief from that. We really came back well and didn’t give up.

“The goals are self-inflicted from the collective, we all know that. It’s those little details that are making us fall short in bigger games. We can go back and look at little tweaks to hopefully improve.

“Every single game of football has mistakes and sometimes you get punished and sometimes you don’t. It’s something we as a group need to take ownership of.

“You can’t do anything but do your best on the pitch and hopefully score the next goal and against Portugal [on Sunday] we can be the ones who come out winning.”

Thank you for your fantastic support tonight

Onto Sunday in Lisbon.#SCOPOL pic.twitter.com/Fvl535383u

— Scotland National Team (@ScotlandNT) September 5, 2024

Scotland went 2-0 down in the first half, with Robert Lewandowski teeing up Sebastian Szymanski’s early opener before netting from the penalty spot.

Lewandowski has been involved in 10 goals in his last 10 starts for Poland (six goals, four assists), while the Barcelona forward has scored each of his last four penalties since failing to do so against Mexico at the 2022 World Cup.

Poland, meanwhile, converted two spot-kicks in a game for the first time since June 2017 in a World Cup qualifier against Romania. Though with Lewandowski off the pitch late on, the responsibility for the second fell to Zalewski.

Billy Gilmour, who, like McTominay, joined Napoli last week, got Scotland back into it just after half-time, though the comeback efforts ultimately proved fruitless.

“We’re disappointed. We felt we were the better team,” the midfielder said. “In the second half we felt we showed that and went for it.

“Getting two goals back and then to concede another penalty was tough. We’ll go back and look at it and make it right.

“There was good stuff there as well, but ultimately the final result wasn’t good.

“It’s a tough one, we really felt like we should have got the win. We leave it out there all the time, we’re a group of boys proud to represent our country.”