Football
John Brewin, ESPN FC 8y

Scotland's Gordon Strachan 'hugely disappointed' with Poland draw

Scotland manager Gordon Strachan did not hide the disappointment of his team crashing out of Euro 2016 after a 2-2 draw with Poland.

Robert Lewandowski's second goal, the last kick of the game, denied Scotland the chance of reaching third place in Group D, after the Republic of Ireland beat Germany 1-0 in Dublin.

"You couldn't call the second one brilliant," said Strachan of a goal that came from a couple of deflections. "In American football they call it a 'Hail Mary.' They just chuck it in there and hope for the best."

Strachan continued: "I am hugely disappointed for the players. You've seen a group of lads give as much as they can give. They put that much in. They scored two wonderful goals."

Matt Ritchie on half-time and Steven Fletcher on 62 minutes, had put the Scots ahead after Poland captain Lewandowski scored in the 3rd minute.

"After working hard for a year, and something like that happens in the last second at the end of the year, that's over a year's work gone," said Scotland's manager.

"You have to hold your hands up and say well done," Strachan said of his players. "We've played Poland and Ireland and not been beat."

Ireland and Poland, however, play each other on Sunday, with Poland needing a win to qualify automatically and the Irish assured of a playoff place at the very least. Scotland play Gibraltar on Sunday, with little but pride to play for.

"Sunday is pointless, that will be hard to take," said Strachan. "Over the year, there's been couple of offside goals, a couple of horrendous deflections. We have to put up with a lot, really. To overcome that, we've got to be clinical in the next couple of years."

Scotland were made to rue the collapse of their qualifying campaign last month when defeats to Georgia and Germany took destiny from their hands. Strachan, though, was too upset to look back so soon after Thursday's disappointment.

"I really cannot be bothered," he said. "For me to sit and pontificate about what went wrong is unfair on them in the dressing room. My thoughts are with them at the moment. I don't want to speak about it just now."

He also refused to comment on his own future as Scotland manager.

"There's guys in there hurting so for me to talk about myself is wrong. They are the priority, and my coaching staff, too," he said.

Steven Fletcher expressed his desire to have Strachan remain as manager.

Fletcher, who put the home side ahead with a wonderful curling effort just after the hour mark, sees no reason for change among the Scotland set-up.

"We are going in the right direction so I don't see why there should be any change," he said.

"We need to go [to Faro] and we need to win games. It is good for team spirit and hopefully we will do our job [on Sunday].

"It was disappointing. We thought we played well and put in a good performance and took the lead which we didn't manage to hold on to.

"And then we got in and found out the other result [from Dublin].

"When you put in a performance like that you would expect to get something."

Press Association contributed to this report

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