WHEN A BRIAN McCLAIR GOAL HELPED RETIRE AN ENTIRE FOOTBALLING NATION
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- Jun 14
- 5 min read
Celtic fans will have the chance to meet and listen to the musings of Celtic and Manchetser United Legend Brian McClair, alongside fellow Celtic great Peter Grant at ACSOM’s latest event later this month.
When Brian McClair and Paul McStay Ended a Footballing Dynasty
As a prelude to this, I thought we would look back at one of McClair’s most memorable Scotland goals during one of the strangest and most unpredictable international tournaments in living memory.
Back in those days qualifying for World Cups was something Scotland fans had come to expect. Indeed, ahead of the 1992 European Championships, Scotland had appeared in 5 consecutive World Cups, going all the way back to 1974.
However, Euro ’92 in Sweden marked Scotland’s first ever appearance at a European Championship final tournament. It is also a tournament for which I have a lot of personal nostalgia. I was 8 years old at the time, and had only just recently gotten into football. So, this my first big international tournament, and I didn’t miss a single game.
Back in those days, qualifying for the Euros was a lot more difficult than it is now. Only 8 teams were invited to the final tournament.
Against all the odds, Scotland made it into that final 8 towards the end of 1991. Alongside them were a newly unified Germany, of whom the Western side had been crowned World champions at Italia ‘90. They were joined by The Netherlands, England, the hosts Sweden, France, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.
However, 1991 was a quite a politically tumultuous year. As such, a couple of the teams named above wouldn’t make it to the final tournament.
As anyone else who takes an interest in Geopolitics will remember, The USSR ceased to be at the end of 1991, and 14 independent nations emerged from its shadow.
Around the same time, Yugoslavia also fractured under the pressure of its constituent nations vying for self-determination.
This left UEFA with a couple of major issues.
In the case of Yugoslavia, the Balkans War, which would subsequently run for many years, made any kind of compromise between the former Yugoslav nations impossible.
Nonetheless, UEFA tried to broker a solution, and it wasn’t until a few weeks before the tournament that the former Yugoslavia were kicked out of the tournament, following UN intervention, after the full outbreak of the War in May of 1992.
Peter Schmeichel, the father of Celtic goalkeeper Kasper, and future Rangers star Brian Laudrup were among the Danish players apparently sunning themselves on the beach when they got the call that they were going to the Euros in Yugoslavia’s place. Hardly ideal prep, but The Danes were just glad to be there.
For the former USSR, things went slightly more smoothly. A deal was struck between 11 of the 14 nations that previously formed the Soviet Union to form a team just for the Euros.
Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia opted not to take part, after UEFA rejected an earlier proposal for the 14 teams to play a qualifying tournament to see which one of them would make it to Sweden.
This new team was called the CIS, The Commonwealth of Independent States. They had no national flag, no national anthem, and no team emblem. Their jerseys were a last-minute adaptation of the Adidas jersey originally designed for the 1992 Soviet Union national side. In place of the old Soviet Football Federation logo there were three plain white letters “CIS” on the front of the jersey.
Of course, it was fate that Scotland would, in typically Scottish fashion be drawn against arguably the three toughest teams in the tournament.
First, there was The Netherlands, who had won the previous Euros in 1988 and still had the incredible talents of Van Basten, Gullit and Rijkaard in their side, as well as a couple of precocious youngsters by the names of Dennis Bergkamp and Frank De Boer.
Next came Germany, who still included much of West Germany’s 1990 World Cup winning side in their ranks.
Scotland’s final group game would be against the aforementioned CIS. In all honesty, nobody knew what to expect from this Frankenstein’s Monster of a team, but they undoubtedly had some very talented players, and two from Rangers as well.
In typically Scottish fashion, despite a couple of brave performances, we ultimately lost 1-0 to the Dutch and then 2-0 to the Germans, ensuring that our first European Championship was effectively over after just 2 games.
The CIS however, had done pretty well for themselves, all things considered. A 1-1 draw with the World Champions followed up by a goalless draw with The Netherlands meant that, if they could beat Scotland, they would go through, at the expense of whoever lost between Germany and The Netherlands.
However, a Scotland squad, featuring former Celt Brian McClair and Celtic players Paul McStay, Tom Boyd and Derek Whyte, had other ideas.
It would be McStay who would make the breakthrough for Scotland. His thunderous shot ricocheted off the post in the 7th minute before hitting the back of future Celtic goalkeeper Dimitre Kharine and ending up in the net.
On a side note, there’s a good pub quiz question: Which former Celtic player is an Olympic gold medalist, holds the all-time record number of caps for his country but only played 11 games for Celtic?
Our Russian former goalkeeper is the answer. Kharine played 11 of the 12 games the CIS appeared in over their 7-month history, making him their most capped player of all time. He was the goalkeeper for the USSR under-23 side that won Gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and in 3 seasons at Celtic, he only played 8 league games, with a total of 11 appearances
Anyway, poor young Dimitre was still visibly rattled by that opening goal when Brian McClair let off a salvo of his own, which took a slight deflection as it sailed past Kharine into the corner.
A late Gary McAllister penalty ensured a memorable 3-0 win to end Scotland’s European Championships on a positive note.
Unfortunately, to date, this remains one of only 2 wins Scotland has recorded at the European Championships in our history. And with one goal, Brian McClair remains our joint all-time top goal scorer at the Euros.
For Scotland, it ensured they ended the tournament on a high, but for the CIS it was the end. Literally.
The next day, the team was disbanded forever. Each of their 11 constituent nations began their own preparations for World Cup qualification. In the end, only Russia qualified for USA ’94 with Kharine as their goalkeeper.
As for the rest of the tournament, well, remember those Danes sunning themselves on the beach 2 weeks before the tournament started when they got the call to go and compete? Well, they only went on and won the thing!
In one of the greatest shocks in European football history, a team that shouldn’t even have been there emerged from Euro ’92 as champions.
Which, if nothing else, should tell us there’s still at least some hope for Scotland. Right?
Hey! No laughing at the back!
