My Scotland team to play Hungary are not on the pitch - why key trio must feature in Euros decider

So, Stuttgart. This is it. The big one. The should-we-stay-or-should-we-go showdown. The maybes-aye, maybes-naw moonshot. Succeed, and we’ll be taking a giant leap for Scotlandkind. Fail, and it’ll be small steps through the departure gate for the journey home, one which teams in dark blue are well used to making at this juncture of international competition.

What, then, should be the team for tonight? Who’s in your line-up? For me it’s a no-brainer. I won’t hear of any other tactical permutation. We have to go with David Moyes, Rachel Corsie and Joe Hart.

The game’s on BBC again so it should be a straightforward decision for the Corporation to bring these three back to the studio over by the Brandenburg Gate. They were great the other night. Punditry-wise, the performances of the Euros thus far.

Recently retired Celtic goalkeeper Joe Hart was part of the BBC punditry team that covered Scotland's draw with Switzerland at Euro 2024. (Photo by Richard Pelham/Getty Images)

Pundits, schmundits - who needs them? We do, apparently. Our screens pulse with their easy burble and babble. Before kick-off, half-time and bang on the final whistle. Analysis and exposition. Dissection and debate. Big moments broken down. Key incidents freeze-framed for full forensics. Banter and in-jokes. Closing speeches. Next-time predictions. Retired pros, legends of the game, out-of-work managers and diversity representatives, all bequeathing to us the benefit of their experience. Blah, blah, blah.

Tournaments like the Euros are a challenge for the pundits. We’re used to seeing most of them on winter afternoons. Suddenly in summer, and having to be away from the full wardrobe for a while, there’s the question: what to wear? Not everyone looks good in a T-shirt. Not everyone looks good in white trainers. Not everyone looks good in a shacket.

I’m trivialising the role but the Euros represent a definite step-up: everyone has to be on it and, very quickly, ready to go again. Big signings jostle with the blawhards; Sky regulars holiday on terrestrial. Working in the domestic game, pundits might be able to get away with cliches and truisms from one week to another, but these matches come round thick and fast. Self-evident guffiness and anodyne banalities are going to be cruelly exposed. And, like for the teams, this is knockout football. Not everyone will make it through to the latter stages. Some will be packing up their shackets and departing early.

So was it the over-familiarity of the grizzled dependables of punditry, heavy of thigh and insistent of insight, that enabled Moyes, Corsie and Hart working the Scotland-Switzerland game together to come across as different, fresh and entertaining?

Scotland Women international Rachel Corsie impressed as a BBC pundit during the Scotland v Switzerland Euro 2024 coverage. (Photo by Ross Parker / SNS Group)

Perhaps, a bit. We know what Roy Keane’s growl sounds like. We know what Graeme Souness’ harking back to his hard, hard playing days sounds like. We know what Micah Richards’ cackle sounds like. By the way, I like all of these guys. But there was more to last Thursday’s triumvirate than just their newness. Much more.

David Moyes has always come across as one of the good guys of the game. Much-loved at a proper club (Everton). The blessing of the master at a megaclub (Manchester United), though following him was always going to be impossible. The harsh treatment at a self-styled club-of-the-people (West Ham United). Not that any of this played into his comments last Wednesday. He was there for his country and he couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about that. Which, by the way, doesn’t mean he was a daft cheerleader. Nothing like.

Rachel Corsie was the revelation. Smart, sussed, considered and so eloquent. Social media afterwards was full of warm words about her performance. I posted and rarely do that. Some had to admit they didn’t know Corsie - 152 Scotland caps! - and apologised for the fact. If she’s punditised before then I’ve missed it, too. If she hasn’t, what a find.

It’s been hard for women talking football on TV. Joey Barton hasn’t made that easy - but then neither has Eni Aluko, whichever boxes she ticks. Corsie, though, seems like the best in her field. After just one game. Brilliant effort.

Then there’s Joe Hart. A goalkeeper who’s interesting! Actually that’s poor - sorry to the goalies’ union. What a tough job. So tough indeed that no one really expects any of them to be able to lift themselves off the turf when the career’s finished and be half as thoughtful and perceptive as Hart, not just about his own craft but football in the round. Keepers, we might have presumed, were a bit like drummers in rock bands in that regard.

When Hart came to the SPFL, the cynical thought he was the washed-up, Wash & Go guy (actually, he advertised Head & Shoulders). Everyone else’s quickfire memory of him was of how he conceded quickfire free-kicks from Leigh Griffiths. But, no fool, he got Scottish football during his stint at Celtic and on Wednesday he was invested in our game against the Swiss and not in a glib way. The least facile and patronising Englishman following Scotland for a night there has ever been!

Can he do it for another night? Will these three - and a word of praise, too, for Gabby Logan who helmed transmission last time - get the opportunity for the Hungary match? They should, no doubt about that, and at least two of them are surely destined for more gigs in punditry if so desired, Moyes presumably not done with management quite yet.

Of course, Wednesday might prove to be a fluke. A one-off. That’s football, you might say, and that’s punditry. Only as good as the last game. That’s also classic Scottish fatalism which, as our Euros destiny do approacheth, should be banished right away.