It was a miserable start to Euro 2024 for Andy Robertson, with Scotland losing 5-1 to Germany in the opening game as a former Liverpool team-mate scored.
Friday brought a proud day for Robertson and his country, as he captained Scotland in only their second major tournament game since 1998.
Unfortunately, it was not long before reality set in, with hosts Germany taking the lead after just 10 minutes through Florian Wirtz.
The outstanding Jamal Musiala netted next, with Kai Havertz then converting from the spot for a 3-0 lead at half-time following Ryan Porteous’ horrible red-card challenge.
Scotland were improved after the break but conceded again through Niclas Fullkrug’s thumping strike, though Antonio Rudiger’s own goal gave a moment for the supporters to savour.
The final blow was delivered by Emre Can, who had only been called up to the Germany squad 56 hours previous – the ex-Liverpool midfielder firing in from the edge of the box for a 5-1 win.
It was the biggest victory in an opening match in the history of the European Championship, with Robertson frustrated as he spoke to ITV afterwards.
“First half we got it all wrong. We didn’t show up, weren’t aggressive enough and let really good players on the ball,” the Liverpool left-back said.
“They had a game plan and we did, but theirs worked a million times better than ours. It wasn’t because of the practice, but because we couldn’t put it together on the pitch.
“When big occasions come you have to do that and unfortunately we didn’t do that in the first half. Second half when we were down to 10 men I thought the lads did really well.
“We are well backed over here, we have so many supporters, but today was hugely disappointing.”
Robertson was one of Scotland’s best performers on the night, making the second-most defensive actions, with seven, winning all three of his tackles and six of his eight duels.
Per FotMob, only Kieran Tierney (four) made more passes into the final third than the Scotland captain (three), though that speaks for itself in the context of the game.
By comparison, Germany’s Toni Kroos (18) played just one fewer more pass into the attacking third than the entire Scotland team combined (19).
Saturday brings another fixture for Liverpool fans to keep an eye on, with Dominik Szoboszlai‘s Hungary facing Switzerland in the other opening clash of Group A, kicking off at 2pm on ITV1.
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