Vogts uses history against the Dutch

Chris Roberts
Monday 10 November 2003 01:00 GMT
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Berti Vogts, the Scotland coach, claims that beating the Dutch in the Euro 2004 play-off would be the greatest achievement of his career. The German won the World Cup as a player in 1974 and the European Championships as a manager in 1996.

In 1974 his side stunned a far superior Dutch side with hard work and he will use that to inspire his team talk prior to the double header at Hampden Park and the Amsterdam Arena next week.

"Taking Scotland to Portugal will be my biggest success," said Vogts. "That's exactly as I see it. For me it will be bigger than winning the World Cup and the European Championships.

"At the 1974 World Cup final Holland had far better players than us and were firm favourites but Germany won because we had the better team function.

"Only our skipper, Franz Beckenbauer, was good enough to win a place in that Dutch side yet we still won the tournament because we played much more as a team. That's what I'll be working on with my players in the days leading up to Saturday."

Vogts also described the Dutch nation as arrogant. He continued: "I grew up near the Dutch border and know their mentality.

"The Dutch like to think they are always the best. Yet they have only won one major tournament, the European Championships in 1988.

"We must make that attitude work for us. If we play the way we did in both our qualifying ties against Germany we can definitely beat Holland.

"The players should not feel any pressure as no-one expects Scotland to win. There was more pressure on us to beat Lithuania than there is to beat Holland.

"We are definitely underdogs for this game which is something we love. Scotland always does better when least expected."

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