| Wednesday 24 June 1998 |
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TO TARTAN ARMY
MANAGER Craig Brown last night spoke of the anguish he felt for the Tartan Army after Scotland made their now customary first round exit from the World Cup. Their 1998 dream ended in tears of despair as they were brushed aside by Morocco, but their fans refused to be quietened. They gave the players verbal backing from beginning to end of a game that went from bad to worse.
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Sadly it wasn't to be, and in the end the Scots bowed out with their worst performance at the finals. Brown admitted: ''We did not play anything like as well as in the two previous games against Brazil and Norway. We gave away two terrible goals that were uncharacteristic and at this level you cannot afford to do that. After Craig Burley was sent off it became mission impossible and it was a mediocre match for us. Going down to ten men we gave ourselves a virtually impossible task, though we fought to the end and tried manfully to regain our pride. But we cannot deny that the better team won the match.'' Brown added that he had suspected Norway might triumph against an already qualified Brazil but it hardly lifted his dismay, and he conceded that from the outset of the tournament he feared the worst about the outcome in a group of nations all ranked above Scotland. He said: ''We were drawn in a very difficult set of countries, with the world's best side and the teams ranked 7th (Norway) and 11th (Morocco) by FIFA. ''We did play well against the two teams who have qualified from the group, but never had the breaks throughout the tournament. There is no consolation that Norway beat Brazil because I always suspected that might happen. We are just disappointed with our own performance because we did not play as well as we have done in the recent past. I would say the lads fought bravely, but we still conceded two bad goals and paid the price for that."
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