John McGinn insists he and his Scotland teammates will allow the fans to do the talking about Germany.
Scotland took a huge step towards qualification for Euro 2024 last night. Steve Clarke’s side marched to an easy 3-0 win thanks to goals from Scott McTominay, Ryan Porteous and McGinn.
Their place in Germany next summer could be automatically sealed on Tuesday night should other results in their qualifying group go favourably. Scotland will take on England in an international friendly while those matches are ongoing.
McGinn embodied Clarke’s mantra of focussing on the next game, the next job at hand when speaking post-match. However, that hasn’t stopped the Aston Villa captain from telling the fans to keep on dreaming.
“It was a really tough first half actually even although we were 3-0 up,” he said. “Cyprus are always a really difficult opponent, when we played here last time we found it a lot tougher.
“But it was a really important win. We’ve tried to keep a lid on the sort of reactions and the celebrations for tonight because we know we’re close, but we’re not quite there yet.
“We need to be responsible and keep our mature heads on. Tonight’s a huge win, five wins from five. The focus for us is that, that’s what the manager has drilled into us. I think we’ve created history there.
“Mathematically we’re probably only one or two points away. The job could be sealed on Tuesday, but we’ve got a really exciting game to keep our minds off that. And what a game it is. If we manage to qualify during that night then that would be even more special.
“We’re not quite there yet. Only our wee country could mess it up from here. So, we need to stay calm as much as possible.
“We’ll let the fans get carried away, we’ll let them drink Cyprus dry. We’ll go back to have our Summer Fruits, and we’ll prepare for Tuesday.”
McTominay is the top scorer across the entirety of the qualification campaign as things stand with six goals from five games. McGinn set the Manchester United outcast up for the first, and he later returned the favour.
McGinn thinks he knows the midfielder’s scoring secret. He told Viaplay: “I think it’s the V he’s sporting at the back of his head. He’s going for the Fernando Torres. He’s got the striker’s haircut.”
