Scotland football

The Scotland football team are famous for their fans known as the tartan army who follow the team in their thousands to football matches home and away. The Scotland football team had many great players in the past such as Jim Baxter, Kenny Dalglish, Dennis Law and Graeme Souness. The national team in recent years have struggled but are now emerging as a stronger team after just failing to qualify for the Euro 2008 championship in Austria and Switzerland.

Football in Scotland is an emotional subject and is not surprisingly the national sport of Scotland. The most famous football teams in Scotland are Celtic and Rangers with other clubs such as Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibernian and Dundee United occasionaly competing for the major football prizes in Scotland.

Celtic and Rangers regularly compete in the prestigious European champions league tournament against famous clubs such as Real Madrid, AC Milan, Barcelona and Manchester United. Celtic were actually the very first football club from Britain to win the European cup in 1967 when they outplayed the mighty Inter Milan and won 2-1 in Lisbon. The Celtic team that won the European cup are treated as legends and are known as the Lisbon Lions. Rangers have also tasted European glory when they won the European Cup Winners cup and Aberdeen also famously beat Real Madrid to win the same trophy under the guidance of the famous Alex Ferguson who went on to manage Manchester United.

The Scotland football obsession is widely recognised throughout the world and crowds of over 50,000 regularly attend the Scotland national team games at Hampden and also any home matches involving Glasgow Celtic and Glasgow Rangers. When Celtic and Rangers play each other it is known as the old firm game and is not for the faint hearted as these two clubs have a bitter rivalry.

Football in Scotland is the core sport of any school and boys and girls also participate in youth and juvenille football at their respective age groups. The main football league is called the Scottish Premier league and all teams are full time compared to many part time teams who compete in the lower divisions of the Scottish football league.