COLUMBIA: Miguel Calero, Antonio Moreno, Wilmer Cabrera, Jose Fernando Santa, Jorge Bermudez, Ivan Cordoba, - Harold Lozano, Freddy Rincon, Carlos Valderrama, Mauricio Serna, Faustino Asprilla, Adolfo Valencia,
SCOTLAND: Neil Sullivan, Tom Boyd, Colin Hendry, Colin Calderwood, Jackie McNamara (Billy McKinley, 71), Christian Dailly, John Collins, Paul Lambert, Craig Burley, Darren Jackson (Scott Booth 46), Gordon Durie (Simon Donnelly 62)
Referee: No Idea
Match Report
Seas of Columbian fans engulfed the few jocks who had made the trip from the UK and the rather poor turn out of 'kilties' for this match - kicking off at 21:00 probably had something to do with it. After getting the formalities of the New York Metro Stars vs Miami Fusion match out of the way in this double header, the serious business began.
Part of the reason for the apparent lack of Jocks was the lateness of the kick off time. A full day to warm up for the game meant that several fans were in no fit condition to be watching a football match - the tailgate outside saw to that ! Perhaps up to 1000 Scots could be found but spread out round the stadium. I myself was welcomed by some Columbian fans in whatever section I ended up in - they were quite nice to me, very free and easy with the hooch from those leather canteens which they all seem to carry.
Anyway, Scotland went behind by 1-0 to a Valderama penalty after a strange decision saw a Scots defender get tangled up with a Columbian attacker. However, Scotland were not to be trailing for long as Collins thundered in a long range effort to equalise after on 20 minutes.
Barely 10 minutes later, Burley rattled in Scotlands second from inside the box to send all Scots into ecstacy. Having jumped up myself to cheer, it was becoming clearer that the the partisan Columbian support surrounding me were a little less jovial than they had been before the match.
The Scots then held on solidly (and in fact looked by far the better of the two sides throughout the match). Hendry held the defence together well and Asprilla was not allowed to make any mark at all on the game. Two other Columbian attackers were running at us though and eventually got a breakthrough with only 10 minutes to go when a shot (that bounced off 2 POSTS !) was slid easily in to equalise the scores.
The verdict on the match was that the Scots looked much the better side, Columbias 2 goals both came attached to a good bit of fortune. A promising warm-up performance against South American opposition.
ScottK, May 1998