Inside embarrassed Scotland's snaking bus journey home as Callum McGregor plans Graeme Souness Euros response

The Celtic skipper had spent the day he turned 31 joining his teammates in a game of chasing shadows around a very large and noisy football stadium as millions looked on at home. If anything, the 5-1 eventual defeat to Germany in Euro 2024's opening felt like a mercy. It could have been worse. 

The players did not arrive back at base camp in Garmisch-Partenkirchen until around 2.30am on Saturday morning. Their minds still whirring, their bodies still burning, it would not have made much sense to stay in a hotel in Munich. Sleep was not about to come easily for anyone. 

Certainly not for someone with McGregor’s exactingly high standards. He knows time is running out if he wants to experience getting to the second stage of a tournament with Scotland. Anger, embarrassment, guilt, the midfielder explained that he was coping with a mix of all these emotions.

“Embarrassment is the word I was thinking after the game,” he said. “I didn't say it to anyone because it was too raw at the moment.  But that is the word I had in my head on my way off the pitch.” 

There was guilt at letting down such a large battalion of Tartan Army followers, both inside and outside the impressive stadium. 

The anger came from knowing the team had not shown what they can do on an extra special night. Few players have the opportunity to play in the opening game of a tournament. Scotland have been fortunate in that they have done so twice in just over quarter of a century. They won friends and admiration when running Brazil so close at the start of France ’98. Few friends and little acclaim were earned on Friday. 

“That is what hurts the most,” said McGregor. “You can go and you can play well and still lose to Germany. Let’s make no bones about it, they are a top team and they will be there or thereabouts to win the tournament. When you come off and there is a sense we did not do ourselves justice and you will probably have to live with that forever.

“People will remember that forever," he added. "You are a professional and you understand what has happened. Now it is about trying to rectify that. You will never be able to rectify the result because what has happened, has happened. But if you can get yourself out of the group then it diminishes, then in ten or fifteen years’ time people will say: 'Yeah, but they got out of the group. They achieved something great'.”

The late night return to Garmisch-Partenkirchen was far less raucous than the squad's arrival in the same town five days earlier, when John McGinn endeared himself to the locals. It wasn’t hard to imagine the subject of gossip on the streets of Scotland’s base camp yesterday: turns out the guests down the road are better dancers than footballers. 

McGregor will seek to turn such disparagement into motivation. He will endeavour to make capital from the criticism. Informed of Graeme Souness’ critical comments on ITV about “the Celtic skipper” being wrong-footed twice in the same move leading to Germany's second goal through Jamal Musiala, McGregor was short and to the point. He stressed that it was natural he would seek to use such comments to spur him on. 

“I think if anyone has a pop at you, you take it personally and you try and prove them wrong,” he said. “So, yeah.”

Scotland trained in the morning, with manager Steve Clarke and set-piece coach Austin MacPhee making a public show of walking out together after their much-discussed spat during the game on Friday night. Clarke has since played it down, with MacPhee also understood to be confused at why the exchange, which was commented upon by the ITV commentary team, had become such a big talking point. 

Such exchanges are ten a penny in dugouts everywhere during games. If the so-called bust-up was over a wasted free-kick, the set-piece score was actually Scotland 1 Germany 0.  A late consolation goal came came from Andy Robertson free-kick from the left. A further touch from Scott McKenna was then inadvertently headed into his own goal by Antonio Rudiger. Small crumbs, and all that. 

Scotland must grasp whatever comfort they can, although not much was sourced from Switzerland’s dominant performance against Hungary yesterday in Group A’s second match. The Swiss, who won 3-1 in Cologne, are of course Scotland’s next opponents in the same city on Wednesday. 

As for Clarke's squad, Saturday was as much about shaking the disappointment from the limbs as anything. A light work-out. A squad evening meal. A chance to repair. The benefits of being based in this location were made abundantly clear. There are few better places to lick wounds than in the clear mountain air at the foot of the Alps. Indeed, this town trades on its restorative qualities. Although the Scotland players were not the only slightly bedraggled looking athletes around town. 

The Zugspitz Ultratrail, Germany's largest trail running event, has its finish this weekend. A 101-km route around glaciers, huge granite rock faces and sweeping valleys of the Zugspitz massif, it involves more than 5,700 metres of climbing. The competitors start stumbling in 36 hours after they have started. It granted some perspective if any Scottish footballers were feeling sorry for themselves. 

Give everything in two bursts of 90 (and a bit) minutes and they can still become legends. Eights days, two games. Or, as McGregor termed them, two “cup finals”. He, at least, is expert at winning those with Celtic. 

"We want to come to the end of the next two games and everyone is looking at us and going: 'You know what, Scotland are decent, Scotland can play a wee bit'," he said. 

"We might get through, we might not get through. But we’ve given a good account of ourselves and that is what we can do. It’s only us now that can fix that."