Fantasy Five-A-Side: Dykes vs McCoist - A battle of big characters to take the last slot in our side
Which heroes from Scotland's European Championship history will make our dream team? Andrew Robertson, Ally McCoist and Gary McAllister are among the players before our selection panel.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00So we've reached the point of attack, centre forward, striker. I've got a pretty good feeling
00:14that I know who you're going to choose here, Matt. But for the sake of completing a sort of Euro 2020
00:21clean sweep on my part, I am going to give a very honourable mention to Lyndon Dykes,
00:28who up until sort of the run-up to Euro 2020 was by no means a shoo-in to be in the Scotlands
00:37starting XI, but by the time they got to that tournament he ended up starting all three of
00:42their group stage matches and I think he only missed something like 11 minutes overall. He
00:46played the vast majority of that tournament and he's obviously all the things we know Lyndon
00:51Dykes to be. He's a big physical presence, he's a handful, he's a bit of a nuisance.
00:56But the reason I've got him in there really is just vibes. He just seems like a bit of a laugh,
01:02doesn't he? If you're looking for somebody to dye their hair bright pink and just sort of generally
01:07raise the murrayment of a dressing room, then I think Dykes is your man. I think it can't be
01:11understated how important it is to have a bit of a maverick in a major international tournament
01:18squad. Obviously we've spoken about Paul Gascoigne on this on this podcast already and
01:26I'm not saying Dykes is anywhere near Gaza levels of craziness, but he certainly has a streak to
01:31him and I think that just for pure entertainment value and also just on the basis of the fact that
01:37he seems like a pretty good laugh and a pretty decent guy, then I'm going to give him the nod,
01:42even if he didn't score a single goal at the tournament and even if for the most part he was
01:46relatively anonymous and also because there is, quite frankly, a lack of other viable options.
01:54I'm going to go for Lyndon Dykes and now I'm going to hand it over to you and you're going
01:58to blow me out of the water by suggesting Ali McCoy, aren't you? No, Gordon Durie,
02:02obviously. No, of course. You know, he's everything Lyndon Dykes isn't.
02:08Well, Lyndon Dykes is absolutely sort of this big physical presence who puts himself around
02:12Ali McCoy, this little nimble striker who knew how to get into little half spaces and gaps and
02:17a lovely bit of technique and a lovely finish on him. Actually, I say not everything they
02:20aren't because I get the impression they both would be a bit raucous down the pub, certainly
02:23in McCoy's A day. I think it's fair to say he probably would have been an interesting character
02:27on a night out as well. But yeah, I mean, McCoy's was just, you know, he's got 19 goals for Scotland,
02:33you know, hundreds, literally hundreds of his club career, most of them for Rangers.
02:38And just, yeah, he's a fabulous player, scored a brilliant goal of Euro 96, Scotland's only goal
02:42of Euro 96. So he's one of the five who've managed to actually, you know, hit the back of
02:47the net in one of these tournaments. And it was a cracking goal. I can't actually remember all of,
02:51right off the top of my head, all of Scotland's goals against the CIS back in 92. But I will say
02:55this is probably the best of Scotland's goals of Euro 96. Just, you know, 20, 22 yards out,
03:01perfect, sort of pinged off his right boot, right into the top left hand corner. Goalkeeper was that
03:05side, maybe the positioning wasn't great, but he was never getting to it. Just a wonderful,
03:09wonderful finish. And, you know, he was a cracking player. And I know these days,
03:12probably there's certain, you know, people more of your age probably remember him for
03:15irritating Sue Barker on a question of sport or forming an unlikely travelogue duo with John
03:20Champion at Russia, Russia 2018, not 98, sorry, I don't know where they got that from, but you know,
03:25but he was a brilliant player. He was just, he was just, he was fast. He was difficult to mark.
03:31He knew how to get into places to score goals and he knew how to score goals. And he was one of
03:35Scotland's greatest strikers. Yeah. I mean, obviously everything you say is absolutely true
03:41and more than happy to give you McCoy's here. I think if we're being perfectly honest, there's an
03:46argument to be made for, you know, Ali McCoy's being the best performance Scotsman at Euro 2020
03:51as well, given his, you know, I joke, of course, please, nobody north of the border come for me.
03:59I do really like Ali McCoy's as, as both a player and as the pundit and the commentator that he's
04:12become, I think he's a great guy. He seems to be a great guy at least.
04:17You just couldn't stand him as a question of sport captain.
04:21Well, you know, he was, he was not Emlyn Hughes. I'll tell you that much.
04:26There's no way you remember Emlyn Hughes.
04:30It'd be a weird blank spot, wouldn't it? If I knew Emlyn Hughes, but not Gary McAllister.
04:34Yeah. Anyway, no, for the sake of fairness, I think it's got to go to Ali McCoy's hasn't it?