Scotland Manager Gordon Strachan is urging his players "to keep their emotions in check" when football's oldest rivalry, England vs. Scotland, resumes after a 14-year hiatus Wednesday night at Wembley Stadium, according to Paul Forsyth of the LONDON TIMES. A Tartan army of at least 20,000 "is expected to make the trip south," but Strachan wants his players "to detach themselves from the hype that has
accompanied the first meeting of the countries since 1999." Strachan: "You don’t want to get carried away with this passion thing. Fighting and
scrapping, ‘we’re the Scots and you took land off us hundreds of years
ago’ ... forget that. If you are really passionate,
jump higher, run quicker, run further. Don’t go fighting and screaming
at referees and crashing into people." The rivalry "used to be an annual fixture on the
international calendar until crowd trouble led to its removal." It is safe to assume that Strachan "wasn't showing his squad a certain Mel Gibson movie" at its St. Albans hotel on Tuesday night. Strachan: “That’s not really a true story, that Braveheart, anyway. It was kind of made up” (LONDON TIMES, 8/14).
