Ryan Porteous waited years for his first proper experience of Scotland at an international tournament. Now, he wants to help his country make up for lost time, starting at Euro 2024.
Porteous, aged 25, was born in 1999, just three years after Scotland competed alongside England at Euro 96. He was a grown man playing senior football when the Tartan Army ended their 20 plus year exile from the European Championships at the delayed 2020 tournament.
It feels as though the national team have turned a corner, though. For a nation which has been starved of international success, Scotland have dined relatively well in recent years: they qualified for their second successive Euros in October with games to spare and with the 2026 World Cup set to be expanded to a format which would involve 48 teams, the odds of them making their first appearance at the tournament since 1998 look promising.
Steve Clarke's side head into Friday's Group A opener against hosts Germany riding the crest of a wave - and Porteous wants to ensure the mentality that the Scotland head coach has instilled helps them become a fixture at major tournaments going forward.
"I think we've now built up a foundation - a kind of level of expectation - where we should be qualifying for these tournaments," Porteous tells Mirror Football ahead of Scotland's first match at Euro 2024.
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"It's a mentality thing that Steve Clarke has drilled into us for a long time. Hopefully that mentality can stay for future generations: the fact that Scotland aren't just there to make up the numbers, that we've got a lot of talent and ability. We want to make it so that Scotland have earned a right to be spoken about in terms of these competitions all the time.
"I think this is only the second time that Scotland have qualified for a major tournament in my lifetime. So it's a fantastic time to be a Scottish football fan. I think that shows with the fans as well. There's been a lot of hard times growing up being Scottish, particularly in football terms."
Porteous is relishing the prospect of facing Germany in Scotland's Euros opener (Rene Nijhuis/MB Media)Scotland are the lowest ranked team (39) in Group A ahead of their eagerly anticipated showdown with Germany in Munich. Julian Nagelsmann's side are amongst the favourites for the tournament and expected to kick off their home campaign in style on Friday night when they welcome the Tartan Army to the Allianz Arena.
Having never progressed past the group stage in an international tournament, Scotland will have to break new ground if they are to avoid an early exit from this summer's competition. And while Porteous and co are relishing the opportunity to lock horns with Germany, who are three-time tournament winners, the centre-half feels that progression to the knockout phase would be the natural next step for a team which has managed to restore national pride during Clarke's five-year tenure.
"It doesn't get much better or bigger [than playing Germany]," Porteous adds after referencing the big wins over Norway and Spain in qualifying as evidence that the Scots can mix it with the best. "We really want to go over there and impress, because we've shown that we can really compete against these top teams when everyone's on it.
"We'll take it game by game, but obviously we want to make it out of that group. It won't be easy, but I think we've definitely got the squad for it and the continuity to try and push for that achievement. We're a relatively young group but we've had a lot of experience from being together over the last five years. We're desperate to make that next step. We don't want to just settle for making the groups."
Porteous has impressed at Watford over the past 18 months (Richard Heathcote)A commanding centre-back schooled in Dalkeith, Porteous has never settled for second best. The defender established himself at a young age with his boyhood club, Hibernian, before attracting interest from England. Porteous made over 150 appearances for Hibs and played in the Europa League before joining Watford in a cut-price deal in January 2023 in a bid to take his career to the next level.
Porteous has adapted to the trials and tribulations of the Championship seamlessly. He featured 37 times in the league for Watford last season, accumulating three goals and three assists in the process. Former team-mate turned head coach Tom Cleverley allowed him to sit out Watford's final Championship match of the season, a dead-rubber against Middlesbrough, with one eye on Euro 2024.
Watford failed to meet expectations last season but, looking beyond the Euros, Porteous believes better times are coming. Despite his limited experience as a head coach, Porteous ranks Cleverley highly. The way the new Hornets boss carries himself, his approach to man-management and his meticulous attention to detail when it comes to tactics are all endorsed by Porteous, who concedes it was a different experience going from playing alongside Cleverley the season before last to playing under him in the final weeks of the 2023/24 campaign.
Even in spite of Watford's failure to mount a sustained bid to return to the Premier League, Porteous has no regrets over his decision to move on from his boyhood club; a decision which was formulated over the course of an 18 month period. The demands of Championship football, coupled with his move south, have helped him to mature both on and off the pitch.
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Steve Clarke has guided Scotland to successive European Championships (PA)He continues: "The Championship this year was really difficult - probably the best standard of Championship I can remember. But there's no excuses from our point of view. I think there were a lot of challenges throughout the season that we could have done better with. It's really disappointing to come to the end of the season and not be pushing for a promotion or anything like that. So while there's a lot to be learned from that, you don't want to always learn through failure. But the last few games of the season with Tom gave us all a big confidence boost going into next year."
Before he can turn his focus to Watford's aspirations of a return to England's top table, Porteous has the small task of keeping Germany quiet. He was an unused substitute in Scotland's last match, a 2-2 draw with Finland, but he played the full 90 minutes in Scotland's 2-0 win over Gibraltar days earlier and has featured regularly under Clarke.
Like others within the squad, Porteous will be backed by plenty of family and friends out in Germany over the coming weeks - and he hopes that the experience of watching Scotland in a second successive Euros will go some way to making up for the hardships that the Tartan Army have had to endure over the years.
He concludes: "Honestly, every single person that I know is going out [to Germany]. I think Scotland will be a ghost town - if there's ever a time to go and visit Edinburgh, it's probably during the Euros! Everyone will be out there and that's the fans' reward for following us for so many years and experiencing a lot more downs than ups. Now it's a good time to be a part of the Tartan Army - and I definitely think [the Scotland fans] have been missed at major tournaments over the last couple of decades."
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