Diegos Tartan Army ~ Scotland, Beer & Penguins

Craig Levein has two new additions in his squad for the Slovenia game while welcoming back a firm Tartan Army favourite. Celtic’s Charlie Mulgrew is rewarded for his fine form this season with a first call up as is relative unknown and former England u-20 cap Matt Phillips of Blackpool. Levein has also welcomed Craig Gordon back into the fold and hopefully he has managed to put his horrific injury problems of the last few seasons behind him and mount a serious challenge to win back the No. 1 shirt from Allan McGregor and give Scotland real competition between the sticks in a way we haven’t had since the days of Leighton and Goram.

Scotland Squad selected for Slovenia match:

Allan McGregor (Rangers) Craig Gordon (Sunderland) Matt Gilks (Blackpool)

Phil Bardsley (Sunderland) Christophe Berra (Wolverhampton Wanderers) Gary Caldwell (Wigan Athletic) Alan Hutton (Aston Villa) Charlie Mulgrew (Celtic) Grant Hanley (Blackburn Rovers) Russell Martin (Norwich City)

Charlie Adam (Liverpool) Barry Bannan (Aston Villa) Scott Brown (Celtic) Don Cowie (Cardiff City) Graham Dorrans (West Bromwich Albion) James Forrest (Celtic) Barry Robson (Middlesbrough) James Morrison (West Bromwich Albion) Robert Snodgrass (Leeds United) Matt Phillips (Blackpool)

David Goodwillie (Blackburn Rovers) Kenny Miller (Cardiff City) Jamie Mackie (Queens Park Rangers) Craig Mackail-Smith (Brighton and Hove Albion)

Scotland have confirmed they will play the United States on the 26th of May in a friendly match. The squad will travel to the US a week earlier for a training camp which will culminate in the match against the team ranked 31st in the World at the EverBank Field, home of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The last time the teams met, in 2005, Andy Webster scored the Scottish goal in a 1-1 draw whilst Scott Brown made his International bow, in his days as a vibrant attacking midfielder at Hibs, and managed to have the ball in the net only for it to be ruled offside.

Well, it’s been a while but it’s maybe time to update this! The upcoming fixtures have been updated and any news that does occur will also be posted. One of the main changes is that the ‘BanterBus’ is no more – given that it’s been 2 years since a post on it I can’t imagine it’ll be missed too much though!!

Things have been a bit quieter than usual as concerns Scotland given the way the International calendar has fallen in the last couple years but the start of a World Cup Campaign is always exciting – bring it on 2012!