Billy Gilmour believes Scotland can spoil Germany’s Euros party by claiming a historic win in Munich on Friday night.
The Brighton midfielder marked his 23rd birthday with a cake at the squad’s hotel in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on Tuesday.
And the celebrations will intensify if the Scots win their opening game at a tournament for only the third time in 12 attempts.
‘Everyone outside Scotland thinks it’s a Germany win,’ said Gilmour. ‘We know ourselves that we are a good team and hard to beat. We want to show that. We go into every game trying to win.
‘We have already done stuff in training where we think we can break them down.’
Billy Gilmour believes Scotland can beat Germany in Friday’s Euro 2024 opener in Munich
Hosts Germany are overwhelming favourites, but Gilmour backed his side to cause an upset
Confidence has been dented by a raft of injuries to players including Aaron Hickey, Nathan Patterson, Lyndon Dykes and Liverpool youngster Ben Doak, on top of a run of two wins from the last nine games. Seven of those were friendlies, however, and Clarke’s team have won 15 of their last 21 competitive internationals.
‘When it comes to competitive games, our record has been very good,’ said Gilmour. ‘We beat Spain and Norway away. We fight to the last.
‘We’ll take it game by game but, for us, we want to get out of the group. Of course Germany is going to be a difficult game but we back ourselves.’