U19s: Scotland 4-0 Armenia

A deadly second half performance saw off Armenia as Scotland started their European Championship qualifying campaign in style.

Second half goals from Joe Chalmers, Matthew Kennedy, Barrie McKay and Lewis MacLeod gave the home team the perfect start to build on as they face Romania and Switzerland in the coming days.

The game at New Douglas Park saw both teams come out of the blocks slowly with Armenia appearing to want to press the game in the middle of the park and prevent Scotland’s midfield from playing.

The away side’s Ayvazyan even found himself with the ball at his feet six yards out within the first five minutes. The linesman’s flag went up for offside, however, just as the forward slid the ball past Scotland’s Jack Hamilton.

The underdogs were starting to bed into the game quicker than the home side with midfielder Yeganyan on the night drifting inside proving to be dangerous. Only for Stuart Findlay’s last ditch tackle the midfielder would have been one on one against the out rushing Hamilton.

Scotland finally began to get a hold of the game and Chelsea forward Islam Feruz who was playing up top on his own, found himself with four chances before the break but failed to convert them.

With the scores level at the halfway point head coach Sbragia needed his team to find their shooting boots, and within a few minutes of the restart they took the lead.

Full back Chalmers curled a free kick into the corner after Feruz had been fouled just outside the penalty area.

This seemed to open up the Armenian defence and Scotland then created more and more chances and it wasn’t long before it was 2-0.

Some brilliant footwork by the increasingly impressive Feruz on the right hand side followed by a deep cross to the far post allowed for Everton’s Matthew Kennedy to side foot the ball back across Harutyunyan into the bottom right hand corner to the delight of the home crowd.

They continued to threaten and started to dominate the game with goalscorer Kennedy this time testing the keeper from distance.

Rangers winger McKay then added a third on 67 minutes with a curling left foot effort from the edge of the box into the far bottom corner past the surprised keeper.

The win was sealed moments later when MacLeod was played through by McKay for the fourth, smashing the ball in to the top of the net at an angle.

Scotland: J Hamilton, Grimmer, Fraser, Findlay, Chalmers, Macleod, Herron (Reilly), Petrie (Smith), McKay, Kennedy (Gauld), Feruz

Armenia: Harutyunyan, Minasyan, Shakhnazaryan, Loretsyan, Yeganyan, Bakalyan (Ananyan), Petrosyan (Levonyan), Ayvazyan, Papikyan, Malakyan, Shahinyan.