Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Taking a kick in the Baltics
It was a result which, if truth be told, should not have come as a complete surprise to the nation.
Saturday night’s 1-1 draw with Lithuania was a blow to Scotland’s hopes of reaching the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
The atmosphere since that boot in the Baltics has been negative – belief and confidence that we can end our wait to appear at a major tournament slowly evaporating.
Of course, the mood of the nation might be a whole lot different if we picked up an unlikely three points in Slovakia last night.
We would be exactly where we needed to be after three games – with seven points on the board ahead of next month’s trip to England.
In that case, does it matter how they are obtained?
Well, yes. You see, the impact of drawing with minnows like Lithuania is that we should be on our guard for another failure later in this qualification campaign.
How will we do, for instance, when the Slovaks and Slovenians visit Hampden?
Taking it as read that England will finish top of the group, Scotland are fighting it out to be one of the eight second-placed teams to reach the play-offs.
Our path to that staging post, in this observer’s opinion, must include picking up a point last night and securing wins against Slovakia, Slovenia (twice), Malta and Lithuania – when we visit their patch.
The England games would, therefore, be bonus matches for us although that could change should one of our play-off rivals end up taking points off them.
Still, given our failure to reach Euro 2016, are we guilty of unreasonable expectations in thinking that Scotland should achieve second spot in this group, far less qualify for the big show?
The easier competition to qualify for was, clearly, Euro 2016.
And while this nation should expect to beat Lithuania, we have no right to believe that we should be qualifying for the next World Cup.
In some ways, I have sympathy for national team boss Gordon Strachan from whom more is now expected in a harder situation.
But then the mind wanders back to that cringeworthy night in Faro when he, the players, and the whole backroom staff had their photos taken in front of a Tartan Army whooping and cheering as if we had just qualified for Euro 2016 rather than had had our hopes extinguished even before the final group match.
Following Scotland continues to be a battle as hope, optimism, and blind faith is undercut by realism.
Ending our 18-year tournament drought will not be easy.
It will be a 20-year absence come the start of the next World Cup.
However, beating the likes of Lithuania is simply a must if we are to end the barren run.
That we failed means we are already vulnerable in this group – regardless of how we fared last night in Trnava.