Keith Jackson

HOW stupid of us to think it might be different this time. Are we fated never to learn as well as destined always to fail?

What on earth made us believe this was our night or that Leigh Griffiths’s opening goal was all we required to stamp our tickets into the final round of eliminators for the next World Cup?

Another one that will now pass us by while blowing kisses at so many others.

From Russia with love? These romantic scripts were never meant for the likes of us.

If ever there was a country whose narrative was written by Mills and Doom then surely it is ours.

A never-ending story of near things and heartaches, the latest chapter of which was penned right here in a Slovenian sleepy hollow last night.

And it was the stuff of nightmares.

Two second-half goals scored by a half-time after-thought sub Roman Bezjak. The modern-day Albert Kidd minus the moustache. A dream wrecker of historic proportions.

His first goal was excruciating and made even more so by the fact it came from a free-kick that should probably never have been given.

Awarded by a referee who, according to Gordon Strachan in a previous life, should probably never have been here.

His second took eye-watering to a whole new level. The final nail in a coffin that was not meant for Scotland.

We had not come here for another death march. This was supposed to be our time.

And why shouldn’t it be? First Brexit then President Trump.

Not even in this parallel universe can Scotland qualify for a World Cup.

That Robert Snodgrass came off the bench to level the scores in the dying embers of this match never made the pain any less bearable. On the contrary, somehow it made it even sorer. As if that were even possible.

And now the backlash will follow. This was a sub-standard Scotland performance masquerading as glorious failure. The inquest will be savage and there will be a queue of Strachan bashers rushing to blame it all on the man in charge. We’re Scottish. Of course there will.

His critics were too churlish to give Scotland’s manager the credit he deserved for overseeing this remarkable revival so now it faltered at the final hurdle they will demand he steps aside.

They wanted him gone before this campaign began and they have seen nothing to make them change their minds.

So entrenched is their position they might have struggled to celebrate Griffiths’s stunning breakthrough moment but let’s leave these soulless curmudgeons to their own misery.

The rest of us finally have reason to feel pride in being Scottish and for that we owe Strachan and his players our collective gratitude.

Yes, it ended horribly but Strachan and his players ended this section by amassing 14 points from the final 18 available to them.

This is the proof they are heading in the right direction together and why Strachan has done enough now to decide his own future. If he wants two more years – and the chance to lead us to Euro 2020 in our own back yard – he should be given the contract this morning.

But it is likely the manager will take a while to get over the agony he suffered on the sidelines last night before he is ready to make such a call.

This will have taken quite a toll on him. It certainly did on the rest of us. How dare we think it might end any other way?

The stage was perfectly set up for something out of the ordinary. A glorious success. Or another Scottish scar for life. It would be one or the other. That much we knew for sure.

And either way the memories created here would last an eternity for every single foot soldier from the invasion force that had been sweeping into the ancient Slovenian capital since Friday morning in astonishing numbers. If only they knew what was coming.

By yesterday afternoon, and in glorious sunshine, they had claimed both banks of the Ljubljanica river for themselves as well as all of its many bridges.

It made for a jaw-dropping contrast between the stunning scenic beauty of this medieval town centre and the, erm, unique sights and sounds of its exuberant captors from deepest darkest Fife and all points north.

They were coming alright. By the plane loads. But so too, shadowing them, was the pain.

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