With love? This was written by Mills and Gordon should stay
15,000 of them by later yesterday afternoon. They choked every cobbled backstreet, attacking the local lager as if their lives depended upon it.
Truly, this was something to behold not least for the bemused locals who – for 72 hours – had watched their own pavements being lined with tartan.
For them the World Cup was over. Now here it was turning up half cut on their doorstep. All hairy a **** and feathered hats.
The hope was they might extend their outstanding levels of welcoming and hospitality all the way to the Stozice Stadium, a purpose built arena that sits on the outskirts of the city and feels like Slovenia’s answer to the Tony Macaroni.
And it was here in this quaint, sleepy international outpost that Scotland’s destiny would be carved out. Of course it was.
Why wouldn’t it be? From the start this campaign has made no sense at all so why change now? Pink strips again, sir?
Don’t mind if we do. We’ve long since stepped through the looking glass where Group F is concerned.
What’s the worst that can happen?
And why not throw in a notoriously flaky Swedish ref with a litany of big-match blunders on his CV, a millionaire who officiates for a hobby and who Strachan once said should never be allowed to handle a top-level game again in European football, from the comparative comfort of an ITV sofa of course? Yeah, why not reunite both men here on Scotland’s night of nights? Just for giggles. Too much can be made of Jonas Eriksson’s decision to award the free-kick to Slovenia from which Bezjak pounced to cancel the Griffiths goal. It was soft. It was ridiculously so. But the truth is Scotland’s players ought to have defended it more robustly. Or Craig Gordon ought to have collected it. In the end this was a selfinflicted heartache. And even though that’s the worst possible kind, if Strachan is willing to give it another go then who knows what our futures might hold? You know, it might different the next time. be LanD... coME on ScoTLanD... coME on ScoTLanD... coME on ScoTLanD... coME on ScoTLanD... coME on ScoTLanD... coME on ScoTLanD... coME on ScoTLanD... coME on ScoTLanD... coME on ScoTLanD... coME on