SO THEN, JUST HOW DO WE GET THERE?

KEEP re-reading this and need to check it makes a degree of sense? Probably makes as much sense as Gordon Strachan’s genetics comment…

QUALIFYING FOR EURO 2020

As one campaign draws to a close, the talk now turns to Euro 2020. For Scotland, here is what they will need to do to qualify.

UEFA are edging away from redundant friendlies and will instead provide sides with a secondary route into the 24-team finals in the form of the Nations League, which will run from September to November 2018.

The Nations League coincides with the conventional qualifying campaign and provides nations with another opportunity to qualify for the tournament, which Scotland will co-host.

The 55 European nations will be split into four leagues —A, B, C and D — before each league is split into four sub-sections.

The four winners of each sub-section will then compete in a play-off for the single Euro 2020 slot available to each league.

The four divisional winners will then join the 20 teams who have already qualified — the top two teams from each of the ten regular groups — for the European Championship finals through the conventional route.

This means at least one team from each Nations League division will qualify for the European Championship finals.

Scotland currently sit alongside Romania, Hungary, Slovenia, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Greece, Norway, Israel, Bulgaria, Finland, Cyprus, Estonia and Lithuania in league C.

All make sense?