The Trial? This was an ordeal from start to finish...

SOMETIMES, the obvious plot simply doesn’t play out. Occasionally, even Scotland manage to rise above our lowest expectations.

In a much-disputed corner of Europe that gave the world Franz Kafka, Steve Clarke’s men barely avoided delivering an oppressively nightmarish and endlessly baffling storyline worthy of the great gloommonger himself.

Faced by a Fortuna Liga Select who represented one of the weakest — certainly the most ill-prepared — teams to have taken the field in a competitive international, the Scots did just enough to avoid complete humiliation. Yay for us. It really has come to this.

What a scrappy, trashy, by-the-skin-of-our-teeth victory in Olomouc means for our Nations League campaign is a question that won’t be answered for a while yet.

How this performance and result affect confidence ahead of next month’s Euro 2020/21 play-offs is a more pertinent area of concern.

The best we can say is that Clarke’s team showed character in abundance. They had to.

Conceding after just 11 minutes, a horrific moment to provoke flashbacks involving Costa Rica, the Faroe Islands and every other bunch of alsorans to have embarrassed us down the decades, was certainly the kind of blow that might have caused Scotland to collapse.

Nice finish by the boy Jakub Pesek. Sweet pass by Stanislav Tecl, too. Not such a sharp bit of marking by Scott McTominay.

The really infuriating thing about falling behind so early? That, after all the fuss surrounding this fixture, Scotland were on course to become laughing stocks in the eyes of the entire world.

All over Europe, certainly, football fans would have been laughing like drains and cheering on the ballsy boys of Bohemia. There could be no doubt of where neutral sympathies lay.

After all, the Czechs had come in for some fairly harsh criticism over recent days. Branded amateurs incapable of organising a pilsner-up in a Prague hostelry.

Yet, as far as we know, none of their players did anything ridiculous… like inviting girls back to their hermetically-sealed hotel. They just got unlucky.

Even for a people used to being pushed around, carved up and belittled by European superpowers down the years, their treatment by UEFA must have felt a little on the pointed side of sharp.

They clearly intended to use that sense of injustice to fire up the group of near-anonymous volunteers who answered the call-up.

And, of course, much was made of how this all-new squad might throw Scotland a curveball. As if we haven’t moved on from the days when Ally MacLeod couldn’t locate even a single minute of game footage involving Iran’s 1978 World Cup squad.

Technology meant Clarke would have been forewarned and forearmed. And the Scotland gaffer, with his five changes to Friday night’s starting XI, clearly decided to play our hosts at their own game.

Keep ’em guessing, Clarkey. Give the other lot something to worry about. Throw John Fleck into the starting XI.

Playing in a brand new away kit — the maroon monstrosity of Tbilisi, anyone? — and sticking with the unfamiliar back three that has annoyed so many armchair tacticians, the visitors did not exactly come flying out of the blocks. Stumbling over their own feet, more like.

Still, after the entirely predictable early setback, the Scots did rally. For a spell, Andy Robertson and Liam Palmer looked capable of breaking in behind the local defences at will, proving the merit in playing wing-backs.

It never worked better than when Palmer put in a beautiful cross for Dykes to bag the equaliser. What a finish from the big man, too. He’ll do.

Yet, as intermittently good as the Scots looked going forward, David Marshall clearly wanted to batter many of his team-mates for simply letting the Czechs shoot at will. How many chances did we want to give them?

Thank heavens for Robertson’s ability going forward. And a clumsy challenge that was definitely inside the box. No doubt about it.

Thank the Lord for Ryan Christie’s coolness from the spot, too. Without that, this Nations League campaign might have been over before it had begun.

Even at 2-1 up, watching this was absolute torture. Dropping deep and inviting pressure, giving away free-kicks in dangerous areas… it was murderously tense.

Had Tecl not missed a sitter of Chris Iwelumo proportions, it would have been squared up. With plenty of time and momentum left for the Czechs to go on and win.

Late on, we were relying on headers hitting the wrong side of the post and substitute John McGinn buying a free-kick to alleviate pressure. Murder. Pure murder.

Thank heavens for small mercies, though. Let’s at least try to look on the bright side.

For that play-off semi-final against Israel, a positive Covid test or two might force some stand-in boss — Billy Stark, perhaps — to field a select drawn entirely from mid-ranking Scottish Premiership sides. Could they do much worse?

And, once we get to the final, well, it’s probably going to be Norway away.

Now, how did they get on against Northern Ireland last night? A 5-1 win. Ah, right. Suddenly, re-reading Kafka’s

The Trial seems like a pleasant alternative.