The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Fabulous Forrest brings
Scotland top group with help of hat-trick hero
Israel and are now promoted to League B for the next time this complex competition comes around.
Most importantly of all, however, they have booked a home semi-final in the play-offs and then it could be on to a final that will decide who wins the golden ticket to Euro 2020.
If that happens then Forrest will have played a starring role in getting the country to its first finals since the World Cup of France 98.
He scored a quite sublime treble – the goals arrived on 34, 43 and 64 minutes – to add to his two in Albania.
It hadn’t looked so good early on, though, with the Israelis taking the lead through a superb strike from former Celtic player Beram Kayal on just nine minutes.
There were also nerves shredded with 15 minutes to go when Israel’s Eran Zahavi fired home to make it 3-2.
However, thanks to on-fire Forrest the visitors just made it.
The transformation of the Scots squad due to call-offs and no-shows was clear at kick-off when a comparison was made with the starting line-up from the 2-1 defeat in Israel just last month.
Only three players were left in the team from that miserable night in Haifa – captain Andy Robertson, goalkeeper Allan McGregor and midfielder Callum McGregor.
That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, however. Indeed, it was with a sense of some relief that you looked at the team sheet and saw it would be the same side that played so well against Albania in Shkoder on Saturday night that would take the field for this one.
The Scots may have toiled in the Middle East but they actually came into this fixture with a good record in home competitive games. They had lost only one of their last 12 – and that was to Germany when they were world champions.
After a scrappy and tentative start, the match came alive in spectacular style on nine minutes.
Former Celtic player Kayal was the scorer and it was an absolute beauty of a goal – in modern parlance a worldie – that left the Tartan Army stunned.
The 30-year-old Brighton player was given far too much time and space from the home players, who sat off him as they probably thought there was little danger.
However, Kayal made the most of his splendid isolation by smacking home a strike that gave keeper McGregor, who may have been too far off his line at the point of impact, no chance.
The Scots were looking sluggish but,