A CHANCE TO BECOME LEGENDS
With the Scottish Premiership season now consigned to the history books, and St Mirren’s top flight status safely secured thanks to a record points haul, the attention in Scottish football has quickly switched to Euro 2020.
Not since 1998 has the country’s men’s side qualified for a major tournament, when Craig Brown’s team opened up France ‘ 98 against tournament favourites Brazil with an audience of millions watching worldwide.
The Tartan Army travelled in their thousands with perhaps the most depressing World Cup-inspired song of all time ringing in their ears - Del Amitri’s unfortunately prophetic ‘Don’t come home too soon’.
Alas, the kilted hordes were to be flying back to Scotland at the end of the group stage after a narrow defeat to Brazil, a 1-1 draw with Norway and a miserable 3-0 loss to Morocco.
It’s taken 23 long, arduous, often heartbreaking years to get back to playing with the big boys, but, finally, Scotland are back and ready to battle at the Euros next month.
The first major step in preparation came this week in the form of Steve Clarke’s squad announcement.
The former St Mirren defender has a calm, steely quality about himself and has made some big decisions.
While the majority of the squad largely picked itself, Clarke has selected three uncapped youngsters to inject some youth and vigour into his team.
It’s a really pleasing sight to see the talents of David Turnbull, Billy Gilmour and Nathan Patterson being rewarded for their exciting performances, regardless of their age.
Much like Jim Goodwin in Paisley this season, he has put his faith in the kids in the hope they repay him on the park.
While they might not get many minutes at the Euros, if any, the experience of being in the camp at a major tournament will stand them - and the country - in great stead going forward as we look to prove that this isn’t a once- in-a-blue-moon qualification.
In the heart of midfield, one of the very few stick-ons for the starting XI for that group stage opener against the Czech Republic is midfield maverick John McGinn. Super John McGinn, to give him his full title.
While St Mirren and Hibs are sometimes lambasted for talking about the talented Aston Villa man too much now he’s left the respective clubs, there’s absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t celebrate the fact he learned his trade at Love Street and Easter Road.
Especially the Buddies, who provided him the platform to take his love of football to a professional level as a kid.
He hasn’t looked back since, and will certainly be one to keep an eye on as Scotland look to achieve what they never have before in making it past the group stages of a major tournament.
Back in 1998, it was another Saints academy kid in Paul Lambert who formed the heart of the midfield as the country looked to boldly go where they had never tread before.
McGinn has spoken openly about his aspirations for this tournament.
Much like serial winners Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney, he’s not travelling just to make up the numbers.
Especially with home advantage in their opening and closing group matches, this Scotland team are aiming to make it into the latter stages of the competition.
And why shouldn’t they?
Yes, England and Croatia are rightly favourites to take up first and second spots.
But, as recent meetings with the Auld Enemy have proven, there’s never too much between these pair when they enter the fray.
Add in the fact that England have a habit of choking on the biggest stage and there’s no reason why McGinn and co can’t dream of picking up what would be a monumental victory at Wembley.
And while Croatia, of course, finished runners up in the World Cup in Russia in 2018, their recent results are much less impressive.
They opened up their qualifying campaign for Qatar 2022 with a loss to Slovenia, before only managing a narrow 1-0 win over minnows Cyprus.
Before that, they suffered losses to Sweden and Portugal, and a draw with Turkey.
So while Scotland have formidable opponents to come next month, they are certainly not unbeatable.
And if this group can make it through to the next round, they will rightly become the legends Clarke has challenged them to become.