As the initial disappointment fades and the dust settles it's time to look ahead rather than backward when it comes to Scotland's Euro 2020 campaign.
The excitement for the tournament was punctured by a 2-0 loss to the Czech Republic, with Patrik Schick's double sending the Tartan Army home deflated.
Tournament football gives you the chance to get back on the horse right away and challenges don't come much bigger than Friday's clash with England.
Manager Steve Clarke takes his squad south to Wembley for the biggest match of his reign so far, and real facing scrutiny after the euphoria of qualifying.
Clearly the Auld Enemy will be favourites for the second group game, but here's what Scotland can do to give ourselves the best chance of a famous result.
Start Che Adams
The absence of Kieran Tierney was enforced and hugely damaging, but it was Clarke's decision not to start with Adams that raised eyebrows.
The Scotland boss instead went with Ryan Christie as a second striker, a decision that had most Tartan Army footsoldiers scratching their heads.
Perhaps the idea was to have Christie drop into the spaces behind the full-backs and stretch defensive midfielders Alex Kral and Tomas Soucek but if it was then it didn't work.
Clarke as good as admitted his mistake by taking Christie off for Adams at half-time, and the Southampton striker immediately looked a lot more lively.
The 24-year-old has pace and quality, as well as having shown a good link with Dykes in previous matches.
He has to start at Wembley.
Get Marshall deeper
Let's not take anything away from Patrik Schick, whose first time shot from almost 50 yards was stunning.
There's some blame to be attached to Jack Hendry too, who bizarrely looked to shoot when it wasn't remotely on.
Let's be honest though, David Marshall was far too far off his line for the Czech Republic's killer second goal.
It's all very well saying that the goalkeeper had to be there to sweep up any balls in behind a defence that pushed high looking to force the issue.
But Marshall was repeatedly seen a long way from home, so much so that Schick noticed in the first half and took his chance with aplomb in the second.
It was dismissed in the aftermath as a "one in a million" shot, though if you believe the expected goals (xG) model it was more like three in 100.
Against England you'd expect the defence won't be as high in any case, but Marshall has to be deeper in case Phil Foden or Harry Kane get any ideas...
Drop Stephen O'Donnell
There's no pleasure to be had in criticising O'Donnell who, for all his limitations, has rarely let Scotland down.
The Motherwell right-back gives everything for the shirt and was a regular in qualifying but he had a nightmare against the Czechs.
From an early touch off his heel which went out for a throw O'Donnell looked nervous, and as Andy Robertson yelled at his team-mates to "calm down" it wasn't hard to imagine that he was talking to the man on the other side of the pitch.
Clarke has James Forrest and Nathan Patterson who can play in that right wing-back role, and after a poor display on Monday you'd have to worry about O'Donnell's confidence as much as anything else.
He shouldn't be starting on Friday.
Get some shooting training in
For all the issues with the team selection and individual errors, Scotland weren't exactly played off the park by the Czechs.
They had 19 shots to the visitors' 10, 58 per cent of possession and an xG of 1.95 to 1.09.
All things being equal that should be enough for at least a point, but Scotland's finishing let them down badly.
Clarke joked about the issue after the narrow friendly win over Luxembourg as he said: "The thing I took out of it was that we didn’t do enough crossing and finishing practice!
"We had lots of chances. Dykes is a bit disappointed in himself that he didn’t get the match ball, he had so many chances and Che had a few as well.
“But I wanted a look at the two strikers and it was good to do that."
Chances will be harder to come by at Wembley but the England defence is far from impenetrable - it's vital any chances they give up are converted.
Give Gilmour a go
He was crucial in qualifying and has been a fine player for club and country in the past but the sight of Callum McGregor coming on as Scotland chased a goal was strange to say the least.
The Celtic man had surprisingly been dropped for Stuart Armstrong but the man most wanted to see come in was Billy Gilmour.
He may have just turned 20 but the Chelsea midfielder has played in huge games before and showed no fear on the biggest stages.
Gilmour showed in his two friendly appearances that he's never afraid to to take the ball and can take it forward too.
It would be a lot of pressure for his first start but if he's good enough he's old enough.
