Andy Robertson is convinced Steve Clarke’s Scotland can be Euro trailblazers and get out of their group.
The skipper is thrilled the national side have ended more than two decades of pain by getting back to the big time.
But he insists the side are not going along for a party and the manager has got the squad believing they can become the first Scotland side to reach the knockout stages of a major finals.
The Scots face a huge task with the Czech Republic and Croatia at Hampden – and a crunch clash with England at Wembley in between.
But Robbo has issued a Tartan Army rallying call as the squad gets ready to assemble on Thursday morning.
He said: “You have to believe. We’ve been able to change the mentality in the squad to one that believes.
“We believe we can cause bigger nations problems, we can beat similar nations to ourselves and the smaller nations we’re struggled against.
“We are not there to just make up the numbers.
“It is an incredibly tough group.
“We are there to try to get out the group and we need to believe that and we do believe that. If we can get off to a good start then who knows where it might take us.
“We will go into every game looking to win them. We need to go and attack this tournament. Now that we have qualified we need to go and compete in it.
“We need as many points as we can and hopefully get into the last 16 because it would be a huge achievement.”
Robertson hailed his gaffer Clarke for getting the nation going again.
He told PLZ Soccer: “He’s been genuinely unbelievable from the minute he came in. He’s been an absolute joy to work with.
“The gaffer has brought a new lease of life in to a Scotland squad that was doubting itself.
“There was a lack of belief in the squad. There were people doubting themselves in a Scotland jersey.
“The gaffer came in and said we were a good squad.
“From day one he said believed we’d get to a major tournament. Did he think it would happen at the first go? I’m not sure, you’d need to ask him.
“I believed him. I always believed. The person I am, I always felt this group of boys would be the ones that finally got us there.
“It was just doing it on the park.
“The first few months were tough and we didn’t get the results we wanted.
“But we were doing all the things in training and we started to get good results and finished the campaign strongly.
“We went all guns blazing in to the playoffs. We had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
“He’s been a breath of fresh air and really easy to work with as captain.
“Hopefully he’s the manager for a long time to come and we have more successful times like that night in Serbia.”
The Scotland squad will meet up today before jetting out to their camp in Spain, with warm up clashes with Holland and Luxembourg pencilled in for next week.
Robertson said: “We’ve never been to a pre-camp so it will be a nice feeling. Holland are one of the favourites so it will serve its purpose.
“Luxembourg will be tough in a different way but it will give us some game time and keep us match sharp so hopefully we’ll fly into the Czech game.
“I’ve not tried to think about the tournament too much and just concentrated on getting Champions League football for Liverpool.
“But last night I sat back and thought, ‘let’s do it!’”
Robertson will do the hard yards in camp but he’s counting down the days to turning out in front of the Tartan Army again, with more than 12,000 set to hit Hampden for the opener against the Czechs.
He said: “The last game in front of the fans was a long time ago and things were different then.
“There wasn’t many in that night against Cyprus, with maybe 15,000, but since then we’ve given them a boost during the covid times by qualifying.
“We’ve felt the Tartan Army love. We felt it in Serbia (in the shootout win), even being so far away, even to have a small portion in will mean everything to us.
“Hopefully we can give them something to cheer about.”
