Any mention of Costa Rica, Peru or the Faroe Islands will prompt a shudder among otherwise jovial followers of Scotland to a far greater extent than Georgia ever could. Still, the return of the Scots to Tbilisi evokes wounding memories from 2007 within the Glengarry-wearing hordes of the Tartan Army.
Then, as now, Scotland held a realistic chance of progressing to the finals of the European Championship. A 2-0 defeat by Georgia meant a Glasgow victory over Italy was necessary to prolong the dream. The rest need not be explained. This time it is the world champions, Germany, who lie in wait for the second part of Scotland’s key double-header.
Alex McLeish, the then Scotland manager, has never hidden his regret over the events here eight years ago. James McFadden, a member of McLeish’s team, spoke this week of a defeat that “will never leave me”. What is surely in favour of Gordon Strachan’s class of 2015 is the warning from what has gone before.
The manager, unsurprisingly, distanced himself from the widely uttered sentiment that matches against international football’s lesser lights are precisely the ones Scotland are likely to stumble in. “You could say that about any nation,” Strachan said. “If you look around there are always games where every fan, critic or manager says, ‘We should have won that or got something from that,’ but that’s always going to happen.
“That’s the nature of the game. Our thought at the moment is winning this one.”
The ghosts of Georgia past are not lost on the current Scotland captain, Scott Brown, and his ambition is to banish them. “Of course it would be agonising if we didn’t make it to the finals but that’s thinking about the negatives and we need to think positive,” Brown said.
“We hear so many people being negative about Scottish football in general, especially over the last couple of weeks, with European results and whatever, so we need to believe in ourselves more than ever.
“People are always looking for the banana skin – but it’s our job to think different, to get the rest of the country believing in us and in the Scottish game. The game’s been through hard times and we need to pick it up somehow.”
Regular hints of progress under Strachan are offset by the fact that his Scottish team are yet to achieve anything tangible. The 58-year-old has been consistent with his viewpoint that Group D presents the sternest of Euro 2016 qualifying tests. Germany’s meeting with Poland later on Friday evening presents opportunity for Scotland; as long as they do not falter again in Georgia.
“There is a bit of satisfaction, knowing that sometimes we’re out of the running by this point,” Strachan said. “Then everything is negative but it’s still all positive in terms of performances and the excitement for everybody. There are a lot of groups where fans, coaches and journalists are thinking, ‘This is boring now,’ but this is one where we’re one of four teams who can qualify.
“I’d like a lot easier group, absolutely, but this is it. If it wasn’t for the players doing so well, then we’d be out of it. We’ve played the world champions, the Poles, who are improving, and the Republic of Ireland, who are tough, but I think we can take solace from the fact we’ve improved, too, over the last 18 months.
“I know the closer we get the more excited people become but I don’t know if that puts more pressure on us. If you think about it, the pressure was really on us a year ago at the start of the campaign because, if you don’t do well in your first two games, it’s finished already, gone.
“So I don’t think the pressure is more right now than it was the day before we played Germany in our opening game or the day before we played Georgia at Ibrox.”
Georgia’s manager, Kakhaber Tskhadadze, played for the Commonwealth of Independent States – previously the Soviet Union before the start of its break-up – in the defeat by Scotland at the 1992 European Championship in Sweden.
Although the Georgians have taken only three points from a possible 18 in this group, they have provided stuffy opposition. Only a wonderful, last-minute Aiden McGeady goal sealed a win for the Republic of Ireland here, that Ibrox encounter to which Strachan referred was settled by a single goal and Robert Lewandowski scored a hat-trick from the 89th-minute onwards as Poland beat Georgia 4-0 in June.
Despite indifferent form at Sunderland, Steven Fletcher is likely to be the player to whom Strachan turns once again to lead the Scottish attack. More intriguing will be what happens elsewhere, with the pace of James Forrest undoubtedly a temptation for the manager. If Forrest starts, one of Shaun Maloney, Steven Naismith and Ikechi Anya would have to be sacrificed.
Stifling Tbilisi heat may be of more concern to Strachan than personnel choices. The Scots trained twice on Thursday in an attempt to acclimatise. “We are a nation that’s on the go all the time,” Strachan said. “We do everything quickly. It’s very hard for us to slow down. We talk quickly, we eat quickly – everything we do is quick.
“We like to play at a tempo but there are times when that tempo doesn’t help you. Sometimes we have to slow it down a bit. We always want to get the ball and go there as quick as you can. Sometimes you can’t go as quick as you can.
“That’s something we work on in training all the time, to try and calm us down.”
Probable teams for Friday’s Euro 2016 qualifier, 5pm BST kick-off
Georgia: 3-5-2 Loria; Lobjanidze, Kashia, Kverkvelia; Amisulashvili, Navalovski, Kazaishvili, Kankava, Ananidze; Okriashvili, Mchedlidze.
Scotland: 4-2-3-1 Marshall; Hutton, Martin, Mulgrew, Whittaker; Brown, Morrison; Forrest, Maloney, Anya; S Fletcher.
Referee O Hategan (Romania)
