Critics of modern football, a group which is growing in size with every passing season, despair at how in-depth analysis of opposition teams has taken the unpredictability out of games at the very highest level.
Yet, Maurice Malpas, the legendary Dundee United left-back who played for his country at two World Cup finals during his long and distinguished career, is not among them.
Malpas was in the starting line-up when Scotland took on Costa Rica in their opening match at Italia ’90 and wishes to this day that he and his team mates had a far greater awareness of their rivals’ strengths and weaknesses than they did.
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“We were completely in the dark about them,” he said yesterday as he looked back on the infamous 1-0 defeat which Andy Roxbugh’s men suffered at the hands of Bora Milutinovic’s charges in the Stadio Luigi Ferraris in Genoa.
“We didn’t really see much of them before that game. I honestly can’t remember watching many videos of them at all. People today will say, ‘That can’t be true!’ But it is absolutely a fact. We didn’t have much of an idea about how they were going to play at all.
“I’m sure that somebody watched a couple of their games in the build up to the tournament. I’ve got no doubt that the manager and coaching staff received reports on them and tried to piece together how they were going to play beforehand. But we didn’t really know what to expect. That was just how it was in those days.”
For Malpas, the Scottish Football Hall of Fame member who won 55 caps for his country during the 1980s and 1990s, the forensic detail which players are provided with today about the side they are going to be facing is a considerable improvement on what happened before.
It is also the reason why he is confident that Scotland will avoid the humiliation their predecessors suffered 36 years ago and get their World Cup ’26 campaign up and running with a priceless victory over Haiti in the Gillette Stadium in Foxborough this Saturday.
“The biggest difference now is the information you can get before you play,” he said. “You know the players' shoe sizes now. We were lucky to get the players’ names or numbers in my day. I’m sure the Scotland players will know exactly what to expect and won’t be surprised by anything they come up against.
“With the information that is available from every game nowadays, it's quite easy to go back and see what team has done what. You can't surprise anybody nowadays.”
The meeting with the Caribbean nation has been compared by many fans and commentators to the encounter with the unknown Central American entity at Italia ’90 since the Group C fourth seeded side thrashed New Zealand 4-0 in a warm-up friendly last week.
Malpas, who also played for Scotland at the Mexico ’86 and Euro ’92 finals, believes that Andy Robertson and his compatriots are right be wary of the threat which Haiti, even though they are in 83rd place in the current FIFA World Rankings, will pose.
“There's never an easy game in the World Cup,” he said. I don’t care what anybody says. People say there are easy games, but there's never an easy game. It's only an easy game once you've won it.
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“We didn’t take Costa Rica lightly before we played them, but they got a goal in the second half and we couldn't score. Sure, we missed a couple of chances near the death. But on the day they were the better side than us, simple as that.
“I think that Scotland have got to make sure they go and play in a manner that can win them the game. The way the format is now, a win is massive. A win was massive when we played, but a win now virtually takes you into the next stage.
“I’m sure Stevie will be making sure they're difficult to play against, like every other game they play. But I'm also sure he'll be making sure they've got enough going forward and can put the other team under pressure as well. That will be absolutely crucial to them getting the result they need.”
Scoring goals has not been an issue for Scotland in their World Cup warm-up games – they thrashed Curacao 4-1 at Hampden last month before they jetted out to the United States and then hammered Bolivia 4-0 at the Sports Illustrated Stadium in New Jersey last weekend.
However, Malpas saw at close quarters how difficult Maurice Johnston - the Rangers striker who netted six times, including a double in a 2-0 triumph over France, during Italia ’90 qualifying - found it to find the target from open play once he got to the tournament proper and stressed that the national team must be totally ruthless in attack in order to prevail.
“In qualifying games, you might get five or six chances in a match,” he said. “If you score one or two of them then the game is done and dusted. But when it comes to a World Cup itself you don’t get as many, maybe just two or three in the course of the 90 minutes. There is a huge difference really when you get to that level.
“A lot of teams end up losing 1-0. We lost 1-0 to both Costa Rica and Brazil at Italia ’90. In our last game against Brazil we were quite comfortable too. It comes down to a shot, a save, small things.
“You think you are doing okay and then all of a sudden you aren’t doing okay and then your mindset has to change. You end up chasing goals. It’s hard to describe if you’ve never been there. I'm sure Scotland will be very wary of going silly, but they'll be aware that scoring a goal is a massive thing as well.”
Malpas was impressed by the form that Lawrence Shankland, the former Dundee United striker who moved from Hearts to Rangers last month, showed in the warm-up friendlies and is optimistic that he and Che Adams will be able to provide the cutting edge in the final third which Scotland need to reach the knockout rounds for the first time in their history.
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“We've got strikers who can score goals,” he said. “When we've struggled in the past, and I'm not just talking about Clarke’s teams, it's been because we haven't got enough balls into the box. If you don't get the ball in the box you never score.
“Shankland's one of those guys who could be having an absolute beast and still goes and scores a wonderful goal. He's one of the lads who has got tons of confidence in the box. When he gets a touch he gets a shot way. He's scored goals out of nothing for Hearts this season. When they were struggling in games, he popped up and scored.
“He's not the best outside the box. But he would say himself he isn't the best outside the box. He isn’t that type of striker. If you get the ball to him in the box he will score goals. Che Adams is not dissimilar to him.
“But every team needs players like that so they have a chance to score a goal. It gives a lift to the team when they do and our fans will carry us a fair bit over in the States. We just need to make sure we get the ball into the opposition box.”
