It's like John Gordon Sinclair all over again. He had a dream back in 1982 but maybe this is a premonition.
Scotland back among the big boys at a major tournament.
Maybe it’s delusion but, hey, let’s go with it.
Just imagine the scenes. We’ll have banners in George Square, thousands giving Nicola Sturgeon a fit by gathering there with tartan face masks and overflowing hip flasks.
The First Minister will turn a blind eye to Covid for a day or two to jump on the bandwagon as the nation rejoices with finally some good news this year.
Sure, the pubs are still gubbed but everyone will be out the back gardens tonight, carry outs getting rattled, cans getting lobbed over fences for the guy who smashed all his bevvy before we even got to the inevitable penalty shoot-out.
Oh please let it be... We’ve earned this.
Twenty two blooming years we’ve waited. The last time Scotland got to a major tournie we didn’t even have mobile phones.
In 1998 the biggest films were Armageddon and Deep Impact – can’t say we weren’t warned.
Blimey, it has been a tough two decades.
We’ve only even had a sniff a couple of times. The Holland first-leg win under Berti – followed by the second-leg scudding.
The Italy game with Eck. If only we’d had Trump’s lawyers on the case with those officials that day.
Our qualification campaigns have been tucked up in bed before the lights went out too many times.
Yet here we are. God bless UEFA and their bonkers Nations League. See off Albania and Israel a couple of times then beat Serbia this evening and we’re there. Simple.
OK, we know there are plenty of doomsday merchants who are predicting more inglorious failure tonight.
And of course they might be right. But now is the time to believe.
And it’s not like we’re up against a super power. Most folk in the street couldn’t name a player in their squad.
Oh, there’s Sergej Milinkovic-Savic from Lazio. And what? Celtic gubbed them twice last season. What about Luka Jovic at Real Madrid? Aye, he spends more time on the bench than a park jakey.
Aleksandar Mitrovic – he’s been on Match of the Day. Yeah, usually huffing around when Fulham are 4-0 down.
Dusan Tadic was decent at Southampton. So is Stuart Armstrong.
OK, that might be tempting fate but it’s a squad of relative jobbers with a couple of bits of quality. Not unlike our lot.
John Gordon Sinclair had a dream – we have faith we can end this nightmare.
