Scotland's last meeting with Morocco offered a telling insight into the nation’s acceptance of failure at the World Cup finals.
On June 23 1998, Craig Brown’s team faced the North African nation in St Etienne. The two teams needed a win to secure progress to the knock-out stage of France 98.
It was apparent by half-time that the only team winning the game were Morocco. Leading 2-0 at the interval, a red card for Craig Burley early in the second half ended any remote prospect of a Scotland fightback.
In the Pitcher and Piano bar in Glasgow city centre, supporters reacted to a 3-0 defeat as they so often do. The screen went blank, the disco lights came on, and the dancing began.
‘No Scotland, No Party’ has become a coping mechanism for disappointment. A means of shrugging aside frustration and dismal results on the biggest footballing stage of all and drowning the nation’s sorrow in a waterfall of alcohol.
The Tartan Army have embraced that approach this week, winning the hearts and minds of the people of Boston with their good-natured support of the national team. Victory over Haiti brought no pyrotechnics, no pitch invasions, no rampaging through the streets. Only the sense that, this time, they might actually have something to celebrate other than failure.
Steve Clarke can’t recall where he was the night of that defeat in 1998. Irked by being left out of the squad, he had other things on his mind. "I was still working out that summer what I was going to do with my career moving forward.
"I'd been told that I was going to become a player-coach and not a player, which is normally manager speak for ‘you're not playing next year’.
"So, I was just getting my head round that at the time.”
By his own admission, tournament football has been a mixed bag on his watch. If nothing else, matchday two has brought a form of redemption. The shaft of light before the darkness.
The national team lost the opening game against the Czech Republic at Hampden at the COVID-delayed Euros in 2021, then clawed their way back into contention with a 0-0 draw against England at Wembley.
The front two that night was Lyndon Dykes and Kevin Nisbet, while Stephen O’Donnell tucked Jack Grealish into his back pocket and came close to scoring a winner. No one saw that coming.
A 5-1 thumping from Germany two years ago felt irretrievable, and so it proved. Scott McTominay scored a deflected strike in the second game against Switzerland before Anthony Ralston - Celtic’s second choice right-back - gift-wrapped a chance for Xherdan Shaqiri to equalise.
The point counted for nothing when they lost to Hungary.
Asked why his side seem to perform better in the second game of these events, Clarke batted the question back. "To explain is really easy because we messed up the first game in both of them.
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"We knew we then had to give ourselves a chance going into the third game of the tournament; we had to get some kind of result, which we managed to do in both games, both draws. It gave us some hope going into the last game.
"If we can repeat those middle-game performances against a very good Morocco side, then we're all a bit happy."
Losing the opening game of a World Cup can leave a team chasing their tail like a ravenous dog. However fast they run, however hard they spin, they never quite find a way to sink their fangs into the red meat of the tournament.
This one might be different. For all the carping and all the criticism over the lack of second-half control against Haiti, the national team won the opening game of a finals for the first time since Jock Stein was boss at Spain ‘82.
The pressure, the feeling of playing catch-up, the tightness and expectation is gone, and the Scots have two chances to get the single point they need to make history. The fact that few expect them to do much against Morocco or Brazil helps.
Pretty much the only thing they got right in the back-to-back appearances at the last two Euros was the second game, and if they get this one right as well, they will boldly go where no Scotland team has ever gone before; to the knock-out stages of a major international tournament.
No one thinks the task will be easy. Morocco are seventh in the FIFA rankings while Brazil - the next opponents in the heat of Miami - are sixth. The 18-year-old midfield protege Ayyoub Bouaddi, linked with Arsenal and Liverpool, made Brazilian superstar Casemiro look - and feel - older than his 34 years.
A former France youth international, Bouaddi recently switched nationalities and global migration, changes to FIFA eligibility rules and aggressive scouting of diaspora talent is already having an impact on this World Cup.
Over the last 20 years, African nations have turned to migrant communities in Europe for their players. All 11 of the Atlas Lions starters against Brazil were born outside the country and developed at European clubs, save for Canadian-born - and home-grown - goalkeeper Yassine Bounou.
Since winning the African Nations by default after Senegal’s expulsion, coach Mohamed Ouahbi has added Fulham defender Issa Diop - who, ironically, is half Senegalese - while Bouaddi’s switch was only approved by FIFA on May 15.
Four years ago, Morocco were the World Cup surprise package when they beat Belgium, Spain and Portugal on their way to the semi-finals, where they lost 2-0 to France. Since then the coach who brought them that success, Walid Reragui, has gone.
Ouahbi led Morocco to the Under-20 World Cup, and Bouaddi is one of a new generation of players brought in to augment Paris St Germain superstar Achraf Hakimi and Real Madrid’s Brahim Diaz, whose pinpoint through ball teed up the team’s first goal of the tournament for Ismael Saibari against Brazil.
Spanish-born Diaz is the poster boy of a team which finished the Brazil game with six players under 23 on the pitch. Former midfielder Hassan Kachloul describes the team as ‘the Morocco of today, but also the Morocco of tomorrow.‘
“Any time you play a team that’s inside the world’s top ten, you know you are going to have to be good at what you do without the ball,” said Clarke. “You’re going to have to be good at what you do with the ball. So we are under no illusions about the size of the task.
“Morocco are a really, really good side. They reached the last four of the last World Cup, and I have a feeling this Moroccan team is probably slightly better than that, so that gives you an idea of the task ahead.”
