THERE haven’t been this many bullets dodged since Keanu Reeves defied gravity in The Matrix.
All those chances Greece missed on Thursday night.
A potentially catastrophic Belarus equaliser here chalked off for the flimsiest of fouls.
Those many, many occasions on both nights when we were so, so, easy to carve open.
If Steve Clarke gets us to the World Cup next summer, he’ll be forever loved by millions.
Right now, though, it’s maybe more important that somebody up there likes him.
SAD STEVE
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But as our wildest dreams edge ever-closer to even wilder reality, forgive me for playing the killjoy – by warning that unless we start learning from the mistakes we keep on repeating, we’re fated to be cannon-fodder across the Pond.
If Holyrood had put a £1 tax on everyone who’s said these past few days that the performance doesn’t matter as long as we win, they’d have raised enough to rebuild Hampden.
Me? I cringe every time someone speaks or writes those words, because unless we examine every minute of every performance we put in – maybe even MORE so when we win – we’ll find it far harder to be better next time.
And unless Scotland KEEP getting better, minute after minute and game after game, we’ve no hope of punching above our weight on the big stage.
Sure, the league table doesn’t show HOW teams get their points, just that they get them.
Should we qualify, there won’t be an asterisk next to our name and a footnote reading: Rank rotten for long spells.
I get that. All I’m saying is that we need to take the tartan blinkers off and see the big picture – which is that WE need to recognise our failings, we need to be our fiercest critics.
That’s how the great players and the great teams get to the top, by demanding more and more of themselves, by refusing to bask in what they did last time, even if it was really special.
The worry for Scotland across this double-header is that, crucial wins or no crucial wins, is that we made the same mistakes in the second game as we had in the first.
You could almost taste the tension around the stands as we got off to pretty much the same start against the group whipping boys as we had against Greece.
We were very much on the back foot from the off, making it far too easy for a team who’d lost 6-0 to Denmark the other night to cut through us.
We even allowed a carbon copy move to the one that had seen saw Pavlidis miss a complete sitter the other night; this time, the danger evaporating thanks to no striker getting in at the far post for the ball across Angus Gunn.
We couldn’t get on the ball, couldn’t make our passes, were closed down far too quickly.
All in all, it simply wasn’t good enough, a fact reflected in the eerie hush that fell across the place for huge swathes of the game.
Good God, the 100th-best nation on earth had TWENTY attempts on our goal and finally put one away in stoppage time, thankfully once we were two up.
Sorry, but that can’t happen.
Our skipper being turned so easily for that goal can’t happen. Ditto the way he was caught on the back foot for the one that would have made it 1-1 with 25 to go.
Andy Robertson’s so much better than that. But he has to turn up and prove it – starting in Athens next month.
Scott McTominay stuck away the the goal that gave us breathing space, but until then you could easily have forgotten he was on the park.
A Ballon d’Or nominee and Serie A’s Player of the Year is much better than he’s shown in these two games.
But he also has to turn up and prove it – starting in Athens next month.
Ben Gannon-Doak’s movement is brilliant, his first touch is exceptional, his second movement tends to leave the full-back with twisted blood.
But all too often his final ball isn’t as good as it should be, way too often he needs to make better decisions at key moments.
He needs to go away and work tirelessly on giving himself the all-round game that would elevate him to genuine international class. They all do.
Come the final, crucial double-header, every one of Clarke’s player needs to be 10 to 15 percent better than they were in this one.
I love that, five minutes after time up, McTominay was big enough to admit this in a pitchside interview when he could easily have put those tartan blinkers on.
And make no mistake, I love that we find ourselves in a position we’d have bitten FIFA’s hand off to be in when the draw was made.
There’s no arguing that it’s looking good now.
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But it could still be so much better.
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