The Tartan Army had amassed on the steps of Cologne’s monumental cathedral by lunchtime, belting out ‘No Scotland, No party’ – the joke being that there was no point heading into that vast place to pray, because it wasn’t big enough for the help the country needed.
The sun came out as they drifted out towards Innenstadt and up to the stadium and long before kick-off approached, the supreme, infectious Scottish optimism was back. Even those too young to remember it were being forcibly reminded about the Boys of ’96.
The Scotland team, that is, who beat Switzerland 1-0 in the European Championship in Birmingham that summer, keeping alive the hope of progress to the knock-out rounds. Scotland haven’t won a tournament match since.
Well, they’re still waiting for that win, though what happened here on Wednesday night certainly felt like one, as a tide of royal blue support on the banks of Rhine lifted a team who had begun to look terribly threatened, and left them live to fight another day. Victory against Hungary in Stuttgart on Sunday could take Scotland to the knockout stages of a tournament for the first time, as one of the four best third placed teams who progress.
It will be a nervy four days even they do win that game. Four points should be enough to take them through, though goal difference may count, and theirs, of course, is not pretty. Albania, like Scotland, have one point from two games, though must still play Spain.
Scott McTominay’s shot deflected off Fabian Schar to give Scotland an early lead
Xherdan Shaqiri restored parity and spoiled Scotland’s party with a stunning first-time strike
In the cold light of day, there will also be the question of Scotland’s defence – shorn of Kieran Tierney, who was stretchered off with a torn hamstring, sustained as he fought to keep out the dangerous Swiss striker Dan Ndoye. ‘It looks pretty bad,’ Steve Clarke said. ‘He won’t play the next game for sure.’ His tournament seems over, with Scott McKenna, on loan from Nottingham Forest at FC Copenhagen, now in contention. Clarke may opt to move to a four-man defence.
Tierney is the one elite component of a Scottish defence which had shipped 26 goals in 10 games and looked vulnerable again. Switzerland’s equaliser came as the defence attempted to play triangles, to catastrophic effect. Two weak touches preceded Anthony Ralston effectively playing the ball into the path of Xherdan Shaqiri, who executed an exquisite finish. The equaliser was a grievous blow, because Scotland has seemed to rediscover the spirit of their qualification campaign by then.
You would not say it was a European sophistication from Scotland. Just direct, vertical, muscular highly effective football. And it worked. ‘This is how we play. This is how we work,’ Clarke reflected late last night. ‘The aggression, the fight, the dirty side of the game if you like. But we can also play.’
There was also the mercurial skill of Billy Gilmour who was recalled to midfield – and who should never have been absent from it against the Germans in the first place – finding the spaces and the passes between the lines. No player was more involved or more creative.
Yes, Scotland’s opening goal was a moment of extreme good fortune – Scott McTominay’s strike deflecting off defender Fabian Schar – but Brighton and Hove Albion’s Gilmour played a key role in the build-up. His chest control on the half-way line, facing back his own goal, and measured pass sent Andy Robertson galloping away. The captain seemed to fractionally overhit the pass to Callum McGregor, who turned back to weigh the ball inside for McTominay to strike.
Scotland were on the rack after the equaliser and it was hard not to fear for them in the face of swift, precise elegant Swiss counter-attack. The Scottish nation held its breath as Ruben Vargas slipped a reverse pass to Dan Ndoye on the overlap, watching him glide around Kieran Tierney and unfurl a pass that Angus Gunn palmed away.
It was the Tartan Army who lifted things again – maintaining a noise the likes of which this tournament simply has not seen. ‘Oh Scott McTominay!’ they sing. ‘I love him ’til my heart aches. He loves the Tartan Army. He turned the English down!’
It does not always happen in football, though on this occasion, the energy really did transmit from stand to pitch. There was a level of aggression which simply had not been seen in that desperate defeat last Friday.
Steve Clarke needed a response after a 5-1 shellacking by Germany on the opening night
If Scotland beat Hungary, they will have a good chance of qualifying from their group
Kieran Tierney was distraught as he was stretchered off with an injury in the second half
Ndoye had a goal ruled out in the first half as Scotland breathed a huge sigh of relief
It was an even greater relief when Breel Embolo had a late goal ruled out for offside
It was McTominay who brought the side’s greatest attacking threats. He was the one who won the free-kick on the right side of the Swiss box, despatched by Robertson, at which Grant Hanley, racing ahead of Schar, threw himself. The ball crashed against the base of the Yann Sommer’s right post.
Robertson, who has struggled defensively for Scotland in the past six months, was back at his best. McGregor put in a huge midfield shift. Clarke removed Gilmour for Kenny McClean, insisting later that ‘the little man was tired.’ In truth, he looked like he could have run all night.
‘This is the way we’ve been playing as a team over the last three or four years,’ Clarke reflected afterwards. ‘We knew what we had to do. Get back to what we’re good at. Working hard.’
When the whistle blew, McTominay was on his haunches, red-faced with the effort which leaves Scotland safe in the knowledge that their team can still make a little piece of history. Where there’s life, there’s most certainly hope.