“I think a medal of some sort will come. I pray and hope that it is the gold one.” Ally MacLeod was never to live down his hubris of 1978. A Scotland loss to Peru and draw with Iran saw to that. Unlike MacLeod, Steve Clarke has never been prone to bold or rash predictions. Excitement will be left to everyone else. Who can reasonably deny them that?
In a last outing before a first World Cup appearance in 28 years, Scotland dismantled Bolivia. Suddenly, worries over a potentially tournament-defining joust with Haiti next weekend evaporated. If Clarke’s men are this ruthless and efficient when the proper stuff starts, they have a serious chance of emerging from the group phase for the first time in Scotland’s international history. This friendly, in theory an exercise in box-ticking, instead gave reasons for huge Scottish confidence. Scotland will remember their first ever game against Bolivia with great fondness.
