Andy Robertson admits he could not bring himself to watch the start of the World Cup due to the disappointment of missing out with Scotland
And the Liverpool defender believes he only has two more chances to fulfil his dream of playing at the tournament.
The Scotland captain enjoyed some time off when domestic football stopped for the competition last month but Robertson concedes he had no interest in watching the group stage action during his family holiday.
The 28-year-old had been desperate to lead Scotland to the finals but the national team’s hopes of qualifying ended in a crushing play-off semi-final defeat to Ukraine in June.
Robertson said: “Difficult, not really watched it, to be honest – I tried to switch off from football for a couple of weeks.
“Slowly but surely the last couple of days I started watching a couple more of the games and things like that.
“I was obviously in the other part of the world where the time difference was a wee bit different, and I didn’t want to stay up and watch the games.
“I’ve watched all the games now – I want all the lads to do well. Darwin (Nunez) is already out, which is disappointing for him, but the other lads are going strong, and they look really good and their teams look really good.
“I want the boys here to go well.
“For Scotland it’s obviously difficult, we think we should’ve been there, but we didn’t perform the way we did in the play-off, which was disappointing from our point of view, and we have to deal with that.
“But yeah, look, the last couple of games I’ve watched you’ve seen the passion of the fans, passion of the players representing their country and the biggest tournament always is a massive, massive thing for you.
“I felt it representing my country at the Euros for the first time in a long, long time.
“The World Cup is the one that bites away at me. I’ll definitely have one more shot at it – maybe two, let’s see – but that’s in the future that’s for sure. It is something you want to achieve and something you want to be part of, and in the future that’s definitely a target of mine.”
Robertson was able to share his World Cup disappointment with Real Madrid and Austria player David Alaba during a chance meeting on holiday.
Speaking to Liverpoolfc.com, Robertson added: “When I went on holiday I actually bumped into David Alaba and he’s in a similar boat obviously playing with Austria.
“He said he’d been to a couple of Euros, but never been to a World Cup. We were both kind of talking that we were getting on a bit, so the chances are running out for us to qualify.”
