John McGinn admits Scotland were left with a Nations League hangover last time round after getting giddy on the high of their Serbian shoot-out success.
Now the Tartan Army favourite hopes the competition can offer up the country a much-needed curer as we struggle to shake off last week’s sobering World Cup exit.
Scotland have had mixed fortunes when it comes to UEFA’s latest international tournament.
The 2018-19 edition offered up a back-door pass to Euro 2020, an opening Steve Clarke ’s side took when they sent Serbia spinning on spot-kicks on that famous night in Belgrade.
That play-off final was delayed six months because of the Covid pandemic, meaning it was rescheduled just days before the Scots rounded off their 2020-21 Nations League campaign away to Slovakia and Israel.
Still drunk with the euphoria of reaching the nation’s first major tournament since 1998, Scotland's party mood after their boozy Belgrade celebrations was shattered as back to back defeats denied them top spot in their group and a guaranteed World Cup play-off place.
Clarke’s team went on to fight their way through to semi-finals by the traditional qualifying route before Ukraine dashed their Qatar dream.
A week on from that heartbreaking ending, the Scots must now pick themselves up again as they gear up for the start of the latest Nations League against Armenia tonight.
And Aston Villa ace McGinn has warned his side cannot afford to spill another opportunity with a wild card slot yet again on offer for Euro 2024.
Looking back on that night in Serbia, he said: “The celebrations were obviously huge at that point. We maybe got a bit too high after that, which was understandable.
“But we threw away the Nations League group at that point.
“However, we know how important it is as players and I think the supporters are starting to buy into it.
“It’s important that everyone can be as positive as possible on Wednesday night and take out last week’s disappointment on Armenia.
“In training you can see there’s a bit of anger there. But we’ve been training hard trying to put it right and I’m sure we will on Wednesday.
“We’ve been hurting the same way I’m sure the whole country and the supporters have been hurting because we know we’re capable of so much more.
“It’s been a hard week, definitely. Probably the toughest we’ve had as a group for a while as it’s been so positive with eight games unbeaten.
“But the reason why everyone is hurting, frustrated, angry is because we know we’re capable of so much more.
“On the night against Ukraine, we didn’t turn up - myself included.
“We all wanted to get to the World Cup. We had a dream of what we wanted to achieve.
“Now it’s a balance between using the hurt from the game to spur us on to get promoted in the Nations League and to make sure we’re in Germany in 2024.”
There’s an added bonus at stake in this year’s Nations League.
If Clarke’s men can finish top of their section - which also includes Sunday’s opponents Ireland and Ukraine - they’ll secure a Pot 2 seeding should they make the Euros in two year’s time.
“That’s something that’s not been done for a long, long time and that is a measure of our success over the last few years,” added McGinn in an SFA YouTube interview.
“It’s been success and we can’t forget that, so we need to use these games that helped us get to the Euros the last time.
“We obviously want to qualify directly but we need to progress and there are things we can improve on.
“It’s not an easy group. Armenia beat Ireland the other day. They’ll be very organised and hard to play against.
“But it’s three games we want to win and put this week right.”
Clarke admitted after last week’s Hampden agony that it was time for his side to suffer together and that’s what they’ve done in the difficult days since.
McGinn could barely bear to watch Sunday’s showdown between the Ukrainains and Wales that saw Gareth Bale and co secure their slot in Qatar.
But when the biggest show on earth rolls on again to the USA, Mexico and Canada in 2026, he hopes he'll finally get his shot.
He said: “Normally when you play a big game for your country, afterwards you go away back to your club and you don’t normally get that chance to sit and hurt together.
“So this is a unique situation. We had to be aware the game was (on TV) on Sunday night.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t watch it but I saw bits of it.
“But we’ve experienced that together now. We’ve had a chance to talk about it, what we could have done better at as a team.
“The good thing about this team is there’s no egos.
“There’s no-one saying, ‘We should have done this, he should have done that’. We’ve managed to weed out the blame and the finger pointing that doesn’t help anyone.
“We win together as a team and we lose together. Going forward, that will be a strength of ours. We need to keep supporting each other as we have been.
“We need to make sure we don’t let what we’ve built collapse over one result.
“The World Cup is still the dream and that’s why it’s still so raw. Being a wee guy growing up you want to be like the Scotland team of ’98 and get there.
“We came so close this time around but I’m sure the boys will still be around for 2026.
“First of all in our minds it’s about finishing top of the Nations League group, get ourselves into pot 2 for Germany in 2024 and build from there.
“Our aim is to qualify for the next two tournaments and we’re going to do whatever we can to do that.”
