You don't need to stray far in Charlotte to find reminders of the city’s favourite son. Billy Graham was an evangelist and civil rights campaigner whose broadcasts and world tours sold out stadiums across the globe. In 2024 he played to a crowd of thousands in the OVO Hydro in Glasgow.
Seeking a miracle to preserve their slender World Cup hopes, it made sense for Scotland’s national football team to return to the home town of North Carolina’s Bible bashing baptist minister and indulge in the one activity which might help them now. Prayer.
A substitute in a sobering, deflating 3-0 defeat to Brazil in Miami, Kieran Tierney made a difference. His incursions down the left side created crossing chances which might have secured the single goal capable of delivering a divine intervention. With three points from the win over Haiti and a goal difference of minus two, Steve Clarke’s side might have crept into the table of eight best third placed finishers. Minus three feels like a bridge too far.
Before kick-off in Miami they found themselves second in the table. Shipping three goals - the first two from lamentable human errors - they slipped to sixth, ever closer to elimination. While FIFA should face questions over the sporting integrity of a 48-team format which incentivises teams like Algeria and Austria to play for a draw, Scotland can have no complaint if their race is run. They had their chance.
The deflation post-Brazil resurrected the emotions of Euro 2024 after losing to Hungary in the final game.
While they created chances, Alisson Becker in the Brazil goal dealt with them all and results elsewhere could see their first World Cup final appearance since 1998 end the same way as all the rest. With an early flight home.
“Back to the base, recover and hope and pray,” said Tierney of the team plan. "We're all professionals. We've been in good situations and bad situations before.
“Individually, everyone's got their own way of coping with it and dealing with it. We're flat. We know we could have done a lot better. It's not a great result for us.
“It means now we're waiting on other teams to do us favours, and all you can do now is hope. We’re waiting on favours, so we'll be supporting the teams that we need to support to get us through.”
It was Scotland’s misfortune to be in the only group featuring two teams in the top 10 of the FIFA rankings. While a kinder draw might have offered more hope of progress, history is becoming a millstone round the neck now. It weighs down generations of players and crushes the hopes and aspirations of supporters.
“We didn't want to be in this position; we wanted to do it ourselves,” Tierney concedes. “It was a really tough group, really tough draw, but we know ourselves - we could have done a lot better.”
Asked what they might have done better, the Celtic defender identifies individual errors. Against Morocco, then Brazil, defensive calamities in the early stages left them a mountain to climb. Three of the four goals lost in two games were preventable and, at the rarified level of a World Cup, mistakes are clinically punished.
“I think just the three goals; I think the third one could end up being a killer. The chances drop a lot from minus two goal difference to minus three.
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“The Morocco one was always going to be a hard game, but it was even harder after a minute when you're one down.
“We were unlucky not to get a goal in that game. That result wasn't a disaster. Brazil was the one where I feel like we could have done better.”
At the final whistle players applauded supporters behind the goal for what looks likely to be the final time. Steve Clarke, captain Andy Robertson and John McGinn expect to be taking an early flight home. As at Italia 90 there will be waiting and wondering and some quiet internal prayer, but finishing ninth in the quest for eight best third-place finisher slots would be a very Scottish way to end a World Cup finals. Another new way to fail.
The man whose goal sealed a night of glory at Hampden in November, midfielder Kenny McLean found it difficult to find the words at full-time.
"There are a lot of emotions right now. We gave it everything. Frustration and disappointment would be the two main ones. The goals were avoidable.
“We came here with an expectation of ourselves, which shows how far we’ve come. But if you make some of the mistakes we did at this level, you get punished. It’s a tough one to take.
"It’s hard to really legislate for errors like that. We know we need to be better. When you’re at this level in this environment, any defensive mistakes will be punished.”
There was always the expectation that Morocco and Brazil might end in defeat. The way in which Scotland lost both games grated with supporters who wanted to see the team have a go and show attacking endeavour.
Picking Lawrence Shankland and Ben Gannon-Doak did nothing to silence the voices jaded with Steve Clarke’s management. It did show a willingness to go out and have a go until the loss of a Keystone Cops goal after seven minutes. Five time winners of the World Cup Brazil might be the last team on the planet in need of favours from opponents.
“I think there are times when you also need to be realistic about the level of opposition,” added McLean. "We’re not always just going to go toe-to-toe with the best in the world.
"Ultimately, that’s the level we’re up against. It’s a World Cup and Brazil are a top team. That’s the level we want to push ourselves to.
"To think we can go out and press high against some of the best teams in the world and go toe-to-toe, it’s unrealistic. Could we have done more? Yes, probably.”
All there is left to do, then, is take a leaf from the book of Billy Graham and hope the gods of football deliver salvation.
