BEFORE Tuesday night against England, Ryan Porteous must have thought this international football lark was a dawdle.
In his previous six caps, the former Hibernian centre back had been part of a defence that had allowed just one goal to get past them, and even that was a contentious penalty that Porteous himself conceded against Erling Haaland.
He knows different now. England gave the Scots a torrid time of it at Hampden, putting the back three under pressure all night with their runs in behind, particularly in the first half where Marcus Rashford and the imperious Jude Bellingham were sprinting onto balls aimed over Porteous’s head with gay abandon.
It was a sobering night for a Tartan Army who have been high on the euphoria surrounding the national team during their brilliant run of wins in their European Championship qualification campaign.
Porteous though sees no reason for the party to end on the back of that one result and performance, and instead believes that in the long run, the lessons they take from the chasing against a top four nation can be invaluable in enabling the Scots to take their game to the next level.
“Listen, this camp was all about getting three points against Cyprus and then testing ourselves against top opposition,” Porteous said.
“We’ve done that, and we’ve got to take from it what we can. The second half was positive, but we need to look at what went wrong in the first half.
“We lost slack goals and that’s something we’ve not been doing. You make mistakes against the top players and they will punish you.
“I don’t think we got our passing game going and while our press was decent, I think we could have been a bit braver on the ball. We didn’t really create too many chances and stretch the game enough.
“But in the second half, Ryan Christie was great when he came on, he showed that bravery on the ball and Robbo (Andy Robertson) too for the goal.
“It was a tough night, but there are plenty of positives to take from it.”
A willingness to look for the positives and maintain a sense of perspective will no doubt be essential for Scotland supporters to navigate the national side’s next two fixtures too, with the return game against Spain in Seville and an away friendly against France next month.
“This is the level we want to compete at and the next two games aren’t going to be any easier,” he said.
“But we will learn more by testing ourselves against Pot 1 teams than say the so-called lesser sides.
“We don’t want to learn by losing, though. Sometimes in football the best way to learn is by winning.
“But we’ll take what we can from the game. We all know we are capable of more than that.
“In the last few years we have shown we can compete, look at the Spain game where we competed for 90 minutes. It just wasn’t our night.
“It was a special night for myself, playing against England at Hampden. It would have been nice to cap it off with a good result. It’s a special moment to play in these games, but it’s bittersweet.
“But as I said, the clear message coming into camp was to get the three points against Cyprus.
“Unfortunately for large parts of the game against England we weren’t able to show what we are capable of.
“There are still positives to take. You learn on nights like that. You are always going to grow as a player when you come up against top opposition.
“When you come into camp, you’re also playing with top teammates.
“It’s always a good experience, but this is something we need to learn from.”
As the Scotland players trudged off the pitch and the fans gloomily filed out of Hampden on Tuesday night, there was almost a huge twist in the tale as Georgia pulled a late goal back in Norway. Had they managed a dramatic equaliser, Scotland’s qualification for Germany would have been sealed, and a party no doubt would have replaced the ongoing wake.
Porteous doesn’t mind though that we have been made to wait, though he would rather the Scots got over the line at the next time of asking by gaining at least a point in Seville.
“We have all been getting excited but it’s another month to wait,” he said.
“We are not quite there yet, so we need to regroup and be focused coming into the next camp because there are still big games to play.”
