GENERATIONS of Scotland players will testify that representing your country means running a whole gamut of intensified emotions. The highs are euphoric, and rare, while the lows are crushing and plentiful.
As current national team captain Andy Robertson has licked his wounds over the last few days following the desperately disappointing World Cup play-off defeat to Ukraine, acknowledging the fact he has at least experienced the high of qualifying for a major tournament - unlike so many who went before him - has provided at least a little solace.
Reflecting on that moment when Steve Clarke’s men saw off Serbia on penalties to make the European Championships has also provided a target, and a fresh sense of impetus as the Scots try to lift themselves for the start of their UEFA Nations League Campaign against Armenia this week.
Robertson has had the plaudits that come with success and the panning that comes with failure, and he knows which feeling he prefers. He is determined to prove his coach Clarke correct in his prediction that this squad will regroup and regain their place on the big stage once more.
“I believe what the manager is saying,” Robertson said. “We are trying to build something.
“You need to take bumps in the road and this is a big one. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be [against Ukraine] but we have to use this as motivation in time.
“When it comes to campaigns, we need to use this as motivation to drive us forward. We know how we felt in Serbia, we know how we feel [on Wednesday] and there is a huge difference.
“We certainly want that Serbia feeling instead of what we are feeling just now.
“There will come a time for [perspective]. Just now, that’s probably for you guys to focus on, try to put a bit of perspective on it, but for us, we will do that in maybe the next couple of days. Just now, we have to be sore that we didn’t play our gameplan as well as we should have done.
“We didn’t play as well as we should have and what we prepared for. And when you do that, you are always disappointed. Our lads are disappointed. We have to pick them up.
“We’re all sore - coaches, players - and we have to allow that. It’s pointless trying to fix it right away.
“We will be back on the training pitch and hopefully good to go for another Nations League.”
For all the navel-gazing that has gone on though among players, coaches, fans and pundits alike since Wednesday night, there hasn’t been a clear reasoning put forward to explain just why Scotland played so poorly in such an important fixture.
All Robertson knows for sure is that it hurts, and the fact it cuts so deeply perhaps is no bad thing.
“We didn’t play to the levels that we played at in the last games at Hampden,” he said.
“We didn’t play to a level that the full crowd deserved. We didn’t really give them anything to shout about. We didn’t give them anything to get behind and make it a good atmosphere.
“We didn’t start the game well enough. We didn’t settle. They were keeping the ball. We couldn’t really get close to them. That was the way of it until probably the last 10-15 minutes when we threw the kitchen sink at it.
“We tried everything to get back into the game. We scored a crazy goal really and it gave us a bit of hope, but we didn’t really have a chance after that. A couple of long balls, a couple of flick-ons, but not really anything clearcut, which we needed.
“Let us be disappointed, let us be together and dwell on it - that’s absolutely fine. At least we have got time until the next game, which is sore. We wanted it to be a quick turnaround for the Wales game but it wasn’t to be and now we have a long wait for the Armenia game.
“I’ve no problem with the lads feeling hurt, feeling disappointed. In a couple of days, we will be ready to go again.
“We’ve got long enough to get over this disappointment and then to move on from it. We know how important the Nations League can be for us. We proved that in the last Euros when we managed to be successful in it, get the playoff and qualify through it.
“So, we know how important it is. We’ve got three more games now. This camp will always be disappointing regardless of what happens now because of what we’ve done [against Ukraine] but we can try to end it on a small high by trying to get positive results in the next three games.”
One theory that Robertson doesn’t subscribe to is that the emotion of the occasion got to the Scottish players on Wednesday night, or that their opposition possessed the greater will to win given what the tragic events that continue to unfold in their homeland.
“We were highly motivated, highly determined,” he said.
“It’s highly emotional to get to a World Cup. It’s something that this country doesn’t do very often. We don’t have many playoffs and things like that so we wanted to put in a performance, but we didn’t.
“For their part, you’ll need to ask one of their players how emotional they were. With everything going on in their country, they put in a good performance to make their country proud. Sometimes you have to take your hats off to them.
“I thought they played a really good game and caused us problems in areas where we were weak at that time.
“Every Scotland fan, everyone watching that game, knew we could play a lot better.”
