Crestfallen Ryan Christie admits he can’t bear to watch Sunday’s World Cup decider between Wales and Ukraine as he struggles to come to terms with seeing Scotland’s own Qatar dreams dashed.
The Bournemouth ace was praying it would be Steve Clarke’s team heading down to Cardiff for a shot at glory this weekend.
But those hopes were crushed as Oleksandr Petrakov’s brave Ukraine side swept to the victory that leaves them just 90 minutes away from a place at this winter’s global extravaganza.
The Ukrainians were treated to a warm round of applause as the final whistle blew on Wednesday’s 3-1 Hampden win, with the Tartan Army showing their support for the war-hit nation.
But while Christie will now wish both Ukraine and Wales well, the dejected forward admits tuning into the action might be just too painful to stomach.
“To be honest, I don’t even know if I’ll be able to watch that one,” said the former Celtic and Aberdeen playmaker.
“It would be a tough one to look at what could have been.
“We certainly didn’t want to look too far ahead as we knew how big a game Ukraine was.
“We were hoping that we were the team that was going to Cardiff. It’s not to be so whoever goes through will deserve it.”
The Scots were keen to stress in the build-up that they would not be found wanting in the motivation stakes as they came up against a side determined to provide their battle-scarred homeland with a beacon of hope.
But Clarke’s side simply could not cope with a side that possessed both an iron-clad spirit and precision technical ability.
“We weren’t surprised,” said Christie. “We’ve watched plenty of them on videos since March really.
“We knew how good a side they were. For those on the outside looking in, that’s probably something that was forgotten.
“The amount of emotion in it… put that aside and they are still a very good side. They showed that especially in the first half.
“In the second half we managed to put a bit more pressure on them and create some more chances but the most frustrating thing is we knew we had it be at our best to beat them and we could not reach those heights.
“I don’t think (the emotion got to us). I spoke about that in the way into the game in terms of all the outside emotion which surrounded it. We were trying to block that out.
“I think we’ve done exactly that in the camp.
“Putting all that aside, I think they were just better than us on the night and that’s the frustrating thing.”
Christie was introduced at the half-time break as Clarke looked to shake some life into his side after West Ham’s Andriy Yarmolenko had hammered the Scots with a cool opener.
But before he could make an impact, Benfica striker Roman Yaremchuk had fired another body blow just four minutes into the second period.
Christie added: “I was warming up so I’m not too sure what the gaffer said to the boys at half-time. Everyone was just desperate to claw it back from one-nil. All it takes is a goal and we knew how much that would turn the tide of the game.
“It was the second goal which kind of killed us. As soon as that goes in, it’s tough in international football to come back from a two-goal deficit."
