This has happened before, you know. Just not to us.
It was only seven years ago, after all, when we were sending working groups and research teams to places like Reykjavik in search of answers to the problems on our own doorstep. While watching on with open mouths as Iceland, Wales and even Northern Ireland took it in turns to achieve the Scottish impossible.
When these relative minnows suddenly started building the kind of momentum in qualifying which made the rest of the world scratch its head and say, “What the freakishness is going on over there?” And here’s the best bit. Tantilisingly, whenever this lightning has struck, these previously unfancied nations have been swept along on such a tidal wave of momentum that it’s washed them straight through into the latter stages of the actual tournament that had been previously way out of their reach. And so now, this really is starting to feel like it might finally be our turn in the queue.
How could it not do after what went on here in Oslo on Saturday night when something magical transpired, stunning the Ullevaal Stadium into sudden silence? Something completely un-Scottish.
Yes, Scotland burst a long standing cherry under Steve Clarke by qualifying for Euro 2020. But the truth of the matter is that they scared no one but themselves in the process.
A back door entry through the Nations League playoffs meant Clarke and his players went into those finals expected to do nothing more than make up the numbers. They may even have felt that inferiority complex spreading throughout their own camp. They’ll deny of course, but they certainly performed as if it did, especially when the Czechs and Croats came calling at Hampden.
Even so, it was always Clarke’s deeply held belief that the lessons learned simply from being there in the first place would help his players progress to the next step. And now, just two years after those finals, here they are, perched at the summit of Group A and making it feel like the top of the world. Nine points from nine following a win over Cyprus - which was to be widely expected - and the subsequent successes over both Spain and Norway. Which were most certainly not.
All of which left Erling Haaland being booed onto the Norwegian team bus on Saturday night by a disbelieving public which had turned up only a couple of hours earlier in order to pay homage to its returning hero. With the Norwegians now trailing Clarke’s squad by eight points, Haaland looks set to become the latest world superstar to be denied access to one of its greatest stages.
There’s something not strictly human about Norway’s talisman with his flowing golden locks. It’s almost as if, one day soon we may discover he was actually the prototype for artificial intelligence.
Haaland doesn’t even move like normal people. One look at Norway’s players limbering up merely rammed home the point. While the rest of them were zipping passes and bursting into sprints, the big man rolled around on his own as if on coasters, with bulging shoulders sloping from side to side as he switched direction.
It was a little bit like watching a speed skater. But on grass.
And, if truth be told, it was all a little intimidating for anyone who bothered to pay it much attention. Anyone with Scotland’s best interests at heart at any rate.
Heaven knows what was going through Clarke’s head as he looked on from the sidelines. Happily, for the Scotland boss, his players were busy going through their own routines at the other end of the pitch to take any notice.
They knew well enough what they were about to come up against in any case. Haaland is not just a world class striker - he’s a freak of nature.
Part man, part wrecking machine. All in all, a wholly terrifying prospect. Hair-bobble and all.
It was 28 degrees out there, and yet Haaland didn’t appear to break so much as a single bead of sweat. Not normal? Nope, not even remotely close to it.
So there was a sense of inevitability when he won and then converted the second half penalty which, for a long while, looked like throwing a significant spanner into Scotland’s wheels. Typically, this was the kind of shuddering blow which has wobbled Scottish knees down the years when it’s been ill-deserved.
Ill-deserved? Yes, Clarke’s players may not have landed a glove on the chin of their opponent but then this was all part of the manager’s plan. It was a classic rope-a-dope operation which ended with a spectacular KO.
From the very start, Clarke’s strategy became crystal clear. Scotland had not travelled all this way with any intention of handing their desperately needy hosts a free pass back into Group A. On the contrary, they had arrived in Oslo with a plan to strangle the life out of them.
Organised, structured and supremely confident in the manager’s instructions - as well as their own ability to carry them out - they gladly gave up possession while snapping into presses at all the right times and in all the right places. Picking Norwegian pockets like 11 artful dodgers.
Yes, Norway had lots and lots of the ball. But, so stymied were they by the precision and cohesion of Scotland’s movement off the ball, they could do almost nothing meaningful with it. Like getting it into the robo-chops in the No.9 shirt.
No, this was Clarke doing a number on them. And, one fleeting scare aside, it was working to pretty much perfection.
That big chance came after Haaland had muscled Scotland’s defence around for the first time, dropping deep and taking Jack Hendry with him. With Hendry out of position and white shirts scrambling back to fill holes, Ola Solbakken hit the byline and stood up a cross which had Haaland’s name written all over it. Fortunately for Scotland, Alexander Sorloth didn’t get the memo. His header was saved comfortably by Angus Gunn when Haaland might have burst the net with it.
It was, of course, a high risk strategy and even though it was working to perfection it was always prone to just one split second of sloppiness. Unfortunately for the otherwise alert Ryan Porteous it was the Watford man who switched off at the vital moment, before panicking and hauling Haaland to the ground.
That error forced Clarke to switch to plan B for a thrilling finale, as Lyndon Dykes and Kenny McLean came up with the goals which will now have made the rest of the world sit up and take notice, for the second time in just a few short months.
It’s becoming a recurring theme, just as it was for the Icelandics, the Welsh and the Northern Irish. One more win at home to Georgia tomorrow night and Clarke’s progress will become absolutely impossible to ignore.
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