Scotland went into Tuesday night's Euro 2024 qualifer against Spain hoping to pull of a famous victory and Steve Clarke's men started in perfect fashion by taking the lead on eight minutes.
The national team, who kicked off their European Championship qualifying campaign with a 3-0 win over Cyprus on Saturday, hosted Luis de la Fuente's side at Hampden looking to take advantage after Group A rivals Georgia and Norway played out a 1-1 draw in the earlier kick-off-off.
Scott McTominay, who scored twice after coming off the bench against the Cypriots, was rewarded with a place in the starting XI and made a quick impression in Mount Florida.
Captain Andy Roberston did well to take advantage of a slip by a Spanish defender to win the ball deep into the opponents' half, keeping his cool to spot the unmarked McTominay before cutting the ball back for the Manchester United man to apply the finishing touch.
MCTOMINAY! 😱 The @ManUtd man scores again as @ScotlandNT get a dream start against Spain 🏴#EURO2024 | #SCOESP pic.twitter.com/PEXeuoUz4v
— Viaplay Sports UK (@ViaplaySportsUK) March 28, 2023
Earlier on Tuesday, Norway were held to a 1-1 draw away to Georgia.
Stale Solbakken’s side – who were unable to call upon superstar striker Erling Haaland after the Manchester City centre-forward picked up an injury that ruled him out of the international break –suffered a 3-0 defeat to Spain in Malaga on Saturday before failing to garner three points in Tblisi.
The visitors took the lead early on in the Georgian capital when Real Sociedad attacker Alexander Sorloth opened the scoring with a superbly-taken goal on 15 minutes. Latching onto a long ball forward, the 27-year-old did well to get it under control and create an angle for himself on the edge of the box before he rifled an unstoppable shot into Giorgi Mamardashvili’s bottom-left corner.
The home side didn’t see much of the ball, instead relying on quick-fire counter-attacks to hurt their opponents and with Napoli winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia on the park – arguably the most in-form player in Europe’s top leagues – it was a fairly sound strategy.
They would get their reward on the hour-mark. A long kick forward was flicked beyond Norway’s high defence and Metz forward Georges Mikautadze scarpered through on goal to slot the ball beyond Orjan Nyland from the resulting one-on-one.
Martin Odegaard spurned a glorious chance to hand Norway the lead and there was late drama as VAR intervened to take a second look at a potential penalty for Georgia in second-half stoppage time but the original decision was upheld as the two sides settled for a point apiece.
