Astonishing

I find it extremely surprising that Scotland can play as badly as they did last night and still win a game of football. Pretty much the only positive from the experience was that we somehow have a perfect record on penalty shoot-outs - not only have we never lost one, we've never failed to score a penalty in a shoot-out. Granted, that's out of a sample size of one, and five penalties taken.

Bluntly, Scotland did not deserve to win that match. But then, Israel didn't deserve to win either - frankly, if that's the standard, the fairest result was just to eliminate both teams. But since there had to be a winner.

The final playoff match is against Serbia next month, to be played somewhere in Serbia (probably Belgrade). Based on the performance last night, and the comparitive performance of Norway and Serbia, we're looking at a thrashing. However, given that this is Scotland and we specialise in losing in the most heartbreaking way possible, that match will no doubt be the one where we finally put in a great performance, score early one, then desperately defend for the rest of the match... only to lose two goals in injury time. Or something like that.

Alas, I'm afraid I don't really hold out much hope of us actually getting through. And not just because of my prediction that we would never qualify this side of independence - that held a caveat that it wouldn't apply if they changed the rules to just let anyone in, and adding a route to the playoffs for the winner of the lowest-ranked Nations League group does pretty much do that. But based on performances under the current and previous manager, and given the performance of the opposition... I'm sorry, I just can't see it.

But it would be nice to be wrong. Maybe 2020 can surprise us?