Ross b

[Pie & Bovril 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @pieandbov]

It might have been 28 years since our last appearance at a World Cup but the pain of what we witnessed last night felt oh so familiar.

Yet again we’ve choked in a tournament, and yet again we’ve absolutely nobody to blame but ourselves.

True the group draw was very tough, Morocco and Brazil are two excellent sides, but the truth is neither even got out of third gear against us and they didn’t need to as we were quite happily shooting ourselves in the foot.

Shocking individual errors early in both games gave us mountains that we never really looked capable of climbing.

When you mix an impotent attack with a porous defence then you’ve got yourself a perfect recipe for disappointment.

It’s absolutely not all on the manager. It’s not his fault that we’ve a real lack of quality in several vital areas of the pitch.

He is however culpable for playing a four last night when three at the back would have made so much more sense given the game script.

On a night when football terrorism should actually have been the game plan he abandoned it and we were found badly wanting trying to play it out from the back with players that simply weren’t good enough to do it.

That very much is on Clarke and the harsh truth is that despite the success in reaching the three major tournaments under him, we’ve been a massive let down in every single one.

Another four years of this seems a mistake to be perfectly honest, and that’s not purely a reflection of Clarke as head coach, it’s just all a bit Groundhog Day and something needs to change.

We won’t scrape through.

We will be eliminated at the group stages again, most likely by a single goal if history is anything to go by.

Do we really deserve anything else?

Nothing ever changes and frankly the incredible fans who did the nation proud the last couple of weeks deserve better.

[Ross b @rossb0836]

@scotlandscoeff1 What’s the chances of getting one on 12 points ?

[Pie & Bovril 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @pieandbov]

Starting to feel a bit deflated about the World Cup tbh.

The awful ticket allocations, the eye watering price of those tickets, the abysmal resale platform that is literally licensed touting.

Then the games themselves.

The dreadful kick off times for everyone at home are bad enough and now we’ve got breaks in play every 20 minutes regardless of the weather.

I think we can all guess what those breaks are really for and it’s not about the players safety. More FIFA greed.

Still hoping to go over but it’s a fairly shite state of affairs IMHO.

[Hive @BrentfordHive]

Please take notes America 🙏

This is a proper draw

[MissRoligan 🇩🇰 @MisssLing]

Flower of Scotland Hampden Park 18.11.25. From the Danish section, recorded by me. Goosebumps 🥹.

[Kieran @Kieran_Sellick]

Watching Scotland at a World Cup has been a dream a generation has never seen/others thought they never would again after nearly 30 years, it’s clear we never do things the easy way…

But that’s Scotland and now we have finally done it OUR WAY and 2026 is finally OUR TIME 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🤍

[Ross b @rossb0836]

@Kieran_Sellick That’s different class man 💙🥲

[Blair McNally @BlairMcNally1]

This Might be the GREATEST Scotland Video EVER! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @rtjenky]

Winding me up that people are associating Scotland’s qualification with the expanded World Cup format.

We won a UEFA Qualifying group and would have qualified for every World Cup since god knows when. We haven’t snuck through a back door, we’ve done it the proper way!

[The 30 ⚽️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @The_Thirty_]

How many times do you watch Tuesday’s highlights each hour?

[Liam McIlvanney @LiamMcIlvanney]

You would think there might be a limit to the number of times you could happily watch a clip of a goal being scored. You would think that, but you would be wrong…

[SPFL Mediawatch @SPFLWatch]

“Scotland only qualified because it’s an expanded tournament”

Actually Scotland were in the Top 12 European nations in qualifying by virtue of winning our group.

That would have been good enough to qualify Scotland for every World Cup back to 1978

[𝐃𝐈𝐆𝐁 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @_DIGB]

Watching the Scotland Denmark highlights again for the 1000th time

[ricki lord @ricki2901]

Jesus look at the time, I’ve no watched the goals back for at least 6 minutes.

[Ewan McVicar @ewanmcvicar_]

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[Pie & Bovril 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @pieandbov]

The morning after. Thankfully it wasn't a dream. That really happened.

Not much to say that's not been summed up brilliantly by thousands of tweets and posts I sat and read through for hours and hours after I got back from Hampden.

The emotional commentary from Liam McLeod, the scenes from Thommo and Faddy, the incredible radio comms from Alasdair Lamont, they will all go down in folklore along with those four, and yes there was four, glorious goals on an unforgettable night at Hampden.

A couple of random thoughts though...………..

THE FANS
The supporters are rightly praised the world over for the backing they give the team, especially on the road, but last night I genuinely thought the home fans excelled themselves. There was a special feeling in the stadium, and the rendition of Flower of Scotland was absolutely unbelievable. Whether it helped inspire that utterly ridiculous first goal we will never know but it surely helped, as did the enduring patience and support of the crowd even when we were pegged back twice.

I'm no Scotland super fan, I get to the odd away game, but I've stood shoulder to shoulder with the same group of boys at Hampden at every game for 30+ years now.

We've trudged out that stadium thoroughly fucked off more times than I care to remember so sharing those moments at the end was very special and yeah, a wee bit emotional.

Doesn't matter if you were in the stadium or not, we will all remember where we were when McTominay did that, when Tierney did that and when McLean just went, fuck it, and did THAT.

LAWRENCE SHANKLAND
The three worldies we scored will be remembered forever but a quick word about the 2nd goal because it was just as important and should not be forgotten.

A proper poachers finish from a player who has probably had less time in the navy blue than he should have. He's as natural a finisher as we've got and hopefully that goal can really kick start his international career.

CRAIG GORDON
Mad to think he's our best option between the sticks at 42 but he absolutely is. His save low to his right in the first half with the score at 1-0 will be all but forgotten too given what transpired afterwards but it was a huge moment. It was magnificent to hear the emotion in his voice in his post match interview. A guy that just keeps bouncing back no matter what is thrown at him.

KENNY MCLEAN
I'm sure I wasn't the only one to start thinking about Stuart Armstrong against England when McLean got the ball at the death. Thankfully he ignored the thousands of shouts to "take it to the fucking corner" and just blootered it past Schmeichel from about 100 yards. He's a player that has had more than his fair share of pelters over the years, often been a whipping boy when things haven't been going well, so it was really magnificent to see him get his moment last night, was absolutely delighted for him.

ANDY ROBERTSON
I'm sure I wasn't the only one nearly in tears (again) listening to his emotional tribute to the mate he lost in the Summer.

A guy maybe entering the twilight of his career, maybe not in the best form he's ever been in, but like I said on Saturday night, he never hides, never goes missing, always fronts up.

For me he is an absolute diamond, and his leadership of this group should never be taken for granted.

LADY LUCK
Yeah let's be honest, we did absolutely ride our luck at times during this campaign but over the piece, over those very many years since 1998, surely we've more than deserved a wee rub of the green going our way? It was really quite mental how many things did go in our favour at times but I'm a firm believer too that you do make your own luck. These players might have their limitations, sure, but they NEVER give up, they always keep going and it was just fantastic to see them get the rewards for it last night, especially sealing it in front of our own fans.

STEVE CLARKE
And to the coach. An absolute marmite character for sure, I think he even quite likes that to be honest, never a guy who puts himself out there to be liked, to be popular, it genuinely doesn't seem to bother him, but what he's done during his time as Scotland coach marks him out as one of the very best.

Qualifying for the Euros twice was magnificent, those achievements should never be downplayed, but with 24 nations making it to the Euros these days let's be honest we absolutely SHOULD be there or thereabouts.

This is very different. Only 16 UEFA nations will be in the World Cup next Summer, only 12 have made it this far, and we are fucking one of them.

It's a remarkable achievement.

And yes, some of his team selections have been beyond stubborn, yes the display in both the Euros when we got there was by and large horrendous and we absolutely must do better in these Finals, but the time for focus on that will come, it's not for just now. This is the time to sit back and enjoy and yes, be thankful to the guy who got us back there.

SORRY
So, aye, apologies for a lot of birthday card pish on your timeline but I'm feeling a wee bit delicate and emotional this morning and that's all I have to say about that.

[Ray Bradshaw @comedyray]

Me being wide on Sky Sports News this morning.

[Sarmo @sarm0161]

Archie Gemmill has gone from best Scotland goal ever to 4th in just over an hour.