Scotland have qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 28 years. I can hardly believe that I have just written that sentence, so fantastical did this eventuality appear at times, and how specialised in failure Scotland’s once proud national team had become. But it is true. I’ve checked the score, and pinched myself several times. 

We beat Denmark 4-2 last night (the classic World Cup scoreline) in what may well be the greatest Scotland international match ever played. As someone who was there in France 10,000 days ago the last time we qualified, it was a euphoric occasion and one that underscored that the true heart of football beats far more passionately now for the international game.

Last night’s match will surely become one of those ‘I was there’ games, with far more than the official attendance of 50,000 claiming to have been present. I absolutely wasn’t there. I watched the game in a drab business hotel outside Tokyo awaking at 4:50 a.m., switching on my computer and still groggy from sleep immediately witnessing a move that was reminiscent of precisely nothing in Scottish football history, a wonder goal from Scott McTominay. It belonged in Nou Camp, Bernabeu or Maracana, not a rainy Hampden on a Tuesday night. Was I perhaps still dreaming?

What followed was glorious, but also in the maddening and marvellous way in which football often mirrors life more than a little unjust.........

© The Spectator