Greece v Scotland: Will luck hold for biggest test of World Cup dream?
It’s a fly-by-night campaign that kicked off with a hugely convincing and largely unexpected draw in Copenhagen in September. Scotland’s resilience was clearly on display that night.
Angus Gunn hasn’t started a club game since May. Lewis Ferguson was an unused substitute in Bologna’s previous two matches. Adams was in and out of Turin. Dykes started one in six matches for Birmingham City. Aaron Hickey had played 77 minutes in almost two years before facing Denmark.
Scotland fans were almost breathless when Grant Hanley was named, but the Hibernian centre-back put in a stunning performance against Denmark, becoming the symbol of a disciplined, tenacious and at times threatening performance.
A point away from home and a clean sheet was the perfect start to a group that few saw Scotland surviving.
They backed this up with a professional win against Belarus in a behind-closed-doors match in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary. Two goals and another clean sheet.
Four points from six in the six-game group. Get out of the blocks quickly in a section that is equivalent to a sprint.
Then in October everything got a little weird. There were no goal attempts for Scotland at home against Greece for an hour. Greece led and deserved more leadership.
Their indispensable striker, Vangelis Pavlidis, missed a sitter early on and then missed again and again. Greece was not in danger and they were losing 3-1. “We were like a dazed boxer,” said Greek substitute Dimitris Giannoulis.
Credit Scotland for their fight back from a terrible place, but even in victory there were red flags everywhere and even more when they crossed the line against Belarus a few days later.
Luck was on their side again. Belarus, which lost 5-1 to Greece and 6-0 to Denmark, shot 22 goals against Scotland’s 12 goals. McKenna later said that Belarus “probably looked more dangerous than us”, and this was generally true.
Out of character, Clarke became cranky at half-time and that was the last we saw of his team. They booed and criticized their own performance.
But still, on an ugly night, this table looked beautiful. It was hard to know what to think. And still is.
There will be no Gunn or Billy Gilmour on Saturday night. It’s been an uncomfortably long time since we’ve seen the best of Scotland’s twin totems McGinn and McTominay, with Ryan Christie not starting any of Bournemouth’s last five games.
Gannon-Doak has played 53 minutes of club football since the end of September and is expected to be Scotland’s fearless spark. It’s hard to be fearless when you’re a partial player at your club.
Adding to the heady mix of uncertainty, Greece is out of contention and head coach Ivan Jovanovic is under pressure.
But the place they are playing is Scotland, who gave them a hard punch in Glasgow and destroyed their World Cup hopes in the process. If they have some revenge on their mind then who can blame them?
If you had pitched this scenario to every fan in Scotland at the start of the autumn they would have bitten your hand off.
Still, with good luck on board you can say it’s easy work and done well. Now comes the hardest part; The biggest test that will show their courage to get one step closer to their biggest dreams.
