Yes Steve, you can boogie.
Actually, on second thought, one of those broad smiles you save for special occasions will suffice.
A couple of penalty shoot-out wins to get the country to a tournament for the first time in over 20 years and now this.
Steve Clarke is becoming a unique type of Scotland manager – a lucky one.
There was real jeopardy for Clarke and his team in the draw for the World Cup 2022 qualifiers after the probable safety net of a play-off position through the Nations League slipped through their fingers with back-to-back defeats last month.
This group is as good as Scotland could have hoped for.
When you’re in pot three, the two opponents who matter come out of pots two and four.
The former would ideally be a country clinging on to a bit of status earned through previous campaigns but are on the wane. As those of us on Ali McCann debut watch a few weeks ago will confirm, that’s Austria.
And what you want to avoid with the latter is a nation on the rise, whose form isn’t yet reflected in its seeding. And, as depressing as it is to contemplate yet more competitive football against Israel, they won’t be challenging for second in this group.
Pots five and six are group fillers.
There have been plenty of managers under whom the Tartan Army wouldn’t have taken victories against the Faroe Islands and Moldova for granted but, thankfully, Clarke isn’t one of them.
And the best bit. The least expected bit. There is a glimmer, perhaps even more than a glimmer, of hope that the unthinkable could happen – Scotland topping their group and going straight to Qatar without going through the torture of the play-offs.
Most of the 10 first seeds would have shut the door on that possibility and Denmark were arguably the only one this brave new Scotland could contemplate finishing above.
We’ve even got a 10-6 head to head record against them for goodness sake.
World Cup draws crush dreams before a ball is kicked. For the Scots, Group F has very much kept them alive.
