How will Scotland remember this team? As a group who broke the mould or only momentarily reshaped it? For the best of times in Belgrade, for a win over Spain at Hampden when the home stadium nearly took off, for successive Euro qualifications after decades without them and a restoration of pride long lost before? Or just another nearly. As the potential of finally making it out of a major tournament group stage slipped away again, the strongest sense is that no opportunity passed up previously has been as good as this. It has long been said that Scotland are synonymous with glorious failure, and here was another example.
But what is glorious about this? Ultimately, a 1-0 defeat to Hungary was another missed moment. A chance to change the country’s footballing story passed up. Will this group ever have a situation quite so favourable to become the one who ended the wait? While future campaigns can still shape the narrative this missed opportunity will be the dominant one for now.
And it is only more of the same. In Stuttgart Scotland were never, truly, close despite the scoreline. There was hard work and bustle but such a lack of quality on show.
Not until injury time was momentum achieved in front of goal. Hungary too demonstrated why Switzerland and Germany share top spot while still convincing a little more in the final third, demonstrated by their ability to add the finishing touch through Kevin Csoboth. There is nothing worse in football than missing out on a huge resul.
