It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t comfortable.
But Scotland’s return to the World Cup ended with exactly what mattered most: three points.
More than 10,000 days after their last appearance on football’s biggest stage, Steve Clarke’s side kicked off their campaign with a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Haiti in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The winning goal came courtesy of John McGinn, whose first-half deflected strike proved enough to separate the sides.
The performance itself was a curious one.
Scotland looked dangerous going forward at times and created enough moments to suggest there is more to come from this team. Yet they also left spaces that a stronger side may have punished.
Haiti carried a threat throughout without ever truly looking capable of finding the breakthrough. They had pace and energy, but lacked the cutting edge required to seriously trouble Scotland.
In the end, Scotland got the job done.
With Morocco holding Brazil to a draw in the other Group C fixture, Clarke’s side find themselves sitting top of the group after the opening round of matches.
That prompted a simple reaction from former Celtic striker and pundit Chris Sutton.
Taking to social media after the match, Sutton wrote:
“Scotland top the group ahead of Brazil and Morocco. All that matters is the three big points.”
It’s difficult to argue with that assessment.
World Cups are rarely remembered for polished performances in opening games. They are remembered for results.
Scotland have spent nearly three decades waiting to return to this stage. Nobody will care that it was scrappy.
Nobody will care that Haiti caused a few nervous moments.
And nobody back home who stayed awake until after 4am will be complaining too much.
Scotland won – they’re top of the group.
And with Brazil and Morocco already dropping points, the tournament could hardly have started much better.
