Kieran Tierney has admitted Scotland are simply hoping for favours after their World Cup qualification hopes suffered a major blow against Brazil.
Steve Clarke’s side went into Wednesday night’s clash knowing that a point – or even a narrow defeat, depending on other results – could have been enough to leave qualification firmly in their own hands.
Instead, a 3-0 defeat has left Scotland’s fate out of their control.
The permutations have become increasingly complicated, and with results elsewhere failing to fall in Scotland’s favour, the road to the knockout stages now looks extremely difficult.
To progress as one of the best third-placed teams, Scotland require a series of results to go their way over the coming days.
Among those they are hoping for are:
- Egypt to beat Iran.
- Spain to defeat Uruguay.
- Senegal to fail to beat Iraq.
- Austria to beat Algeria by two or more goals.
- Uzbekistan to avoid defeat against DR Congo.
- In Group L, Ghana to beat Croatia by two or more goals while Panama fail to defeat England.
Scotland need four of those scenarios to materialise, meaning they could be left waiting until the early hours of Sunday morning before discovering whether they have reached the Round of 32.
Speaking after the defeat to RecordSport, Tierney admitted the mood inside the Scotland camp was understandably subdued.
“We’re flat.
“We know we could have done a lot better.
“It wasn’t a great result for us.
“And it means now we’re waiting on other teams to do us favours.
“All you can do is hope.
“We will definitely watch the other games.
“We need to see who does what.
“We’re waiting on favours, so we’ll be supporting the teams that we need to support to get us through.
“We’ll go back to our base, recover then just hope and pray.
“We’re all professionals.
“We’ve been in good situations and bad situations before.
“So we’ll deal with it.
“Individually, everyone has their own way of coping with it.”
One positive for Celtic supporters was Tierney’s own performance.
Introduced at half-time in place of Andy Robertson, the Hoops defender was one of Scotland’s brighter performers.
He regularly drove forward down the left flank, delivered several dangerous crosses into the penalty area and provided an attacking spark that had been lacking during the opening 45 minutes.
It wasn’t enough to change the outcome.
But as Scotland’s World Cup hangs in the balance, Tierney can at least reflect on a display that suggested he is ready for whatever comes next, whether that is the knockout rounds or an early flight home before returning to Celtic for pre-season.
