Nae luck, Craig
| Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Croatia | 8 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 15 | 2 | 13 | 18 |
 Belgium | 8 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 25 | 6 | 19 | 17 |
 Scotland | 8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 12 | 6 | 6 | 15 |
 Latvia | 8 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 16 | −11 | 4 |
 San Marino | 8 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 3 | 30 | −27 | 1 |
It would be easy - and not completely unreasonable - to paint this as one campaign too far for Craig Brown and many of the players (not least Colin Hendry, whose international career was ended by a six game ban for an appalling elbow on a San Marino player).
This was essentially a three horse race with two quality opponents in Croatia and Belgium, where all three took maximum points off Latvia and San Marino. Scotland were in it right until the penultimate game, a 2-0 defeat in Brussels which was their only defeat and only poor performance out of eight games. In truth, we were dreadfully unlucky. What if we hadn't blown a 2-0 lead over the 10-man Belgians at Hampden. What if Niko Kovac's attempts to impersonate Hendry by assaulting Scott Booth had been seen in the home game with Croatia? And what if Billy Dodds' apparent late winner hadn't been marginally offside?
But expectations were high and there was a feeling that it was time to move on, to refresh, to reinvent ourselves.
Be careful what you wish for...
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