Scotland have unenviable honour of a World Cup playoff with Ukraine

At 5pm (BST) today, around about the time your daily dose of football tittle-tattle from Fiver Towers slithers into tens of thousands of spam folders around the world, it will be 173 days and 18 hours until the Human Rights World Cup kicks off in the international football hotbed that is Qatar. The Fiver is counting the seconds, staring wistfully at the official countdown clock on the Fifa website, powered by Hublot, official timekeeper of the Fifa World Cup™.

With their extremely likable fans invariably a huge credit to the few international tournaments their team has qualified for in recent decades, few would normally begrudge Scotland a place in this year’s finals. This year, though, the Scots find themselves facing the daunting prospect of taking on Ukraine in their playoff semi-final tomorrow night.

Hosting the national team of a country currently under illegal invasion from Russia, in the first competitive match they have been able to play since the declaration of war, is quite the honour for Scotland. Not least because it allows a nation that has historically been bullied by a tyrannical neighbour to show support for their Ukrainian visitors on a global stage. It is also a slightly unenviable one, as victory for the Scots will be viewed by some as tantamount to kicking a blind man’s stick, or shooting Bambi’s mum.

“We’ve got the utmost respect for their situation but on Wednesday night for 90 minutes or even beyond that, 120, we’ll give our all to win that game and that’s all that matters,” said Scotland midfielder John McGinn, whose official timekeeper is unknown. “I don’t think you can get away from how horrible the situation is and our sympathies go to the players, the staff and everyone involved but it’s