Steve Clarke has landed spectacular Scotland punch and Tartan Army momentum can lead to knockout history - Keith Jackson

This has happened before, you know. Just not to us.

It was only seven years ago, after all, when we were sending working groups and research teams to places like Reykjavik in search of answers to the problems on our own doorstep. While watching on with open mouths as Iceland, Wales and even Northern Ireland took it in turns to achieve the Scottish impossible.

When these relative minnows suddenly started building the kind of momentum in qualifying which made the rest of the world scratch its head and say, “What the freakishness is going on over there?” And here’s the best bit. Tantilisingly, whenever this lightning has struck, these previously unfancied nations have been swept along on such a tidal wave of momentum that it’s washed them straight through into the latter stages of the actual tournament that had been previously way out of their reach. And so now, this really is starting to feel like it might finally be our turn in the queue.

How could it not do after what went on here in Oslo on Saturday night when something magical transpired, stunning the Ullevaal Stadium into sudden silence? Something completely un-Scottish.

Yes, Scotland burst a long standing cherry under Steve Clarke by qualifying for Euro 2020. But the truth of the matter is that they scared no one but themselves in the process.

A back door entry through the Nations League playoffs meant Clarke and his players went into those finals expected to do nothing more than make up the numbers. They may even have felt that inferiority complex spreading throughout their own camp. They’ll deny of course, but they certainly performed as if it did, especially when the Czechs and Croats came calling at Hampden.

Even so, it was always Clarke’s deeply held belief