When he found himself warming the bench for the first 67 minutes of Scotland’s campaign, Scott McTominay might have wondered if his international season was about to go the way of his club one.
Safe to say, he was a coiled spring.
To have boosted his Scotland tally by a factor of five in less than 80 minutes of playing time is an extraordinary contribution, and one for which McTominay has ensured his place in Hampden legend.
If there was an argument that Steve Clarke’s side, for all the hard-won progress it had made, was missing the sort of historic, totemic victory that fans of decades to come will talk of in awe, that box is now ticked in thick dark blue marker.
This new Spain side is, so far, a shadow of those to go before – indeed, with many strange selections, it was a shadow of Saturday’s – but that tempers the shockwaves of this result barely more than it did the reverberations of a stadium as loud as it has been for a generation.
That Spain were the ones seeking to dissolve the game into a fractious and bitty affair – traditionally Scotland’s forte – is huge tribute to the composure, discipline and calm competence of Clarke’s side.
He can’t stop scoring ⚽️⚽️
Scott McTominay doubles our lead against Spain 🙌#SCOESP pic.twitter.com/0qIZveYtMv
— Scotland National Team (@ScotlandNT) March 28, 2023
Alloyed to their willingness to vault over the physical wall, exemplified by Kieran Tierney’s lung-bursting contribution to the vital second, they were, for a night, unbeatable.
This will be remembered, rightly, as McTominay’s match, but every last Scotland player explored the very boundaries of their capacity in a performance even the wildest Tartan Army optimist cannot have imagined they had in them.
At its end they were husks of men, emptied out onto that Hampden pitch. But as the sun rises on a new day, and forevermore, they will be Scottish football heroes.
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