San Marino v Scotland: Euro 2020 qualifier – live!

Relief! A deft header from McLean and Scotland have the lead.

3 min: Scotland already piling it on, Fraser’s cross comes out, and Kenny McLean shoots wide. Speculative, but again, it’s a good sign.

2 min: Early sighter for Paterson, as O’Donnell finds him. He misses the target but an encouraging sign the Cardiff man can find some space.

Flower of Scotland, that historic anthem from way back in, er, 1974, tiddly om pom poms to a rather nice bagpipe and brass combination. The San Marinese anthem is austere, quite forbidding. It has no words, like Spain’s.

Scotland have been to San Marino three times before, and each game was won 2-0, a scoreline that looks a little too close for comfort. San Marino have won just one of their 155 internationals, mind.

The teams are in the tunnel, and the Tartan Army are in full swing already. They have had sorrows to drown, of course.

The Auld Enemy are in action tomorrow, and Nick Ames has the lowdown on the Montenegro assignment.

Wales got a pretty decent result in today’s match in Cardiff. Dan James looks like a real prospect.

Another reminder that Andy Robertson missed the last game for dental surgery. Root canal or losing 3-0 to Kazakhstan? Tough call. Turns out he had an abscess in his gum. Ouch.

A reminder that San Marino are Fifa ranked as the worst team in the world. No pressure, then, Scotland.

The Scottish team have a lot of making up to do.

San Marino team: Benedettini, Battistini, Simoncini, Cevoli, Palazz, Mularoni, Golinucci, Golinucci, Berardi, Vitaioli, Hirsch.

Subs: Zavoli, Benedettini, Cesarini, Grandoni, Brolli, Battistini, Lunadei, Giardi, Rinaldi, Censoni, Tomassini, Nanni

Alessandro and Enrico Golinucci are San Marino’s Gary and Phil Neville, probably.

Callum Paterson comes in as striker, no start for McTominay as six changes are made. James Forrest, Liam Palmer, Graeme Shinnie, John McGinn, Oliver Burke and Oli McBurnie have been dropped.

Paterson, Ryan Fraser and Johnny Russell are the attacking trio. Stephen O’Donnell and skipper Andy Robertson are the full-backs positions. Kenny McLean is in midfield.

The other five who started in Kazakhstan can count themselves as most fortunate.

Team: Bain, O’Donnell, Robertson, Bates, McKenna, McGregor, Russell, McClean, Paterson, Armstrong, Fraser

Subs: McLaughlin, Kelly, Palmer, Souttar, Fleck, McGinn, McTominay, Shinnie, Burke, Forrest, McBurnie, McNult

My heart was broken, my heart was broken
Sorrow Sorrow Sorrow Sorrow
My heart was broken, my heart was broken
You saw it,
You claimed it
You touched it
You saved it.

For those of a Caledonian persuasion, Thursday night was a night to lean on the melancholic beauty of The Proclaimers’ Sunshine On Leith. Not that they did much saving against Kazakhstan. A glance back at the goals conceded in Nur_Sultan, as we must now call Astana, and you will see some rather good play from the Kazakhs, but coupled with some of the most clueless, listless defending of our age. Frankly, it is a wonder Alex McLeish is still in a job, though the SFA surely took pity on him; he looked positively traumatised afterwards. This was Scottish doom of the type not even Private Frazer could countenance, a footballing Culloden. Still, it couldn’t happen in San Marino, could it?..

Could it?