Key events
34 min: Hanley’s misplaced pass upfield gifts Croatia yet another freebie attack. Modric probes. He can’t find the final pass, but does enough to earn a corner down the right and he’ll take it himself.
32 min: Doak causes more bother down the right. The play’s switched to McTominay, who cushions down for McLean. A shot flies away harmlessly into the Glasgow night.
30 min: Petar Sučić is booked for a clip on the back of Gilmour’s leg. There wasn’t much in that, and the Croatian looks dumbfounded. He’ll now miss Croatia’s final match against Portugal.
28 min: McLean and Doak combine at speed down the right before laying off to Conway, who doubles back and all the momentum is gone. The excitement whenever Doak gets on the ball is palpable.
26 min: Luka Sučić, at the right-hand corner of the Scotland box, hits a dangerous diagonal cross-cum-shot that evades Kramarić and flies inches wide of the bottom-left corner. Croatia want a corner, and they deserve one, the ball having taken a nick off Christie, but they’re not getting it.
24 min: Baturina meets a right-wing cross and pokes it straight at Gordon. The keeper, well positioned, claims confidently. Baturina looked offside, though; any goal surely wouldn’t have counted.
23 min: Gvardiol pays Doak back by nutmegging him. This sideshow is worth the price of admission alone.
21 min: Football is a very strange game. What a turn by Doak, though. Gvardiol left in his dust. One simple movement that’s suddenly changed the mood in Hampden.
19 min: One corner leads to another, which leads to another. All of a sudden, Scotland have the wind behind, and Croatia are reeling themselves. The third corner is hit long from the right, but Christie can’t meet it at the far stick. Goal kick.
18 min: … so having said that, Doak spins Gvardiol with absurd ease down the right touchline. That’s sensational! He rips along the flank, glides infield, and rolls across the face of the Croatian box for McTominay, who fires low and hard towards the bottom right. Kotarski, making his competitive debut in the Croatian goal, turns out for a corner.
16 min: Gvardiol juggles his way past Doak down the left to win yet another corner. Scotland were hoping the Gvardiol-Doak dynamic would play out the other way around. But here we are. The corner leads to Baturina dancing down the left, only to run the ball out for a goal kick with team-mates waiting in the middle. Scotland are being run ragged here.
14 min: Some pinball in the Scotland box. Gvardiol, who has been finding the net regularly for Manchester City, lurks, forcing Souttar to poke out for a corner. Scotland deal with the set piece, but they’re not dealing with very much else. A Croatia goal feels no more than a matter of time. Minutes, and not many of them either.
13 min: Petar Sučić is clattered from behind by Hanley. Free kick out on the right. Hanley fortunate not to go into the book. Before the free kick can be taken, Jakić goes over holding his right knee. He gets back up eventually, but still looks in real pain. Not sure what happened there.
11 min: That was some save by Gordon, by the way. Not so flash, in fact it looked quite scruffy, but he did so well to adjust and react to get anything on Kramarić’s shot. It was heading in otherwise. “In my town, there used to be a strip joint named Flesh Gordon,” writes Mike MacKenzie, before adding for legal purposes: “I only know this from having driven by it.”
9 min: Croatia slice through the Scotland midfield again. Kramarić dribbles into the box from the left and gives Gordon the eyes. He rolls towards the bottom-left corner, the keeper having been initially sent the wrong way. But Gordon adjusts and sticks out a long leg to stud the ball around the post. Nothing comes of the resulting corner, but Scotland can’t keep on like this.
7 min: Somewhere in the multiverse, Croatia are already 2-0 up thanks to a couple of dozy midfield errors. The hosts need to wake up quicksmart.
5 min: A lethargic Gilmour is skittled off the ball by Kovačić. Hard but fair. The perfectly timed lunge sends Croatia on another bonus attack. Kramarić can’t make space to shoot from a position on the left. The ball’s shuttled right to Luka Sučić, who leans back and hoicks over. Scotland get away with another big mistake.
4 min: No idea what McLean was trying to achieve there. He was under no pressure whatsoever.
3 min: McLean plays a comically awful backpass straight to Kramarić, who spares the Scotland midfielder’s blushes by dragging a weak shot wide right.
2 min: A slow start to the game. The YouTube coverage – disgracefully, this isn’t on UK television – is a bit jittery. Unless I’ve had too much coffee. “I seem to recall Flash Gordon proclaiming ‘The game’s lost! Stop your attack on Earth and I’ll spare your life!’,” reminisces Justin Kavanagh. “I’m not sure Luka Modric is going to buy that argument in his chequerboard spacesuit.”
Croatia get the ball rolling. “I’ll stay tuned to find out how Flash Gordon fares against Modric the Merciless,” promises comic-book guy Peter Oh.
The teams are out! Scotland in windswept and interesting dark blue, Croatia in that iconic red-and-white checkerboard. Everyone looking damn fine. Hampden is wet, but Hampden is happening. Roar! We’ll be off in a couple of minutes. “The Flash Gordon theme is indeed excellent,” agrees Scott Blair. “Far be it from me to suggest that there must have been a recent complete overhaul of the SFA ‘sense of humour’ committee. Mind you, from what I recall of watching the exploits of the original Flash at the, ahem, cinema in the early 70s … he always left you in impossible jeopardy when the episode finished. So that’s all good.”
A reminder of how Group A1 looks going into its final double-header. Nothing’s decided yet, other than Portugal and Croatia being safe from automatic relegation. What we do know is that should Poland’s result in Portugal tonight better Scotland’s against Croatia, the Scots will be relegated to League B. Scotland can in theory still finish in second spot, but for that to happen, they’d need to at least match Croatia’s earlier 2-1 win over them, then hope all the pieces land jam side up on Monday evening as well. Probably best not to get too far ahead of ourselves by wrestling with that set of probabilities just yet.
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Portugal P4 W3 D1 L0 F7 A3 Pts 10
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Croatia P4 W2 D1 L1 F7 A6 Pts 7
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Poland P4 W1 D1 L2 F7 A9 Pts 4
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Scotland P4 W0 D1 L3 F4 A7 Pts 1
The cover of tonight’s programme features Craig Gordon rendered in the style of an old-school comic-book hero. It looks good, it’s a witty conceit, and Gordon, still going at 41 after serving Scotland well in 77 previous appearances, is most certainly deserving of the honour and attention. But you do have to wonder whether the programme editor is playing fast and loose with the Football Gods, given that should anything happen to Gordon this evening, Steve Clarke will be forced to send on a debutant in either Robby McCrorie or Cieran Slicker. McCrorie, 26, has 12 appearances for Kilmarnock this season to his name, having just ended a frustrating spell at Rangers; Slicker, 22, has two League Cup appearances for his current club Ipswich on his CV, plus five EFL Trophy outings for Manchester City U21s and another for Rochdale. Should either be called upon tonight, we could have the most heartwarming rags-to-riches substitute-goalie story since Nigel Spink in the 1982 European Cup final on our hands. God speed, one and all.
Tonight’s Scotland XI is infused with a tincture o’Tees: Middlesbrough striker Tommy Conway, with five Championship goals to his name this season already, makes his first start for his country, while in-form club-mate Ben Doak is there from the off for a third game in a row. Conway is the only change from the team that started the goalless draw with Portugal last month, taking the place of the absent Torino striker Ché Adams. John McGinn, who has been in and out of the Aston Villa side recently, is perhaps surprisingly only on the bench.
The teams
Scotland: Gordon, Ralston, Souttar, Hanley, Robertson, Gilmour, McLean, Doak, McTominay, Christie, Conway.
Subs: Slicker, McCrorie, McGinn, Dykes, Shankland, Taylor, Barron, Porteous, McKenna, Armstrong, Gauld, Devlin.
Croatia: Kotarski, Jakić, Šutalo, Ćaleta-Car, Gvardiol, Modrić, Kovačić, Baturina, Petar Sučić, Luka Sučić, Kramarić.
Subs: Labrović, Ivušić, Pongračić, Moro, Pašalić, Vlašić, Perišić, Pašalić, Oršić, Sosa, Pjaca, Matanović.
Referee: Orel Tsvika Grinfeeld (Israel)
VAR: Ziv Adler (Israel)
Preamble
Four matches in Group A1 have led to three defeats and one draw, but Scotland aren’t done just yet. They may be on an all-time-worst run of ten competitive fixtures without a win, six of those games lost, but they haven’t been that bad in this Nations League campaign. They’ve performed well in patches against three teams of a much higher rank; they’ve suffered more last-gasp heartache than seems strictly fair; and they’ve had absolutely no luck, a commodity even the best teams need to rely on every now and then. A positive result tonight, one that at least matches Poland’s effort in Portugal, will maintain Scotland’s faint hopes of avoiding relegation back to League B. Can they get one against the runners-up in this competition last year? It’s a big ask, but Scotland have pulled off dafter heists in the past. They’ve also gone out of many a competition with barely a whimper, but let’s focus on the positives for now. Kick-off is at 7.45pm GMT. It’s on!
