Greece vs Scotland: Will luck pose the biggest test of the World Cup dream?

It is an ongoing campaign, starting with the highly credible, and largely unexpected, draw in Copenhagen in September. Scotland’s resilience was evident on the night.

Angus Gunn has not played a match for the club since May. Lewis Ferguson was an unused substitute in Bologna’s previous two matches. Adams was in and out in Turin. Dykes started one in six matches for Birmingham City. Aaron Hickey played 77 minutes in the nearly two years before the match against Denmark.

Scottish fans were in a state of excitement when Grant Hanley was named in the squad, but the Hibernian centre-back was superb against Denmark, emblematic of a performance that was disciplined, stubborn and at times threatening.

The away point – and clean sheet – was an excellent start to a group that few saw Scotland escape.

They reinforced this with a professional victory over Belarus in a closed match in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary. Two goals and another clean sheet.

Four points from six in a group of six matches. Get out of the blocks quickly in the section that is equivalent to the enemy.

Then everything got a little bumpy in October. Against Greece at home, Scotland did not have an attempt on goal for an hour. You led Greece and deserved to be ahead by more.

Vangelis Pavlidis, their preferred striker, missed a player early and then fouled repeatedly. Greece were not in danger, and they were losing 3-1. “We were like a stunned boxer,” Greek substitute Dimitris Giannoulis said.

Credit Scotland for the fight they showed in coming back from a bleak place, but even in the win there were red flags everywhere, even more so when they stumbled across the goal line against Belarus a few days later.

Luck was on their side again. Belarus, who have already lost 5-1 to Greece and 6-0 to Denmark, had 22 attempts on goal compared to 12 for Scotland. McKenna later said that Belarus “may seem more dangerous than us,” which was broadly true.

Clarke went out of his way at the break, and that was the last we saw of his team. They booed and criticized their performance.

However, on an ugly night, that table looked beautiful. It was hard to know what to think. And it still is.

There will be no Gunn or Billy Gilmore on Saturday night. It has been an uncomfortably long time since Scotland have seen the best of McGinn and McTominay, and Ryan Christie has not featured in any of Bournemouth’s last five matches.

Gannon Doak has played 53 minutes for the clubs since the end of September – and is set to be Scotland’s bravest spark out wide. It’s hard to be brave when you’re a young player at your club.

To add more uncertainty, Greece has been eliminated from the competition and its coach Ivan Jovanovic is under pressure.

But this is the Scotland they play in, the Scotland that dealt them a devastating blow in Glasgow and destroyed their World Cup hopes in the process. If they had a little revenge on their minds, who would blame them?

In the early autumn, every Scotland fan would have bitten your hand off if you presented that scenario to them.

However, you might say the easy part has been done and done well with good luck on board. Now comes the hardest part – the biggest test of their ability to move one step closer to the greatest dream of all.