Scotland's greatest-ever debate has been settled amid ludicrous calls from critics

He was in his pomp as a full back for Chelsea when Andy Roxburgh's side qualified for a fifth consecutive tournament in 1990. It's why being left out having been included in the provisional squad stung so much. And he was a veteran, but a reigning European trophy winner with Chelsea, when he was once again excluded at France ’98.

It’s no wonder that he describes leading his country to the World Cup finals aged 62 and three months feels like the realisation of a lifetime’s ambition. It’s why he says he “hung around” after the play-off failure against Ukraine in 2022, when he knows many would not have been devastated to see him depart. Ludicrously, some were even proposing that he should be sacked before next Spring’s play-offs if it turned out Scotland had to tackle this route to next summer’s finals.

As we now know, thanks to three of the finest goals you’ll ever see, this is not required. The 4-2 win over the Danes has kick-started what is likely to prove Clarke’s late period as Scotland manager. It has ended the question of who might be the greatest-ever to take the job. In terms of major finals, it’s an open and shut case. As for wins, that’s now 35 including shootout victories. The next nearest is Craig Brown on 32.

There will still undoubtedly be those who want him out and drone on about Clarke-ball. They will call him a lucky manager, who had the good fortune to be around at a time when talents like Scott McTominay were coming to the fore. Compared to the likes of Berti Vogts, Clarke has been blessed. But he has still had to scratch around for a trustworthy goalkeeper who was actually playing regular football during this qualifying campaign. That search proved fruitless, meaning Angus Gunn and then Craig Gordon donned the gloves for six qualifiers. Club games between them this season? Zero. And what about the other end of the park? Hardly stellar options. One is struggling to get a game for Birmingham City, for goodness’ sake.

Clarke has got Scotland to a World Cup as winners of a group where they were allocated as third seeds. As in, rated third best team in the group. Admittedly, they were times when they played as if this was the case, against Greece mostly but also for a large part of the game against Belarus at Hampden. But they prevailed on that difficult night and then reaped the rewards when Denmark failed to gain maximum points in similarly trying circumstances against the same opposition. It proved the chink of light Scotland needed.

‘More difficult to qualify than it used to be’

Just get the job done, Clarke urged his players on the eve of the Denmark match, when a win was all that mattered. They got it done. They left it late. But magically, deliriously, they got it done. Inevitably, there will still be people carping from the sidelines. They won’t be players, who there’s little doubt are still busting their gut for their gaffer. They will want to ensure he breaks further new ground by becoming the first Scotland manager to progress past the group stage at a major tournament.

“By the way,” Clarke noted to a small group of reporters inside Hampden on Tuesday night - or possibly it was very early Wednesday morning. “It is more difficult to qualify for the World Cup than it used to be. If you look at the stats, it is really difficult to qualify. It is incredible. Even when the boys went to France ’98 - I wasn’t really close to that squad, but I always had a little hope that I would get there but I never quite got there….

“There were 15 European teams in that 32-team tournament. That is almost 50 percent. But this one is 16 out of 48, almost a third. You see the World Cup getting bigger and you think, ‘It must be easier to get there’. But it is not, it is more difficult to get there.”

More reason, then, to enjoy this. More reason to hail Clarke. “I have been involved in football for a long time and you have always got that motivation to do good things with your club or wherever you are at," he said. "It was always in my mind that I would love to go to a World Cup.

"I got close in 1990. I was in the squad that went to Italy for a pre-camp in February and didn’t make the final selection. From there, there was a motivation to get there. When we messed up against Ukraine I was disappointed. I thought, ‘That was my chance, that was my chance’. But I believe in this group of players so I hang around. Eventually I get there. It is a lifelong ambition to go to a World Cup with my country and because of this group of players and my coaching staff I have managed to do it.”

He has made a lot of people very happy. It’s a shot in the arm for Scottish football, it’s a shot in the arm for Scottish life. Everyone has their own stories, everyone - who’s old enough - remembers where they were the last time Scotland qualified (driving home from the Highlands after reporting on Ross County v Queen’s Park for Scotland on Sunday, as it happens). And the last time Scotland qualified at Hampden, against Norway in 1989? Standing in the North terracing, on a school trip.

Clarke was amongst the so-called unstripped substitutes that night, having been a late addition to the squad. He’s making up for being confined to the fringes, or else completely bombed out. He is savouring heading to a World Cup as the figurehead. Now he’s the one facing difficult choices.