Scotland's World Cup draw desires and ambitions laid bare after kiss with first minister

A light dusting of frost coated the pitch where less than 48 hours earlier, Scotland scored four goals, three of which were scorchers, to secure their place at next summer’s World Cup in USA, Mexico and Canada. There were no remnants of the sheer bedlam that occurred inside the stands as Steve Clarke’s men ended a 27-year wait to reach the finals. The old lady was at rest after the mother of all nights on the tiles.

Maxwell and his fellow SFA dignitaries have enjoyed the fall-out of Scotland’s 4-2 win over Denmark. "I'm not sure if I kissed him or he kissed me!” exclaimed Maxwell of an embrace with country’s first minister John Swinney after the fourth goal. "We were just Scotland fans, like everyone else in the stadium. We were going daft, arms everywhere. It was just crazy.”

Qualifying for the European Championships is one thing but the World Cup is quite another. While the Danes have to overcome North Macedonia and then either Republic of Ireland or Czech Republic in the play-offs to book their spot at the World Cup, Scotland are already there. Maxwell and Co are already planning their trip to Washington DC for the draw on Friday, December 5.

“I can’t wait,” said Maxwell. “I’m very lucky, I get to do some brilliant things, but going to the draw, that’s bucket list stuff.

“It’s funny, there’s the old football part of your brain that thinks ‘don’t focus on it, don’t look too far ahead’. I mean, I had to Google last night what the qualifying format was for the group stage, because I genuinely didn’t know.

“I knew it was 48 teams and I knew it was groups of four, but I didn’t know who came out of that and I’ve not paid very much attention to it at all. Then you get lost and you’re looking at pots and potential countries. Normally we’ve got potential pot ones like Belgium, Spain, Germany France, you’re now throwing Argentina, Brazil and USA into it.

“There’s Curacao, Haiti, countries I couldn’t even tell you where they are, but you are going to be potentially going to play them in a World Cup.

“The realisation will take a bit of time to hit and to settle in, but the great thing is that we can deal with that now. It’s not like we’re waiting until March to organise a World Cup and everything that comes with that. We can enjoy it, we can take a bit of time and plan it as well as we possibly can.”

Facing Argentina and Messi would be ‘romantic’

Scotland will be a pot three team when the draw is made. They are guaranteed at least one heavyweight, perhaps more, and a chance to play some of the nations not normally pitted against Scotland.

“You look at the Argentinas and Brazils ... I’d love to play against teams that we don’t usually play against,” said Maxwell when asked on who he would like to meet. “I think you can get two UEFA sides in the same group but you would love to go and play against teams that are completely different.

“There would be something romantic about Argentina and Messi in his last World Cup. We have played against the big European nations a lot recently and it’s been brilliant. But it would be nice to do something completely different and get a different experience.”

Regardless of who Scotland face, the ambition is clear: now is the time to progress to the knock-out stages for the first time in the nation’s history. The top two teams in the 12 groups as well as the eight best third-placed teams will reach the last 32. Maxwell knows there is a big opportunity for Clarke and Co to reach history.

“The ambition should be to progress as far as we possibly can because it’s the first 48 team tournament,” explained Maxwell. “So there is more opportunity. That would top it off from a managerial point of view. Everybody says he [Clarke} our greatest ever. But getting out of the group stage just further cements that.”

Maxwell believes Scotland’s chances are enhanced by having two recent Euros under their belts. “I think the experience of the last two finals will play a massive part in his thinking,” the CEO reasoned. “The first one was difficult because it’s the first one and you’ve never been through it before.

“We put a lot into the first game, then the second one was against England and we put everything into that. Then, by the time we played Croatia, everyone was dead on their feet.

“We learned how to plan for that so in the second tournament, when we got a point against Switzerland in our second game and, to a man, everybody was disappointed how the Hungary game went.

“But there’s no doubt that those experiences are going to factor in hugely into his plans for the team. The players will also be a lot more aware of what tournament football is because it’s a completely different thing. Winning three games in a week is very, very difficult. Even from a physicality point of view. But, by the same token, everyone else is in the same boat.

“They are getting the plaudits for being the first team to qualify for three major finals. Three out of four is incredible. This time we have qualified automatically by winning the group. No other pot three team came anywhere close to topping their group. So there are those incremental bits of progression and now the next bit is, having done all that, we’re a good side so let’s go and show it and progress out of the group stage at a World Cup. That would be brilliant and it has to be the ambition.”