Scotland's day has come: Why Euro 2024 group decider against Hungary can be the one to end 70-year obsession

Seventy years ago last week, the first mission in what has become such a great, enduring quest collapsed in humiliation. Weighed down by heavy jerseys and woollen socks in “torrential sunshine”, as one observer put it, Scotland fell to a humiliating 7-0 defeat against Uruguay in Switzerland.

Their prospects of reaching the quarter finals of the World Cup were extinguished, not for the last time. Scotland’s record all told now stands at 12 major championships. Scottish hopes have been sustained until the final game of the opening stage at 11 of these tournaments, including the current one, when in a city 160 miles north of Basel, where Scotland suffered against the Uruguayans, Steve Clarke's side become the latest group tasked with taking the great leap forward.

Could Stuttgart become somewhere that is enshrined in Scottish football folklore like Lisbon and Gothenburg, to pick two examples from an admittedly limited selection? Perhaps it already ought to be. Scotland defeated West Germany, the reigning world champions, here in 1957, in a stadium that began life as the Adolf Hitler Kampfbahn but was known as the Neckarstadion when Tommy Docherty skippered the team to a 3-1 win.

Now called the MHP Arena, although not when Uefa’s in town, when it becomes just the Stuttgart Arena, it’s perhaps primarily recalled as being the stadium SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell once revealed they wanted Hampden to be. Formerly a bowl shape, with an athletics track between stands and pitch, it is now, after multiple renovations, a 60,000-capacity arena tightly enclosed around the playing area.

As was the case with the Cologne Arena in midweek, it will suit the Tartan Army down to the ground. Whether the same applies to Scotland remains to be seen, although there is some good news. It was raining heavily when the Scotland team bus arrived on Saturday afternoon. Talk about a home from home.

Talk about the end of a grand obsession. “I can tell you all the Scots feel they are in with a great chance of success,” wrote Jack Harkness in the Dundee Courier on the morning of that do-or-die game against Uruguay in 1954, setting in place a cycle where hopes have been dashed on a semi-regular basis. The Scotsman took a different view: “Scots meet Uruguay To-day, Chances not rated high," read the headline.

Why should this paper or indeed anyone take a more upbeat view this weekend? After all, Scotland are experts at being authors of their own downfall, especially when it comes to the crunch. Glorious failure sometimes, but failure all the same. And these great enterprises at home and abroad have often been sunk by avoidable factors.

If it’s not heavy jerseys, it’s drinking controversies. If it's not drinking controversies, it's hayfever pills. If it’s not hayfever pills, it’s backing off to let Johnny Rep sticking one in from 30 yards moments after Archie Gemmill has scored one of the greatest ever Scottish goals.

It’s not playing one of your best players, Jimmy Johnstone, following a drinking scandal in 1974. It's choosing a hotel in Argentina with giant insects climbing out of bath plugs and a bone dry, rutted training pitch. It’s piling the pressure on before you’ve even set foot in South America by arranging an open top bus send-off ceremony. It’s not watching the opposition, as before 1978, or confidently claiming the goalkeeper is the weak link and then watching as he pulls off a man of the match performance, as against Costa Rica in 1990.

It’s leaving a world-class defender at home in 1986. It’s seeing that world-class defender collide with a teammate in 1982 to gift a goal to the opposition. It’s wearing kilts to the opening ceremony in 1998 and being rendered emotionally spent by the time of the third game, which is lost 3-0 to an emerging and rampant Morocco side.

It’s losing your manager, who resigns between the first and second game in 1954. It’s taking only 13 players to that first World Cup, two of whom were goalkeepers. It’s becoming almost conditioned to think that it’s simply not possible for Scotland to progress. It is an immutable law of football.

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Everyone else can, including Hungary, whose similarities to Scotland were remarked upon by assistant manager John Carver this week, but who made it to the last 16 at Euro 2016. The Magyars have also even made it to a World Cup final of course.

Even Scotland’s great sides, in 1974 and 1978, underachieved. Perhaps the best squad travelled to Spain in 1982. Same outcome. Same anguished circumstances. Like now, Jock Stein’s side needed a win against the Soviet Union to get through, took a 1-0 lead through Joe Jordan and then allowed the opposition to turn the tables, thanks in part to that aforementioned collision between Alan Hansen and Willie Miller, before Graeme Souness grabbed a late equaliser. Too little, too late.

So why should it be any different this weekend? Well, the players have not wanted for anything. There can be few complaints about the base camp high up in the Bavarian mountains which has not come cheaply.

Shortly after arrival, Carver mentioned that he was still seeing new faces among the backroom staff, who are here to give Scotland the very best chance of success. Not only is there a set-piece coach in Austin MacPhee, there's an assistant set-piece coach. Jose Rodriguez Calvo has been hired for the duration of the tournament. Little has been left to chance. Much has been learned from three years ago.

Euro 2020 came too early for this side. Even when the stars seemingly aligned to give Scotland the most obliging conditions possible when that third game came around - they were literally blessed with a home match, at Hampden - they blew it, against the admittedly brilliant Croatians.

Hungary, though good, are not Croatia. They have no one with Luka Modric's artistry. Scotland, meanwhile, are more streetwise than they were then. The squad that travelled here had over 800 caps although 47 of them have gone in the shape of Kieran Tierney, which is an undeniably significant blow.

As the Arsenal full-back wrote on Instagram: ‘This too shall pass.’ The adage might be applied to Scotland’s repeated attempts to cross this hurdle. Relief will come. This could be the day.