YOU feel compelled to inoculate yourself from the pain of watching Scotland’s opening games in major football tournaments. I’ve always adopted the reliable ‘let’s just be thankful we’re here’ approach. That way, you’ll never have that wan feeling of desolation that makes you want to lie down or to berate yourself for having been such a giddy fool for thinking we might have won.

A lifetime of bitter experiences watching Scotland’s first games in World Cups and European Championships has reduced me to wandering in this undead twilight zone: fearful of becoming too excited at an early breakthrough and fearing the inevitable collapse which follows it. Even in those moments where you’ve seen Scotland win their opening group games there were presentiments of heartache.

In 1974 I celebrated defeating Zaire 2-0, Scotland’s first-ever win at a World Cup. But soon came the gnawing feeling that we’d accorded the plucky Africans a bit too much respect and could perhaps have knocked a few more past them. When Yugoslavia did manage to knock a few more past them (nine, if you’re asking) it became clear we’d be back home within the week.

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In 1982, we scored five against New Zealand whom, we were assured, only featured players who weren’t considered good enough to play rugby. That would have been okay were it not for the fact that they scored the two goals which effectively knocked us out the tournament. Four years earlier, Ally MacLeod had convinced me that Scotland would reach the semi-finals of the 1978 World Cup in Argentina. This seemed to rest on us having beaten Czechoslovakia and, er … Wales in the qualifiers.

Our first game was against Peru, whom the criminally jaunty Mr MacLeod had assured us were effectively pensioners retrieved from retirement to take part. The trauma of watching us miss a penalty to go 2-1 ahead before collapsing to a 3-1 defeat endures to this day and means I can never approach any of Scotland’s opening games with even the merest degree of optimism. Costa Rica in 1990, anyone?

And then, even when Scotland have no chance of winning, you’re fretting about getting a right old leathering in front of a global audience and the possible damage to the Scottish economy and our collective mental health.

Fortunately, when we have faced elite nations we’ve managed to avoid any serious humiliations. In France in 1998 we were actually holding tournament favourites Brazil to a 1-1 draw as the game entered its final quarter before reality and an own goal descended.

In 1986 we couldn’t have asked for any more from our players after a narrow 2-1 defeat to mighty West Germany. This was the game where the diminutive Gordon Strachan put us into a 1-0 lead and then pulled up short at a perimeter advertising board he’d attempted to leap.

We failed to qualify from this group not because of that, though. It was because we couldn’t beat a workmanlike Uruguay side in our final game, even though they’d been reduced to ten men for almost the entire 90 minutes. In 10 days we’ll face the host nation Germany in the inaugural game of the 2024 European Championships. It’s the first time Scotland have qualified outright (no play-offs and no remedial leagues) for a tournament series since 1998. And now I’ve got that same feeling as when we faced Brazil 26 years ago: please don’t let us get spanked hard in front of the watching world.

Until some of our key players started getting injured, I’d actually allowed myself a degree of optimism, though laced with a bracing and restraining dose of Presbyterian rectitude. The Germans haven’t won anything serious for 10 years – just like us.

And besides, their top team, Bayer Leverkusen, had their arses handed to them by Atalanta (the St Mirren of Italian football) in the final of the Europa League. Meanwhile, mighty Bayern Munich have been a bit rubbish this season and Borussia Dortmund were mugged by Real Madrid in the Champions League final.

Look, we’ll probably lose to the Germans, but if can hang on to our self-respect then surely we’ve got to fancy ourselves against Switzerland and Hungary?

The Herald: A dejected Ally MacLeod during the 1978 World Cup in ArgentinaA dejected Ally MacLeod during the 1978 World Cup in Argentina (Image: SNS)

I probably wouldn’t be of such moderate cheer if it weren’t for the fact that Steve Clarke is our manager. Scotland and good cheer do not mix well. In Mr Clarke though, we have a coach who can be trusted not to play fast and loose with our emotions.

We can rely on him to prey on any delinquent and treacherous buoyancy in the dressing-room. You’d never catch this reassuringly austere head coach telling everyone what we’re going to do to our opponents.

I always get a bit nervous when we’re landed with national coaches with too much to say or who raise our hopes in an irresponsible manner. Mr Clarke, I think, channels those qualities that we like to think become us: hard, quiet, cautious and a bit moody, but channelling a reasonable conceit of ourselves.

Beyond Scotland’s modest dreams of success, I’m relishing these championships. The winner will probably emerge from the big five of Germany, France, Spain, Italy and England. Unlike in the Uefa Champions League though, there will be a measure of uncertainty and the potential for some heroically improbable results. In the last three decades or so, nations such as Holland, Denmark, Greece and Portugal have triumphed.

In recent years the Champions League has effectively been reduced to the status of a vanity, invitation-only pre-season tournament. Only a handful of artificially-constructed Frankenstein super-clubs can win it. These teams are a Marvel Comics version of the game, super-charged with the dodgy receipts of sport-washing regimes or global brand franchises.

They deploy an anti-football approach. That is to say, rather than embrace its universality they use their billions to ensure that they are kept away from the champion clubs of smaller countries and the communities they represent. They consider these unworthy to be admitted into their presence.

Until recently, children in Scandinavia or in the countries of Eastern Europe might hope of seeing Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi or Phil Foden come to play in their home towns. Now, unless they can negotiate up to five qualifying rounds, they’ll rarely get to see these wonderful footballers playing live. Watching Manchester City play football is a depressing experience in which all individuality and risk has been replaced by geometric, pre-packed sterility.

The European Championships will remind us of something more honest and thrilling. And I know I’m committing a mortal sin here, but I’ve got a feeling that Scotland will reach the knock-out stages.