One down, one to go. That bare statistic, meaning that a Scotland win in Moldova next month will take them to the World Cup play-offs, belies the epic struggles Steve Clarke’s team encountered against the Faroe Islands.
Scotland toiled to such an extent that the euphoric celebration that greeted the crucial weekend win over Israel felt like it belonged in another age. With 86 painful minutes played, a cross from the substitute Nathan Patterson was shanked against Lyndon Dykes by the Faroese defender Hordur Askham. Dykes knew little about it – and had to survive a supposedly never-ending VAR check – but the goal stood. It was Dykes’s fourth in the same number of consecutive international games, a feat not achieved in Scottish colours since 1969. Scotland have won four in a row for the first time since 2007. A fifth would elevate Clarke’s status even further.