Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Tyranny of Hope

Two questions: oh god, will it never end? And, how can winning be more fraught with terror than losing?

I write, as you will have guessed, of Scottish football. Today’s remarkable, nay logic-defying, triumph in Paris – our first on French soil in, oh, 57 years – was unbearable stuff. I can cope with despair; it’s hope I can’t stand.

Here’s the thing then. With three games left in our murderous Euro 2008 qualifying group, Scotland are – astonishingly – top of the table, ahead of France and Italy (last year’s World Cup finalists) and Ukraine (who reached the last eight in Germany). This is not the way the world is supposed to work. Find me the man who predicted the Scots would defeat the French home and away and I’ll show you the papers committing him to an asylum.

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