Lyall Cameron insists his U/21s team-mates can become the first Scottish team to win in Kazakhstan.
And he’s praying for Hungary to do them a favour and throw them a Euro 2025 lifeline.
Scotland fell to a late defeat to Belgium on Friday night which means they are three points behind them going into Tuesday’s final game in Almaty.
Scot Gemmill’s side need to win and hope Hungary do them a favour by winning in Belgium, which would be enough to seal a runners-up spot and a play-off space because Scotland have a better goal difference than the Belgians and an identical head-to-head record.
Celtic twice, Aberdeen, Scotland and Scotland U/21s have all tried and failed to win in the former Soviet nation, with the young Scots embarking on a marathon flight to get there, via a stopover in Turkey.
But Cameron is praying for a miracle.
He said: “I think we’ve shown a lot of good performances in the group so far, played some tough teams and had some good results.
“We know it’s not going to be easy over there because of all the travel and all the stuff you need to take into consideration, but we’re definitely a strong enough side to beat them I think.
“Hungary won’t be an easy side either for Belgium. Hopefully they’ll do us a favour and beat Belgium and we can qualify. I think it’s been a long time since the 21s have done that.
“When we played Kazakhstan at home I think we dominated the game. It was quite a comfortable 4-1 victory here.
“But it’ll be a completely different game so it’ll be a completely different set-up but we just need to handle it and do our part and hope it’s enough and Belgium slip up and it’s good enough for us.
“I think it’s 12 hours on the way home from Kazakhstan. So it’s not going to be easy. I don’t think we’ll be there for long and I don’t think we’re going to adapt to the time difference, I think we’re staying on UK time.
“It’s going to be weird eating your breakfast at three in the afternoon and all that kind of thing but at the same time it’s an experience so I’m quite looking forward to it.
“I think everyone knows their own body well. We play a lot of first team football so we need to take care of ourselves and recover properly and we’ll do that over the next few days. Then hopefully when we get to play Kazakhstan we’ll be fit and fresh.”
Conversation