Scotland manager Gordon Strachan admitted his players “fell asleep” when they allowed Gibraltar to score the goal that hushed Hampden.
The Scots had just taken the lead on 17 minutes through a Shaun Maloney spotkick after the midfielder had been needlessly challenged by Gib keeper Jamie Robba.
However, just a couple of minutes later they suffered the embarrassment of conceding the first goal scored by the minnows in this Euro 2016 qualifying Group D campaign.
There was no consolation that the strike was a cracker, with a sweeping move finished off by Lee Casciaro with a low shot across goalkeeper David Marshall that nestled in the corner of the net.
That brought the visitors level but three goals in the space of 10 minutes made it 4-1 at half-time to Scotland, with Steven Fletcher grabbing his first on 29 minutes, another penalty coming from Maloney on 34 and then Steven Naismith adding another with a low shot on 39 minutes.
The second period was played out like a friendly until Fletcher made it five for the hosts with a point-blank header off a cross from sub Jordan Rhodes.
Then, in the last minute of regulation time, Fletcher became the first Scots international since Colin Stein scored four goals against Cyprus in 1969 to bag a hat-trick when he curled a lovely shot beyond Robba after he was played in by sub Barry Bannan.
That made it 6-1 to the Scots but it seemed that those half-a-dozen goals couldn’t totally compensate for the loss of the one to the visitors.
“We spent all week working on attacking and width so, really, we fell asleep,” admitted Strachan.
“We took it for granted that they wouldn’t attack us but they did.
“We were caught walking out when the boots should have been walking back the way.
“So we took it for granted that Gibraltar wouldn’t go past the stage they were reaching in order to attack us.
“All the credit should really go to them today because they made my life a misery for periods of that game.
“They made it a long game for me as a coach so well done to them.
“Their goal kind of threw us a bit and made it an interesting couple of minutes.
“I was looking for more balls to be played through the middle but we played it square too many times.
“I was a wee bit disappointed with that and sometimes it’s not easy.”
Gibraltar’s Scots-born coach Davie Wilson revealed that his side’s goal wasn’t a fluke but rather the result of seeing the Scots leave themselves so open at the back.
He said: “We were trying to out-think Mr Strachan and see how he was going to play.
“We knew from the minute we started that if we could maintain the driving force when we broke away then we would get chances.
“Scotland at times were playing a 2-4-4 formation against us and we just had to be brave and not tuck in.
“When we got out of our own half we showed we could play.”
Strachan revealed he had a premonition that Scotland would hit Gib for six but he conceded it didn’t include the one netted by Casciaro.
“When I woke up this morning I said we would score six but I didn’t think we would lose one,” he said.
“We had a bounce game on the (Hampden) surface on Saturday and it was the best I have seen this international team move the ball. The football was terrific and I was expecting the same today but it wasn’t so great.
“The players have big, big games coming up championships, relegations battles so maybe they took the foot off the gas a bit.
“Still, after five games we have 10 points and I think we are all happy with that.
“We can go into the second half of the campaign feeling good about ourselves.
“The four performances leading up to this one have been terrific but this was not one of our best but we got though and scored six goals.
“There were players out there who weren’t having a great game but they stuck at it and no one got booked, which I was happy about.
“We had some chances and it was nice to see Steven Fletcher scoring a hat-trick and I thought he was one of our better players. I was here when Colin Stein scored four and that was a long time and a few stone ago.”
The national coach joked that he is now in the good books of his two other goalies Allan McGregor and Craig Gordon for leaving them out.
“McGregor and Gordon now love me,” he said.
“They think I am the best manager in the world for not picking them. That’s because they are not in the history books. David Marshall will be the answer to the quiz questions now.”