Gritty Scotland give themselves a chance of making history with progress to knockouts still a possibility after outperforming Switzerland, writes IAN HERBERT

A tide of royal blue support on the banks of Rhine lifted Scotland to another level on Wednesday night and kept their place in these championships alive.

The team they urged on were confronted by opponents who threatened them and just briefly, looked like they might bury them, but Scotland were lifted to another level. They took the point which means a win against Hungary in Stuttgart on Sunday could take them to the knock-out stages of a tournament for the first time.

You would not say it was a European sophistication from Scotland. Just direct, vertical, muscular highly effective football. And it worked. Amid the cacophony of noise, they struck a post and could walk away in the knowledge that that were the better side.

The Tartan Army had amassed on the steps of Cologne’s monumental cathedral by lunchtime, belting out ‘No Scotland, no party’ - the joke being that there was no point heading into that place to pray, because it wasn’t big enough for the help the country now needed.

The sun came out as they drifted towards Innenstadt and up to the stadium and long before kick-off approached, the supreme, infectious Scottish optimism was back. The legendary Cologne FC anthem sung at this stadium takes the tune of the Bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond’ as its tune – the lyricist liked it – and even those too young to remember it were being forcibly reminded of the Boys of ’96. 

The Scotland team, that is, who beat Switzerland 1-0 in the European Championships in Birmingham that summer, keeping alive the hope of progress to the knock-out rounds. Scotland haven’t won a tournament match since.

The lamentable opening performance against the hosts had clearly got to Steve Clarke – taciturn and tetchy when asked about this date with destiny. 

It had been left to Andy Robertson to provide some Celtic spirit. His admission that there had been ‘fear’ in this team when they played the Germans was a frank one. And though the rendition Scottish anthem was beyond belief – ‘We can still rise now. And be-the nation again’ – you still worried for those men. Did they and their besotted nation want this too much?

The Scots were looking to locate the golden spirit of the qualification campaign which they have lost along the road. 

They did so by getting at the Swiss, delivering more bite and spit in the first six minutes than they had the entire 96 against the Germans in Munich. There were two Scottish corners in that time, John McGinn striking the ball deep from the off.

There was also the mercurial skill of Billy Gilmour who was recalled to midfield – and who should never have been absent from it against the Germans in the first place – finding the spaces and the passes between the lines. No player was more involved or more creative in the first half.

Yes, Scotland’s opening goal was a moment of extreme good fortune – Scott McTominay’s strike deflecting off defender Fabian Schar – but Gilmour played a key role in the build-up. 

His chest control on the half-way line, facing back his own goal, and measured pass sent Andy Robertson galloping away. The captain seemed to fractionally overhit the pass to Callum McGregor, who turned back to weigh the ball inside for McTominay to strike.

But there is a reason why Scotland had conceded 26 goals in ten games. Their defence is prone to catastrophic error. Though some will remember the Swiss equaliser as a moment of Xherdan Shaqiri sublimity – the 32-year-old unravelled the most beautiful strike – Scottish incompetence led to it. The rearguard dithered, with two weak touches before Anthony Ralston effectively played the ball into the Shaqiri’s path to gift the goal.

Scotland were on the rack then and it was hard not to fear for them in the face of swift, precise elegant Swiss counter-attack. The Tartan Army held its breath as Ruven Vargas slipped a reverse pass to Dan Ndoye on the overlap, watching him glide around Kieran Tierney and unfurl a pass that Angus Dunn palmed away.

Ndoye, the Bologna forward, causing the defence a lot of trouble, was a hair’s breadth offside when he darted in front of Dunn to take and net a ball. The Scottish defence, abandoning wide areas to block the central space, were making themselves vulnerable to attacks down the flanks.

Scotland needed to find another gear though it was tough and for a time they lived perennially on the edge. The physical effort of trying to hold off Ndoye, as he raced onto an aerial ball, finished Tierney’s night. His hamstring snapped and he was stretchered from the field. A devastating outcome both for him and Scotland.

It was the Tartan Army who lifted things again – maintaining a noise the likes of which this tournament simply has not seen. ‘Oh Scott McTominay!’ they sing. ‘I love him til my heart aches. He loves the Tartan Army. He turned the English down!'

And the blue shirts really were lifted in tandem. It does not always happen in football, though on this occasion, the energy really did transmit from stand to pitch. There was a level of aggression which simply had not been see in that desperate defeat last Friday.

Gilmour was still the stand-out player, pressing the Swiss hard. McTominay was another of the company sergeants driving the Scots on.

It was McTominay who won the free-kick on the right side of the Swiss box, despatched by Robertson, at which Grant Hanley, racing ahead of Schar, threw himself. The ball crashed against the base of the Yan Sommer’s right post. John McGinn, Robertson and Gilmour laced a move together which delivered another chance and the Swiss could no longer locate the threat. Unfathomably, Clarke removed Gilmour for Kenny McClean.

Robertson, who was superb all night, headed a ball at the back post and Manuel Akanji denied McTominay a certain tap-in. He then arced a dangerous ball into the Swiss six-yard box, though there was no Scottish payer to take it. When the whistle blew, McTominay was on his haunches, red-faced with the effort of a job which leaves Scotland safe in the knowledge that their team can still make history.