What Scotland's Saying

Morning edition

The country is awake early, and not because it has slept well. Scotland's first World Cup finals appearance in twenty-seven years begins in the small hours of Sunday against Haiti, and the anticipation has the particular texture of something people are afraid to enjoy too directly. The manager Steve Clarke is being urged, with some urgency, to set aside the caution that has defined his better results and trust the players to attack.

The goalkeeping question is absorbing a disproportionate share of the debate. Craig Gordon, who suffered a cardiac arrest serious enough that his return to professional football was genuinely uncertain, has made clear he considers himself ready to start. The public seems to agree, and the argument carries a weight beyond the tactical.

Caroline Weir scored four times as the Scottish Women's National Team beat Israel 5-1 to finish top of their group. The result is being noted with real pride, and with a quiet implication that the women's side has been making this look easier than it is.

Reports that a number of Tartan Army supporters have been refused entry to the United States has produced both anger and bureaucratic exasperation in roughly equal measure. The First Minister has said she will intervene personally.

Far-right demonstrations spread across the central belt yesterday, linked to events in Belfast. The discomfort in public discussion is not anger at the protests so much as recognition of something that does not resolve neatly.

The national mood is eager and slightly braced — a country that has waited a long time and is not quite sure it has permission to believe.