What Scotland's Saying

What Scotland's Saying

The squad has left. Scotland are going to a World Cup in North America, and the fact of it still seems to require repeating before it lands properly. At Hampden this morning, the mood among those who gathered was less triumphant than quietly stunned — a country that has spent decades rehearsing disappointment finding it does not quite know what to do with genuine occasion.

Steve Clarke's selection choices are being examined with the thoroughness Scotland usually reserves for post-mortems. The inclusion of Tyler Fletcher ahead of three midfielders who had expected the call has generated more debate than most of the squad's achievements. Clarke has offered his reasoning; public opinion has not yet decided whether to accept it.

Celtic won the Scottish Women's Cup Final against Rangers in circumstances that will be replayed for some time — ten players, a deficit in numbers, a result that ended a record opponents had been quietly relying upon. The margin of the performance, reduced as the team was, said something worth noting.

Elsewhere, Nicola Sturgeon's televised account of events surrounding the SNP embezzlement scandal is being processed slowly, the way difficult things are. The interview was emotional; the questions it leaves behind are not.

In Aberdeen, approximately 700 cars gathered without permission. Two people were arrested. It is not the nation's most pressing story, but it has that quality of being precisely, reliably itself.

Scotland departs in a state of nervous, measured hope — which is, for this country, a form of optimism.