ANOTHER European Championship qualifying campaign is consigned to the dusty shelves of history, and, once again, all we can look forward to is wall-to-wall "Engerlund, Engerlund, Engerlund", as the London-based broadcasters beam the pictures into our living rooms from France, next summer.
Aye, situation normal, Scotland is on the outside looking-in, a position which has grown familiar since our last excursion to a tournament finals, in that same France, in 1998.
Deja vu all over again - but, what's new? the Euros have been a disaster zone for Scotland, ever since we got involved.
Qualifying for the 1968 finals - the first time there actually was a final tournament, was via the 1966-67 and 1967-68 Home Internationals.
Now, 1966-67 was the high-water mark for Scottish football post-World War II.
Celtic - European Champions
Rangers - European Cup-Winners Cup finalists
Kilmarnock - Inter-Cities Fairs Cup semi-finalists
Scotland - Home International Champions, plus, beating England, the reigning World Champions 3-2 at Wembley.
We know all these facts and victories, the trouble is, we didn't follow through in 1967-68, George Best virtually beat us on his own, when we faced Northern Ireland, at Windsor Park, we could only draw with England at Hampden, and England, rather than us, reached the finals.
This set a pattern as far as the European Championships were concerned. We didn't qualify in 1972, or 1976, or 1980. In each case, the draw was an all-in affair, but, regardless of opposition, we were as much use in Europe as a three-pin square plug.
In 1984, the qualifying criteria changed. For the first time, the qualifying draw was seeded. The 32 competing nations were placed in five seeding "pots", with one from each pot going into the qualifying groups.
Scotland was in pot three, seeded 15th - the top team in that pot. Little good it did us as we finished fourth in our group and failed to qualify for the finals in France. In fact, we finished 25th overall, ten places below our seeding. Of the 32 nations, only Poland, who slipped 19-places, from their second-place seeding, and Italy, who slipped from 4th seeds to 24th, had worse campaigns.
And this with Jock Stein managing an a squad which included the likes of Alex McLeish, Willie Miller an Alan Hansen, Graeme Souness, Kenny Dalglish and Gordon Strachan.
This disaster, plus a 1986 World Cup campaign which failed to lift the spirits, saw Scotland drop into pot four, 24th seeds. in the 1988 qualifying campaign.
We certainly did better than we had four years previously, finishing 22nd overall, two places above where we started. But, we were still outside looking in as Holland became European Champions.
We managed, however, to reach the 1990 World Cup Finals, which helped us to be placed in pot 2, 13th seeds, in the qualifying round for the 1992 Championships.
And, for once, we got our act together, winning our qualifying group, to reach the finals in Sweden. We qualified seventh, a rise of six places.
Being in the Championships proper should have been a jumping-off point for greater things, but, being Scotland, the three steps forward of 1992 were followed by two steps back in the qualifying phase for the 1994 World Cup. We failed to reach those finals and this helped dump us back in pot 3, 19th seeds, when qualifying for the Euro '96 in England kicked-off.
But, manager Craig Brown and the squad rose to the challenge, we finished second in our qualifying group, 12th overall, and this rise of seven places above our seeding got us through to the big show in England.
Back-to-back qualifiers in Europe, gave us the confidence to reach the 1998 World Cup Finals in France, and, when the qualifying draw for the 2000 Euros, in Belgium and Holland was made, we were in pot one - judged to be the sixth-best footballing nation in Europe.
Could we justify this lofty ranking? Come-on, this is Scotland we are speaking about. We failed to win our group, but, second-place got us into the play-off round, where we lost by a single goal, over two legs, to England.
That hurt, even more than our final placing of 17th, a drop of 11 places.
For the qualifying draw for the 2004 Euros, we were back in pot 3, seeded 20th. We didn't qualify for those finals, but, finishing 20th, we appeared to have halted our slide down the rankings.
That halt was temporary. Scottish football was now on the skids an when the draw for Euro 2008 was made, we were in pot 4, seeded 27th.
Again we failed to qualify, finishing third in our group, but we did improve to finish 15th overall.
With our World Cup woes continuing via another failure to qualify for the 2010 tournament, we were in pot three, seeded 24th, when the raw for Euro 2012 was made.
This campaign was another disaster, we finished third in a five-nation group, 27th overall.
But, as we now assume, things have looked-up since Gordon Strachan took over. We went into Euro 2016 as the 30th seeds - we finished 28th. Aye, we rose two places, but, since only 23 nations can qualify, a fat lot of good it did us.
So, nine tournaments since pots and seedings started. In five of these nine - 1988, 1992, 1996, 2008 and 2016 we have surpassed our starting seeding; in 2004 we started as 20th seeds, and finished in that position, while in 1984, 2000 and 2012 we finished in a lower placing than we started.
That sounds like Scotland, no consistency. Overall, our average starting position has been 20th seed; our average finishing position is 19th.
Only once, in these nine campaigns, in 2000, have we reached the lofty heights of being in pool one - one of the top nations in Europe; twice we have been in pool two; we have had three appearances in pool three and three in pool four.
From this we can deduce - we are simply a mid-range European nation. We really should forget all these notions we have of being a power on the continent. Or, we should do something to make this happen, and get up among the leading lights.
We could start by having an in-depth examination of Scottish football, deciding what, if anything, works, then sorting out what doesn't. We will have to make some hard choices, but, it is clear, we cannot do nothing, or we will simply bumble along in mid-table going nowhere fast.
But, I am not holding my breath for Hampden to sort things out.
Aye, situation normal, Scotland is on the outside looking-in, a position which has grown familiar since our last excursion to a tournament finals, in that same France, in 1998.
Deja vu all over again - but, what's new? the Euros have been a disaster zone for Scotland, ever since we got involved.
Qualifying for the 1968 finals - the first time there actually was a final tournament, was via the 1966-67 and 1967-68 Home Internationals.
Now, 1966-67 was the high-water mark for Scottish football post-World War II.
Celtic - European Champions
Rangers - European Cup-Winners Cup finalists
Kilmarnock - Inter-Cities Fairs Cup semi-finalists
Scotland - Home International Champions, plus, beating England, the reigning World Champions 3-2 at Wembley.
We know all these facts and victories, the trouble is, we didn't follow through in 1967-68, George Best virtually beat us on his own, when we faced Northern Ireland, at Windsor Park, we could only draw with England at Hampden, and England, rather than us, reached the finals.
This set a pattern as far as the European Championships were concerned. We didn't qualify in 1972, or 1976, or 1980. In each case, the draw was an all-in affair, but, regardless of opposition, we were as much use in Europe as a three-pin square plug.
In 1984, the qualifying criteria changed. For the first time, the qualifying draw was seeded. The 32 competing nations were placed in five seeding "pots", with one from each pot going into the qualifying groups.
Scotland was in pot three, seeded 15th - the top team in that pot. Little good it did us as we finished fourth in our group and failed to qualify for the finals in France. In fact, we finished 25th overall, ten places below our seeding. Of the 32 nations, only Poland, who slipped 19-places, from their second-place seeding, and Italy, who slipped from 4th seeds to 24th, had worse campaigns.
And this with Jock Stein managing an a squad which included the likes of Alex McLeish, Willie Miller an Alan Hansen, Graeme Souness, Kenny Dalglish and Gordon Strachan.
This disaster, plus a 1986 World Cup campaign which failed to lift the spirits, saw Scotland drop into pot four, 24th seeds. in the 1988 qualifying campaign.
We certainly did better than we had four years previously, finishing 22nd overall, two places above where we started. But, we were still outside looking in as Holland became European Champions.
We managed, however, to reach the 1990 World Cup Finals, which helped us to be placed in pot 2, 13th seeds, in the qualifying round for the 1992 Championships.
And, for once, we got our act together, winning our qualifying group, to reach the finals in Sweden. We qualified seventh, a rise of six places.
Being in the Championships proper should have been a jumping-off point for greater things, but, being Scotland, the three steps forward of 1992 were followed by two steps back in the qualifying phase for the 1994 World Cup. We failed to reach those finals and this helped dump us back in pot 3, 19th seeds, when qualifying for the Euro '96 in England kicked-off.
But, manager Craig Brown and the squad rose to the challenge, we finished second in our qualifying group, 12th overall, and this rise of seven places above our seeding got us through to the big show in England.
Back-to-back qualifiers in Europe, gave us the confidence to reach the 1998 World Cup Finals in France, and, when the qualifying draw for the 2000 Euros, in Belgium and Holland was made, we were in pot one - judged to be the sixth-best footballing nation in Europe.
Could we justify this lofty ranking? Come-on, this is Scotland we are speaking about. We failed to win our group, but, second-place got us into the play-off round, where we lost by a single goal, over two legs, to England.
That hurt, even more than our final placing of 17th, a drop of 11 places.
For the qualifying draw for the 2004 Euros, we were back in pot 3, seeded 20th. We didn't qualify for those finals, but, finishing 20th, we appeared to have halted our slide down the rankings.
That halt was temporary. Scottish football was now on the skids an when the draw for Euro 2008 was made, we were in pot 4, seeded 27th.
Again we failed to qualify, finishing third in our group, but we did improve to finish 15th overall.
With our World Cup woes continuing via another failure to qualify for the 2010 tournament, we were in pot three, seeded 24th, when the raw for Euro 2012 was made.
This campaign was another disaster, we finished third in a five-nation group, 27th overall.
But, as we now assume, things have looked-up since Gordon Strachan took over. We went into Euro 2016 as the 30th seeds - we finished 28th. Aye, we rose two places, but, since only 23 nations can qualify, a fat lot of good it did us.
So, nine tournaments since pots and seedings started. In five of these nine - 1988, 1992, 1996, 2008 and 2016 we have surpassed our starting seeding; in 2004 we started as 20th seeds, and finished in that position, while in 1984, 2000 and 2012 we finished in a lower placing than we started.
That sounds like Scotland, no consistency. Overall, our average starting position has been 20th seed; our average finishing position is 19th.
Only once, in these nine campaigns, in 2000, have we reached the lofty heights of being in pool one - one of the top nations in Europe; twice we have been in pool two; we have had three appearances in pool three and three in pool four.
From this we can deduce - we are simply a mid-range European nation. We really should forget all these notions we have of being a power on the continent. Or, we should do something to make this happen, and get up among the leading lights.
We could start by having an in-depth examination of Scottish football, deciding what, if anything, works, then sorting out what doesn't. We will have to make some hard choices, but, it is clear, we cannot do nothing, or we will simply bumble along in mid-table going nowhere fast.
But, I am not holding my breath for Hampden to sort things out.
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