Craig Brown hoping Scotland can reach first finals since 1998 World Cup

Brown, 80, is backed the Scots to reach next summer’s Euro 2020 finals by prevailing in Belgrade, but he admits that prospect would be enhanced considerably if some of Serbia’s top players miss out due to injury or coronavirus restrictions.

Brown, Motherwell boss for the 2009-2010 season, told the Times and Speaker: “If Serbia were at full strength, I would be quite concerned about the game, although we’re playing well just now.

“If it is the case that some of Serbia’s top players are not playing, then I’m very, very optimistic.

“They play with a back three, including (Nikola) Milenkovic at Fiorentina, (Aleksandar) Kolarov, who is at Inter Milan, and Stefan Mitrovic of Strasbourg.

“The three of them have 136 caps among them and two of them could be missing against Scotland.

“Their star player, (Dusan) Tadic, the captain of Ajax, he’s doubtful as well.

“I would very much fancy us if they miss the Scotland game. I’ve just got a wee feeling.”

Brown stressed that when Serbia beat Norway in the previous round, they had seven players that had played in Serie A, adding: “Serie A standard is very good and they’re top players playing for top clubs.”

Reports on Monday had suggested that some of Serbia’s Serie A-based stars could miss the Scotland game due to a ban on them flying from Italy, but it was later disclosed that Kolarov was already in the Serbs’ training camp, though carrying an injury.

Uncertainty remains over both Milenkovic and Fiorentina team-mate Dusan Vlahovic being cleared to travel from Florence.

Brown, now a director at Aberdeen, is backing ex-Dons ace Kenny McLean to potentially be a match-winner again for Scotland, having netted the decisive penalty goal in the Scots’ 5-3 shootout success in last month’s Euro 2020 play-off semi-final win against Israel at Hampden following a 0-0 draw.

“I’m predicting that we will take them to penalties, Kenny will be brought on and score the winner again,” he laughed.

Brown, also backing Motherwell stars Declan Gallagher and Stephen O’Donnell to shine in Belgrade, admits great surprise at Scotland not qualifying for a major finals in over two decades.

He added: “In the 12 years before 1998, we were at five tournaments. I was lucky. I was at the five of them.

“We were at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico and Alex Ferguson took me on the staff there. We were at Italy in the World Cup in 1990.

“Scotland has only ever qualified for two European Championships – 1992 and 1996 – and that is quite a remarkable statistic. Again, I was fortunate, I was at these two.

“We also haven’t qualified for anything in the last 22 years and that’s quite depressing,” Brown added.

“At Euro ’96 (when Brown managed the national side in England), we missed out on qualifying for the quarter-finals by one goal, so we were desperately unlucky there.

“And in the three world cups that I was involved in, we lost our best player before the tournament each time because in ’86 Kenny Dalglish was injured and couldn’t go.

“There’s no way with Alex Ferguson in charge, we’d have failed to qualify (for the second round) with Kenny playing. I’m convinced of that.

“For the next one in Italy, Davie Cooper (Motherwell FC legend), the best player in Scotland at that time – he was on fire – was injured and couldn’t go. Then when we were going to France in 1998, Gary McAllister got injured and couldn’t go.”

Brown, who also managed Clyde, Scotland under-21s, Preston North End and Aberdeen before ending his management career in 2013, finds it remarkable that he remains the last gaffer to lead Scotland to a major tournament.

Given the fact that, before Clarke, his permanent successors as national team boss – Berti Vogts, Walter Smith, Alex McLeish (twice), George Burley, Craig Levein and Gordon Strachan – all failed to deliver that – it now seems harsh in the extreme that Brown was widely vilified after Scotland failed to reach the 2002 World Cup.

“I stayed for four tournaments and we got out the group in three of them,” Brown said. “When we failed to qualify for the 2002 finals, I was so ashamed that I resigned because we were so used to qualifying.

“I thought ‘this is a disgrace that we’ve not qualified’ and it was a very near miss in a good group.

“They might have sacked me anyway because I’d been in for eight years.”