Scottish Football Association chiefs may have scored a spectacular World Cup own goal by agreeing to play Qatar in a friendly.
Scotland will face the Gulf nation at Easter Road in June before they face Ireland in a crucial Euro 2016 encounter in Dublin.
But by facing Qatar, Scotland may have shot themselves in the foot when it comes to the World Cup 2018 qualifying draw in Russia in July.
Scotland are currently on the brink of securing the last place in Pot Two of seeds, which would be a huge boost for Gordon Strachan's side.
However, because of the complicated way FIFA's World Rankings work, by agreeing to face Qatar - a nation currently ranked 99th by world football's governing body, even a win against the oil-rich country could work against Scotland when it comes to Rankings points because of both their lowly position and being a member of the Asian Football Confederation, which isn't ranked as highly as UEFA nations.
And it would mean Scotland sliding into Pot Three for the July 25 draw, which will be held in Konstantinovsky Palace in St Petersburg.
If Scotland had decided not to take the fixture against Qatar - a country where an SFA delegation of chief executive Stewart Regan, president Campbell Ogilvie and vice-president Rod Petrie visited on a fact-finding mission in February - they would have known that a victory over Ireland in the Aviva Stadium would have guaranteed them a Pot Two place.
The rankings are based on the last four years' results, with results in the past 12 months counting for more than those in the preceding years and points are averaged out according to the number of matches played in a year.
It would mean that even a win over Qatar would affect Scotland's average points in the Rankings because of the relatively low points a win would collect. A draw or defeat to the World Cup 2022 hosts in Edinburgh would end all hopes of that Pot Two place.
Respected football statistical prediction site We Global Football summed up the SFA's decision to play the friendly against Qatar by commenting: "While Scotland has been doing OK in qualifying, they've completely screwed the pooch when it comes to scheduling.
"Arranging a friendly with Qatar will only hurt them further. They had a chance to get into Pot 2, but they've failed to do the things necessary to get there. Even still, if they win at Ireland and didn't play Qatar, they should have been able to get in."
FIFA will use their Rankings for July 2015 to decide seeds. Pots will be split into nine teams per pot, apart for smaller pots near the bottom end of the seeding.
The SFA declined to comment on the matter last night.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article