ENJOY the moment, then make sure you can savour it again.

That was the message from Gordon Strachan to his Scotland players last night after this remarkable, unexpected victory in Zagreb.

Few, perhaps even among the Scottish party that travelled to Croatia, believed that a win was possible over the joint Group A leaders but this triumph gives this young, inexperienced and hitherto woebegone squad something to build upon. That, says their manager, is key. "It's a great result and we must enjoy the result," Strachan said. "But when I look at it from a coach's point of view, there are one or two things you would like to brush up on, that's for sure.

"This is something that makes us happy for a while and makes us feel good about ourselves. Sometimes we do take it badly. I remember James McArthur and Robert Snodgrass taking it badly after the Wales game. Now they can feel good about themselves and hopefully in the next game there is a spring in their step."

Asked if the 1-0 win has given the nation some pride back after six qualifiers without a victory, Strachan said: "I think so, I hope so. You play for your country for pride. It's not for money, anything else. And you give people pride."

On the result itself, he added: "The lads played from their hearts. They played as a group; 24 of them trained as a group, which made this possible. So we thank them for that. It was 90% that we weren't going to win. We would like to think that the work that they put in helped. You can't do it if you're not convinced about doing it and I thought the group themselves were brilliant. We got a response from training and we got a response tonight.

"I really feel pleased for everybody who gets on the plane, who travelled, who were watching. When you're with the national side, the group makes the whole country happy."

When it was put to the manager that some of the individual displays bordered on the heroic, Strachan said: "There is heroic in terms of defending. There is also heroic in holding the ball up. Shaun Maloney was doing that, James McArthur. Craig Conway and Steven Naismith went on and did well. I think that's as good as I've seen Alan Hutton play. Steven Whittaker as well. As a partnership at centre-half it wasn't bad, too. Other ones have to get up to a level of fitness to play at this level and that's hard work."

Matchwinner Snodgrass echoed that sentiment. "The manager said 'everybody can play with heart, run about a lot and do things, but it takes a little bit more now'. There was loads of cheap talk from Croatia and we used that as motivation."