Firstly, admittedly at the Scottish Football Association's behest, the number of continental qualifiers was extended to 24 teams from 2016 onwards, theoretically at least handing us a greater chance of qualifying.

Then, yesterday, Uefa's Executive Committee endorsed the idea of president Michel Platini to stage the 2020 competition in up to 13 European cities, throwing a bone to countries who have previously been overlooked in the bidding process for being too small or financially brittle to see the project through. When it emerged last night that Uefa were effectively looking for a single location with a football-daft population and up to three 50,000-plus seater stadiums to stage both semi-finals and the final, the fit could hardly have seemed more natural for Glasgow had Platini also insisted that the matches were played out on a blaes pitch with a mouldmaster.