GORDON Strachan believed Scotland were going to deliver the greatest result in their history when Ikechi Anya scored against world champions Germany last night.

After six unbeaten games Thomas Muller inflicted Scotland's first defeat in more than a year, but Anya had equalised in the second half and for four minutes the game was tied. Strachan was so encouraged by his team's second-half display he suspected they were about to snatch a winner, but instead they conceded a poor goal and had Charlie Mulgrew sent off in stoppage time. However, Scotland now face Georgia and Poland in a Group D double-header next month, still with momentum and belief after contributing so much against the Germans.

"The Germans are always going to have more of the ball, probably more chances, that goes without saying," said Strachan. "At that point [Anya's equaliser] I saw players playing with no fear. In the first 20 minutes it wasn't fear, but we had asked the players to look out for passes and we tried to rush these passes and lost the ball quite a lot. That gave the Germans easy possession and allowed their system to be more positive than our system. So we had to adjust things and then we settled down. In the second half we played with no fear. At 1-1 I genuinely believed we were going to win.

"I did the easy bit, I just had to sit there and tick things off on my sheet and write notes. The players should be proud of how they played. The longer the game went on the more of a threat we became. So the players really should be proud of their performance. All we have to do is work on how we play in the first 20 minutes and when we get that sorted out we'll be fine, we'll be good."

"If you look at our substitutes and how well they played you can see I can take big decisions all over the place. Everybody has their strengths, so you pick a team with the strengths to play the team you're playing. I could actually have picked another team and it would have given us the same performance. That is how good our squad is getting. And by the way, how good were our fans? They made the whole occasion such a fantastic one. That's one of the reasons we have to get to a major finals."

Strachan - who was on the pitch in protest seconds after the final whistle - had a withering opinion of Norwegian referee Svein Oddvar Moen. He maintained his habit of not openly criticising referees, but only just, after Moen angered him with a couple of controversial decisions in the closing stages of a stirring match. Erik Durm should have been sent off for denying Steven Naismith a goalscoring opportunity. "We try our best not to speak about referees but I would love to see the referee's assessment of that performance. Unfortunately we don't get to see them, though."

Strachan exonerated his defenders despite conceding two cheap goals. "If you can find me someone who's six foot four and can head the ball for miles and jump at eight feet like Muller can, then it's avoidable. If you don't have anyone to do that - and I think most countries in the world do not have someone who can do that - when you are dealing with an exceptional machine like Muller you are always going to have a problem."

Germany manager Joachim Low was predictably satisfied with his team's first competitive game since winning the World Cup in Brazil. "Scotland hadn't lost for a year now and they have won away a lot so we knew they would be very difficult opponents. We did make a few mistakes at the back and they capitalised on that and got their goal, but then we came back so it all worked out well. I knew it would be difficult. In the first half we controlled the game, pressed them back, didn't let them have any chances, In the second half we lost a bit of control."