JON MCLAUGHLIN savoured his summer with Scotland as the national side made history but fell short at the European Championships.
Now the keeper has set his sights on an even greater goal as Steve Clarke's side look to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar next term.
McLaughlin had to watch on from the sidelines as Scotland missed out on a place in the knock-out rounds after collecting just a single point in Group D.
But the tournament experience has only whetted the appetite as the Rangers star seeks to play his part in helping Clarke's side qualify for a second successive major finals in the coming months.
McLaughlin told RangersTV: "That is one of the parts you are going to enjoy most about these tournaments, seeing how much the country is behind you, how invested everyone is in it.
"Of course it was disappointing that we weren’t able to enjoy that side of it more because of Covid and the restrictions.
"It would have been great, with two games at Hampden, if we could have had a full house and had a full house at Wembley against England.
"All of these things, like fan parks at tournaments, it would have been incredible. But it was still great to see Scotland as a country being able to enjoy a summer of football where we were involved in a tournament for once.
"It is a team that is still young, I think only the goalkeepers and one other player are in their 30s.
"Everyone else is in their 20s so it is a young squad, it is a squad that is developing quite quickly and a lot of players are playing at a high level in the Premier League and SPL.
"I think it is a team that has got a bright future in the next few years and this next World Cup is now a huge incentive for those players that have had a taste of it and want to go again and try and take it further next time."
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 here