Group Five Scotland 0 Belarus 1: The collective groan that echoed around this arena at the final whistle was anguished recognition that a bubble had burst. Scotland had to wait until much later on Saturday night for final confirmation that Norway, courtesy of their squeeze beyond Moldova, had secured a play-off place, but by then realisation that they had been denied passage to a fourth successive major finals had long since sunk in.
A sense of choking anti-climax will pursue the Scots to Maribor this morning as they try to regroup to fulfil Wednesday's final qualifier in Group Five against Slovenia with little other than pride at stake.
It is to this squad's credit that amid the disappointment that haunted the locals after a tame defeat by Belarus they could still pluck positives from the gloom.
"This is not a reality check for us because we never thought we were Brazil," said Christian Dailly, seeking to provide some perspective. The great pity was, for long periods here, they were not even a pale shadow of the Scotland of recent months.
Elimination should not detract from the progress made since Walter Smith took up the reins at the turn of the year though, inevitably and for all the players' protestations, this was an unnerving plummet from raised expectations.
"Our beginning in this group was disastrous but, although we gave ourselves a glimmer of hope, unfortunately it's not happened," offered Darren Fletcher. "The main aim for us (when Smith was appointed) was to restore pride and look forward to the European Championship qualifiers. That was the long-term plan and I think we're still on track."
Yet the implications of their toils in this group could make the task ahead all the more daunting. Israel's slender victory over the Faroe Islands is likely to condemn the Scots to the fifth group of seeds for the draw for the Euro 2008 qualifying groups.
In the end the Scots - in the group and in this match - failed to recover from a slipshod start. Belarus were seeded below their hosts when this group was drawn, but they arguably offered the slickest opposition Scotland have faced. In Arsenal's Alexander Hleb they boasted a rare talent whose threat was never quelled, with Timofei Kalachev a nuisance at his flank and Vitaly Kutuzov a powerful and potent threat at the tip of their formation. The Sampdoria striker might have scored five times.
The one chance he did take, latching on to a sixth-minute ricochet from a mixture of Dailly and Fletcher to steer a low shot past the exposed Craig Gordon, proved the decisive moment.
To have any real chance of qualifying, Scotland could ill afford a single sloppy passage of play in their final two fixtures, with their lacklustre first-half display here duly wrecking their chances.
"We've got a lot of players who have never experienced that (expectation) at this level," said Smith. "The way we played in the first half was a massive disappointment - we didn't do well enough to warrant anything at all - so we need to find the answers as to why it happened."
* Guardian Service
