"THIS is not just fashion," you might find yourselves thinking as, on your television screens, you watch the Scotland players and their admin entourage skip off the plane onto the tarmac at Skopje and into the team coach, "This is what, M&S fashion?"
For yes, the distinctive cut of those threads being sported by our boys bound for Macedonia has indeed been designed and supplied by Margaret Thatcher's favourite underwear emporium and high street fixture Marks & Spencer.
All involved are hoping that the M&S Performance Suit, as it is memorably monikered, will live up to its billing and give George Burley's men the edge.
"Looking good and feeling good are crucial to success, so the players really appreciate the gesture by M&S and absolutely love the suits," said Scotland's manager.
"It's key we arrive in style and hopefully make a big impression both on and off the pitch. It's great to have such fantastic support from our fans, as well as the staff and customers at our local M&S."
Macedonia may just be quaking in their zoots.
Vieira truly mad for it in IraqJORVAN Vieira claimed that only a madman would take his job when he quit as Iraq coach last year after leading the side to an unlikely Asian Cup triumph. But 13 months and two failed coaches later, the Brazilian is back in charge of the same rag-tag team he steered to victory in Jakarta.
The win made him a hero in war-scarred Iraq, but he rejected a lucrative contract extension, saying he feared he would need to be admitted to a mental asylum. "Maybe I am crazy, I don't know," Vieira said over the phone from Baghdad. He just might be.
TALES FROM THE TABS
SIR ALEX OPTIMISTIC THE Daily Mirror reports that Sir Alex Ferguson is backing Scotland to end their 12-year major finals drought and qualify for the World Cup in 2010. The canny Scot is known for is judgment and famously took the bookies to the cleaners in 2002 when he backed Brazil to win the World Cup at odds of 8-1 so the Tartan Army can take comfort when Sir Alex said: "Scotland have got a chance. I really think they can get out of their group."
However Fergie's prodigy Alex McLeish struck a more cautious note as far as tomorrow's opener in Skopje goes when he popped up in the Sun to warn us: "Macedonia are no duds – I tried to sign two of them." Scary stuff from the man who brought Francis Jeffers to Rangers and lured Alen Orman to Hibs .
Meanwhile, the Record reports that Rangers new boy Maurice Edu has a acclimatised to life in Scotland a bit too much and is paying for it back in Florida ahead of the Cuba v USA grudge match: "It's so damn hot, totally different from Scotland," sighed Edu.
The full article contains 495 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
