JOE Jordan believes Scotland can bounce back from their defeat in Macedonia and make history by becoming the second Scottish team to recover from losing their opening group game to qualify for the World Cup finals.
Jordan was a member of Willie Ormond's side which suffered a 2-0 defeat to Czechoslovakia in 1976, before roaring back to win the return match and twice defeat Wales to qualify for the finals in Argentina under Ally MacLeod. It's an achievement Georg
e Burley's men must match after slumping to defeat in Skopje at the weekend.
Jordan reckons that Macedonia deserved the three points but still believes the current Scotland players can follow in his footsteps.
"We lost to an exceptional Czech team, who had just won the European Championships," said Jordan. "I played up front with Andy Gray and he was sent off that night.
"However, we proved that it can be done by winning all our remaining matches and turning it round to top the group. This time round we got off to the worst possible start by losing a goal after only five minutes and that would have wiped out a lot of what George (Burley] had worked on in the build up.
"We took time to get back into it after that. The substitutions gave the team and the performance a bit of a lift but over the 90 minutes I'm not sure that we deserved to take anything from the game."
Burley has claimed that 17 points would be needed in order to get out of Group Nine so if his players freeze again in Iceland they would need to win their last six games, including Norway and Holland away, to reach that target.
"We now need to take something from Iceland," said Jordan. "If we could get a win then George might look back and think that three points from two away games isn't a bad start.
"George will be looking to freshen things up and there's no argument that Shaun Maloney brought a buzz when he came on. He increased the tempo but whether he's capable of doing that from the start of a match I'm not sure."
Jordan, one of the few players to have scored in the finals of three separate World Cups, saw at first hand what it meant to the senior players in the team when his diving header beat the Czechs at Hampden in 1973 and ended Scotland's 16-year exile from major tournaments.
"When we qualified that year it meant so much to the older guys like Denis Law and Billy Bremner," he said. "Don't forget that during those 16 years we'd had world-class players like Jim Baxter who had great club careers but never had that opportunity with Scotland.
"There are players in the current squad who are in that position now and time passes quicker than you think, but I believe that this team is building up in the same way as ours did.
"Our team is still remembered fondly and these players can achieve that same status. I just hope it doesn't take longer than 12 years. The Euro 2008 campaign did so much for the national team, not just beating France twice but the fact that we were always in contention meant that we got our respect back on the international stage.
"I'd rather try and get out of the group we're in now than that one. As Iceland proved on Saturday by coming from behind twice to draw in Norway all the teams are capable of taking points off each other.
"The fact we've lost our first match probably means that we have to take something from all our remaining fixtures. It's not been a great start but we've got to make sure that we're strong and that we don't get cut up by the others.
"Scotland is a small country but Iceland's population is just 300,000 and if we play to our capabilities then we should beat them.
"In the short term Iceland's result on Saturday could work against us because they'll have been given a boost by that. However, I believe it's more important for our prospects that Norway didn't take all three points.
"I watched that match and the four goals all came from set plays, as did Macedonia's goal against us. We have to be more careful on Wednesday because if you're not focused in these situations then no matter how well you've played it can cost you points and, ultimately, cost you qualification."
The full article contains 767 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
