Billy Stark cautioned against labelling his Scotland under-21 side the great hopes for the future – despite their progression to the European championship play-offs.
The young Scots defeated Austria 2-1 at Pittodrie on Tuesday afternoon to go through to next month’s play-offs. They will know their opponents tomorrow and victory will take Stark’s side into next summer’s eight-team tournament in Denmark.
Stark said: “We can’t get carried away.
“One thing doesn’t make a bad team, one thing doesn’t make a good team.
“They’ve done well in this qualifying campaign.
“We might not do well in the play-offs – that’s the nature of football – but it won’t be through lack of effort or lack of application.
“I keep preaching a realism and I think that’s the sensible thing to do.
“We have to realise we’re no superpower.”
Aberdeen attacker Chris Maguire scored an 89th-minute winner on his home ground to send Scotland through as Group 10 winners, courtesy of a better head-to-head record than Belarus.
The qualification means Scotland are among the leading 15 teams in Europe – 14 play-off teams, plus hosts Denmark, who qualify automatically – and Stark hopes his side can give Scotland a boost.
But he maintained his young charges, who were yesterday named as one of seven seeds for the draw, must back up their qualifying campaign in the knockout phase next month.
He added: “If people see Scotland in the later stages of a competition, that helps to get us respect. We’ll have to show in the two-leg play-off we can back it up a wee bit with our play.”
The play-offs are scheduled for between October 9 and 13 in the international break – in which Craig Levein’s senior Scotland side take on Czech Republic away (October 8) and Spain at home (October 12).
Stark hopes his side can play in front of a capacity crowd on a day when the senior side is not in action. He added: “The players deserve an audience.”
Captain Paul Caddis, who set up Barry Bannan’s equaliser, said: “We always believed in ourselves to get the goal.
“There’s a lot of character in the team.
“We hope for the luck of the draw, but it’s only 180 minutes of football and you never know what is going to happen.”