Scotland’s bid to reach next summer’s World Cup finals in Russia ended in disappointment but defender Kieran Tierney has vowed to come back stronger for the experience.
Celtic’s Tierney, who plays as a left back for the Hoops but has slotted in at right back for the national team, has established himself as a regular in Gordon Strachan’s starting line-up.
With youth on his side, Tierney reckons going through such a rolleroaster campaign – which saw the Scots miss out on a play-off place to Slovakia on goal difference – will stand him in good stead for the future and said: “I’m only 20 and that was my first campaign involved with the squad, so I’ve still got a lot to learn.
“I will learn a lot from the experience because it is not something that we ever want to go through again.
“As a footballer, you need to deal with the things that happened in Slovenia and these situations.
“Every loss hurts the same. It’s the same at Celtic.
“If we lose a goal or don’t win a game that we are expected to win, it’s the same. If we lose goals you feel we should not lose, it’s the same.
“But, of course, with so much at stake for a World Cup, it was a hard one to take. These are the things I have to go through in my career at some point as a footballer.”
After a poor start which brought just four points from the opening four games, Scotland’s form improved vastly as the campaign progressed, with Strachan’s men taking 14 points from a possible 18 in their last six games.
Tierney feels there is a strong platform to build on ahead of the start of qualification for Euro 2020 next year and he added: “It is important to look forward and be positive.
“Getting through a World Cup group is not an easy thing to do. The qualification is difficult but we just have to look ahead.
“Maybe we’ll be able to look back at the past games and results and be proud of what we did as a squad.
“The first few games didn’t go to plan, obviously.
“After those matches, we were written off as we didn’t get any real results at the beginning.
“We drew at home with Lithuania and lost to Slovakia away.
“To bounce back from those setbacks and embark on the run that we are currently on says a lot for the squad.
“As hard a night it was in Slovenia, we didn’t actually lose the game there, so that kept the unbeaten run going.
“We didn’t get the win we needed but there are positives in that the more the campaign went on, the better we seemed to get.”