John McGinn insists Scotland must use the disappointment of an early Euro 2020 exit to drive them on to reach the Qatar 2022 World Cup.
McGinn was devastated as Scotland crashed out of the Euros in the group stage following a 3-1 hammering from the 2018 World Cup finalists Croatia.
But Steve Clarke’s side littered with talented young players such as McGinn, Billy Gilmour, Kieran Tierney and Scott McTominay, the Aston Villa star is convinced Scotland won’t have to wait over 20 years to qualify for their next major tournament.
“If you look around the dressing room we’ve got a good age group of determined guys,” said McGinn.
“We feel like we didn’t do ourselves justice but what we did do is create history in coming here.
“The manager touched on how we need to learn from this experience.
“We aren’t used to it – there’s not getting away from that – but we need to become a nation that is used to it.
“We need to become braver and better. We can improve but you can see we’ve got the talent.
“Not only that we’ve got talent coming through and we have the belief that we can take it on from here.
“We feel the passion from the whole nation and it’s sad that we couldn’t get more than 12,000 here to support us.
“But come the autumn time hopefully we can get 50,000 here and we can all go together again for the World Cup.
“We have to use this experience to try and drive ourselves on to reach more tournaments.”
Scotland were undone by a midfield masterclass from Luka Modric
Modric, 35, was outstanding for Croatia as they tore Scotland apart with a midfield masterclass.
And McGinn added: “They are an excellent team but we knew that. We were ignoring all the noise that they were an ageing team one in decline.
“They showed their experience and they have one of the best players in the world in Luka Modric.
“I’m devastasted that we haven’t gone through, but I’m extremely proud of the effort we showed throughout the whole campaign.”
Scotland fans react on social media after Croatia defeat spells Euro 2020 exit