Steve Clarke has led the country back to the finals of a major tournament but the Scotland manager insists his team remains a work in progress.
Scotland have taken two points from their opening two matches of their 2022 Qatar World Cup qualifying campaign following draws with Austria and Israel.
It is a disappointing start for Clarke’s men, but the Scotland boss insists his team will get better.
He said: “People have to remember this team of ours is still growing. The more experience the players get the better they’ll be.
“The next round of World Cup matches is still five months away from now and we can do a lot more growing over that time. We’ll have at least three matches to play in the Euros and hopefully maybe even more.
“So this team will grow again before we return to the World Cup campaign and that could be hugely significant in terms of our development.”
Denmark, the top seeds in Scotland’s group, have scored 10 goals in their two games and are the only team boasting a 100% record, but Clarke is counting on a summer of maturity for Scotland before they face the Danes at Hampden on September 1.
He said: “There has to come a moment in time where we believe we are good enough to go and take points from the pot one teams and hopefully that’s going to be the case in this campaign.
“I believe the players are good enough to do that already, but they have to believe more in themselves.
“If they grow more over the next few months and prove to themselves what they can do at the Euros then we might be in a very different place when the World Cup qualifiers come back around.”
The response to the draws could be viewed as a typical Scottish half-empty reaction and, while Clarke accepts that, he prefers to take a more pragmatic view of the campaign.
He said: “It’s just the way things are. Everybody gets a wee bit carried away in the heat of the moment. Everybody wants to judge things in that instant.
“But that’s not the way I look at things. From our perspective, it’s going to be a long group and there are lots of points still to play for, starting with the Faroes on Wednesday night.
“If we get to the end of the first week with five points from our first three games then we can all sit down, look at the table and take stock.
“Don’t forget. Denmark now have to play Austria, so something has got to give there. So let’s not get involved in knee jerk reactions.
“Let’s wait and see how the table is looking when the first round of games are over and then we will be able to see what we have to do.”
