Ukraine vs Scotland, Uefa Nations League live: score and latest updates

Scotland’s players and supporters would be the first to tell you that promotion from Uefa Nations League B to League A, which they will secure should they avoid defeat against Ukraine in Krakow tonight, is no solace for their failure to qualify for the Qatar World Cup. But it is an achievement worthy of merit. Despite its numerous detractors, the Nations League is here to stay. Uefa likes it, the national associations like it and the head coaches like it because it gives meaning and structure where once there were only friendlies. 

Now that the international calendar has been harmonised and those fortnight hiatuses for domestic football have been written in ink, there will be no going back to arranging ad hoc matches with whoever you can pay to come to town for matches in which you can chuck on six subs and write off anything adverse that happens as utterly inconsequential.

Should Scotland go up, not only will it potentially afford them the opportunity of playing for a trophy and valuable experience of finals play if they make it through to the biennial finals tournaments, it allows them to move on up from the familiar opponents in the shallow international pool to which they’ve been consigned for years, to heavyweights such as Portugal or Holland or France or Italy or Spain or Germany or Croatia, the kind of company among whom the people have always felt the national team belonged. Hosting Ukraine brought 42,000 to Hampden; Ireland almost 49,000. Opposition of League A calibre will attract the couple more thousand to sell the ground out, boosting gate revenue and potentially attracting more lucrative broadcasting contracts. That’s nothing to scorn, though the temptation to swank it above the relegated England is nothing to be sniffed at either.

Tonight Steve Clarke will have to change the winning formula that earned them back-to-back victories. Scott McTominay, a round peg in a round hole back in central midfield after the reinstatement of a back four, is suspended, while Kieran Tierney and Scott McKenna are injured. Kenny McLean should deputise for McTominay while Celtic’s Greg Taylor, enjoying the form of his life, should slot in at left-back and Hibs’ Ryan Porteous at centre-half.

For Ukraine, Serhii Sydorchuk is suspended, but any or all of Taras Stepanenko, Oleksandr Pikhalyonok, Mykola Matviyenko, Oleksandr Karavaev, Ruslan Malinovskyi, Andriy Yarmolenko, Mykhaylo Mudryk and Artem Dovbyk, who all featured in Glasgow but were rested against Armenia, could come back in.