Scotland captain Andy Robertson felt his last-gasp winner against Poland was just reward for their efforts in the Nations League group campaign.
Robertson headed home three minutes into added time to earn Steve Clarke’s side a 2-1 victory in Warsaw which allowed them to leapfrog Poland into third place in section A1.
Scotland now have a relegation play-off in March against one of the runners-up from the section below them, with the winners taking part in League A next time out.
The win also gave Scotland a better chance of edging into pot two for next month’s World Cup qualifying draw ahead of the final Nations League fixtures on Tuesday.
Andy Robertson's first Scotland goal in five years…
…and what a time to get it 😍#POLSCO pic.twitter.com/a5kaKORAt5
— Scotland National Team (@ScotlandNT) November 18, 2024
Robertson’s header was a fitting end to a campaign which eventually got going after Scotland suffered late blows in three narrow defeats. Clarke’s men also won late against Croatia as they earned seven points from their final three games.
The Liverpool left-back said of his goal: “It’s been a long time coming, that’s for sure. To do it so late on and it means something, now we get the play-off in March, it’s very important and I think it was what the performance deserved.
“I don’t think anyone can argue that. I thought we dominated. I thought we played well.
“We got done by an unbelievable goal from their perspective. But I think our performance deserved the win and I’m just happy to step up at the last minute to make sure that the lads got what we deserved.”
🔢 The final standings in Group A1.
Tonight's win secures a play-off in March to retain our place in Nations League A.#POLSCO pic.twitter.com/PcbuBJZdgz
— Scotland National Team (@ScotlandNT) November 18, 2024
Robertson feels the late goal was no one-off.
“I think we’ve proved that over the years now,” he said. “I think under this manager, I think we’ve done really well at keeping going.
“We can go through all the games that we’ve done it in and late in games when people get tired and things like that, it’s fine margins and we’re really good at keeping going.
“We’ve got quality that comes off the bench. We’ve got people that can bring quality and we showed that and we were the ones pushing for the win.
“We knew we had to win but we knew our chance would come and it was just whether we could take it or not.”
