• England v Scotland, Friday, 11.45pm, Abu Dhabi Sports HD
While England’s preparations for the 2018 World Cup in Russia have taken a bit of a hiding, Scotland are on a hiding to nothing.
Yes, Sam Allardyce has ignominiously departed, while his replacement Gareth Southgate has a win and a draw from his two caretaker games in charge, but at least England are not as beleaguered as Gordon Strachan and the neighbours north of the border.
Indeed, this may be Strachan’s last match in charge of a team who have failed to qualify for a major tournament since 1998.
A poor 1-1 draw at home against Lithuania and a 3-0 humiliation in Slovenia have taken the gloss off a 5-1 opening win over Malta so far this campaign.
• Greg Lea: A historic football rivalry struggling to stay relevant in the modern day
Scotland are already three points behind Group F leaders England and have tough matches ahead of them, on Friday’s one at Wembley Stadium being by far the hardest.
Lose and Strachan will surely go. Secure an unlikely win and it is all to play for in Group F, with Lithuania, Slovenia and Slovakia all still in the running, with only the group winners sure to reach Russia 2018.
But, in all probability, Scotland’s record of failing to reach a summer finals will likely extend to a second decade.
Euro 2016 looked like an insurmountable challenge for Scotland, with world champions Germany, Poland and Republic of Ireland in their pool. And so it proved.
But the road to Russia — England aside — looked much more navigable before those setbacks to Lithuania and Slovenia.
The picture is not so pretty. England are unlikely to drop many points in the group, Scotland almost certainly will.
So another four years will probably pass until Scotland get their chance to play at a major tournament. Four more years of looking in from the outside.
This fixture, however, is something else.
The Auld Enemy clash brings with it bragging rights that live on in the memory (1967 is cherished by the tartan persuasion and 1996 by the anglophiles).
This fixture — England v Scotland — brings out something that is lacking in others, a passion that only stirs when you play your oldest rivals.
The last time Scotland triumphed on English soil was the 1-0 win in November 1999, when Don Hutchison — an Englishman by birth — scored the only goal at the old stadium in London in a Euro 2000 play-off.
While that was not enough to progress to the finals in Belgium and the Netherlands, nothing was going to stop Hutchison from basking in his historic moment.
“I finished it off and nothing was going to stop me celebrating a goal in front of the Tartan Army at Wembley,” Scotland’s goalscorer said at the time.
How Scotland, and Strachan, would relish another such moment on Friday.
If only to bring a smile to the fans for a short while.
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