The forlorn look on Tom Boyd's face in the 73rd minute in Paris in 1998 as the ball ricocheted off his right arm and into his own net; the head-in-hands shock of the great Billy Bremner when he failed to score from a few yards out in Frankfurt in 1974. Scotland have known pain against Brazil, and 60 years and 10 games since that first 1-1 draw when Stevie Chalmers scored after a minute, they face them again in the blistering humidity of Miami.
Steve Clarke's side know they don't need to win and don't even necessarily need to draw to reach the knockout phase for the first time in their history. A battling 1-0 loss, a rough 2-0 defeat, or even a desperate chasing might still see them advance. It is the essential weirdness of the situation they're in.
“Scotland face Brazil knowing they could advance to the World Cup knockouts even with a narrow defeat.”
Andy Robertson said on Tuesday he didn't give a damn about permutations, but you can bet he knows all the detail. His obsession is on getting the kind of result that powers Scotland into the next round. 'You don't get to his level if you're looking on defeat as some kind of victory,' wrote BBC Scotland's chief sports writer Tom English, 'which, of course, it could be.'
It has been 15 years since Scotland played Brazil and 28 years since they played them in a World Cup. Robertson's side cannot be gung-ho, but they have to be more threatening than they have been in their two games in America and in the six that went before in their last two European Championship campaigns. Against Morocco they put in a committed second-half performance, applied pressure and had moments.
Elsewhere, England were left frustrated after a goalless 0-0 draw with Ghana, which left the Three Lions unable to confirm their spot in the round of 32. Jude Bellingham, who was man of the match, said the team needed to 'roll with it' ahead of their final group game against Panama on Saturday. He dubbed the result 'second game fever' as it was England's fourth successive draw in second games at a major tournament going back to Euro 2020.
Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo announced his return to prominence with a brace in a 5-0 thrashing of Uzbekistan. Scotland now step into the Miami humidity for what English called 'Scotland's game of the century' — a game where a loss, as long as it is not too heavy, might still make history.