THE man who was his main rival for the Scotland manager’s job less than a year ago has become Alex McLeish’s inspiration as he endeavours to revive his country’s fortunes after two decades of disappointment and failure.

Michael O’Neill was, as a result of the wonders he worked with a Northern Ireland side which hadn’t qualified for the finals of a major tournament in 30 years, the SFA’s preferred choice to take over from Gordon Strachan.

McLeish only got the nod when O’Neill, who had led his national team to Euro 2016 and then a Russia 2018 play-off, decided to turn down their offer and remain where he was.

Yet, he believes the success that his counterpart enjoyed following a horrendous start, as well as other head coaches who have survived a poor run of results in international football and gone on to flourish, shows what can be achieved with faith and perseverance.

The fact that Scotland have won just one of the five games they have played under their former centre half – a friendly against Hungary in Budapest back in March – has not filled members of the Tartan Army with great hope for the future.

The 59-year-old, though, is unconcerned by a statistic that doesn’t really stand up to very close scrutiny when you consider that he has used the early games of his second spell in charge to give game time to young players to see if they are able to cope at international level.

It is, too, worth remembering he inherited the summer tour of South and North America and had to field significantly understrength teams against Russia 2018-bound Peru and Mexico due to the availability of key players and a raft of call-offs.

“Michael O’Neill won one in 18 at the start with Northern Ireland and he turned out a national hero,” he said. “Stanislav Cherchov, the Russian coach, didn’t win in seven games, then had a fantastic World Cup finals. I take inspiration from things like that. This time next year. . .”

The crowd that will turn up at Hampden for the opening Nations League game against Albania will be a reminder, not that any was needed, that much work remains to be done to get Scotland back to the level they were at when McLeish represented them.

A Euro 2020 play-off spot is available to the team that tops Group 1 in League C so much is at stake this evening. But the national stadium is set, as it was for the visit of the star-studded Belgians on Friday, to be half-full. It is indicative of a widespread apathy among supporters.

The manager knows exactly how to address what is now a long-standing problem and turn indifference into excitement – by winning games and ending a wait to reach a tournament that stretches back to France ‘98.

“There is more hope than expectation,” he said. “That’s blighted us for a long time. Our goal is to change those people who say: ‘Ach, we won’t do it’. We have to change that perception. The only way we can do that is to win. We have to go and beat Albania, we know that. We know this is where it starts.

“It’s probably down to our failure not to make finals in recent years. When fans know there’s a good team going out there who are going to win games, and there is a good team going out there tomorrow, they will come back. It’s up to us to win the game to get fans back.

“But there was a half decent crowd for Belgium. You’d expect a big giant crowd for Belgium if Scotland were in the running for Euros and World Cups, the way we were in the past.

“They will come back if we win, pure and simple. Over the years we have seen club teams who have had barren years and the fans drop off and then as soon as they start winning the stadiums are full again.

“We want to encourage everyone to come tomorrow night. It is a competition and we need a great support. The players thrive on the fans giving them everything and getting behind them.”

McLeish fielded Kieran Tierney of Celtic on the left side of a three man defence with Andy Robertson of Liverpool operating as a wing back outside him when Scotland played on Friday night.

The result, a 4-0 defeat that was their heaviest at home in 45 years, would suggest the experiment was not entirely successful, but the manager feels it was not to blame and looks set to persist with his 3-5-1-1 formation tonight.

“He (Tierney) is obviously comfortable going onto his left foot,” he said. “Maybe after a couple of games he will be saying: ‘I would rather go back to right back’. But he hasn’t said that so far.”

“I try to play to the players’ strengths, maximise the players we have got and maximise the system and accommodate the players we have got who I feel are going to take us to another level.”

“He is only at the start of it. Sometimes in training he is really good at doing it. When you come up against a world class team sometimes you get the squeaky bum. It is then just about assuring the players we are not putting them into situations where they are liable to get caught.

“ They are all capable of passing the ball in the certain manner, with a bit of authority and accuracy. It is not as if we are getting people to do something that they can’t normally do. So it is there, it is an option for us.

“It doesn’t mean that we are going to build up. Some-times the ball will be overhit, as France did in the World Cup when the focal point was Olivier Giroud. But we certainly want to try and pass it as much as possible.”

McLeish will be reunited with Albania manager Christian Panucci tonight for the first time since his Scotland side took on Italy in a fateful Euro 2008 qualifier at Hampden 11 years ago.

Panucci, the then Roma right back, scored a late winner for the visitors after a contentious free-kick award, to end the home team’s hopes of reaching the finals in Austria and Switzerland.

The pain of that injustice has long since dissipated, but the memory of what was a fantastic occasion, with a capacity crowd crammed into the national stadium willing their team to end, remains with the manager.

“It was incredible,” he said. “I’m standing out there looking around the stadium thinking: ‘It will be fantastic to get to those days again’. This team is quite young. They are very keen to give the fans something to shout about. The thing is to get behind them. I know they really care. If we get a good result, we’re going for a win, things will pick up.”