Euro 2024: Anthony Ralston embodies Scotland fighting spirit

The question is asked again. Imagine you are Anthony Ralston? So few games, so little confidence, such a cauldron you’re in. Everybody with eyes on you. Wingers salivating at the mouth in your presence.

So this is where it turns, this incredible one-man drama.

Ralston is one of only four Scotland outfield players who has played every minute in Germany. He ranks second only to McTominay in terms of distance covered on the pitch.

He looked to be cramping up just after the hour mark in Cologne, but in the 91st minute, he delivered a cross into the Swiss box and, in the 94th minute, he delivered another.

As much as his football ability was tested on Wednesday, Ralston’s nerve was tested even more.

Those minutes after the goal must have been a lonely time, even though his team-mates rallied around him superbly.

“Not many people would come back from that,” said his captain, Andy Robertson. “It was a difficult one for him, but, second half, he was different class.”

That might be stretching it, but you know where Robertson is coming from. Ralston dug in. He refused to capitulate.

He got himself high up the pitch when he could and defended pretty well in the main. He fronted up.

This is a player whose only other starts this season outside of international football have come against Ross County (twice), Kilmarnock (twice), St Mirren (twice), Aberdeen and Motherwell.

He has now started three games in a row (Finland, Germany and Switzerland) for the first time since August.

How could you not root for Ralston, a footballer who is working extraordinarily hard to survive against more talented players in an unforgiving setting – and where his every error is examined and amplified?

In a sense, he’s Scotland’s fighting spirit in microcosm. There isn’t a single member of this squad who has been tested, psychologically, in the way Ralston has.