Scotland legend Gary McAllister knows precisely how Billy Gilmour is feeling after his own devastating World Cup heartbreak left him physically sick on a football pitch.
McAllister played in every single qualifier for France 98, captaining his country through the campaign with genuine belief he would lead them at the tournament.
Instead, he was stretchered out of an empty Highfield Road during a reserve match for Coventry City, his World Cup dream destroyed in an instant.
The searing pain that shot through his knee was so severe that McAllister was physically sick on the pitch, a moment he has never forgotten.
As Steve Clarke’s Scotland side prepare to face Haiti in their opening fixture without Napoli midfielder Gilmour, McAllister’s empathy for the stricken player runs uniquely deep.
McAllister told Record Sport: “It was an almighty blow for me because I played in every game of the World Cup qualifying campaign.”
The original injury came in a Coventry City match against Leicester City, when McAllister attempted to nick the ball from Neil Lennon and became tangled, snapping his cruciate ligament in a sickening rotation.
He attempted to recover without surgery, spending months rebuilding his knee, before a reserve match against West Brom in April 1998 ended his hopes completely.
McAllister recalled: “I had to plant my poor knee, the one that had snapped. And that big change of body movement meant it went again. I actually spewed up on the pitch. It was a really sickening feeling. And I knew it was over.”
Scotland manager Craig Brown asked McAllister to travel to France as a senior figure despite his injury, a request the former captain found both painful and impossible to refuse.
McAllister said: “Craig invited me along for the get-together before we travelled. He just wanted me to be visually there, to help the lads.”
Watching Colin Hendry receive the captaincy for the team photo was a difficult moment, though McAllister accepted it with the professionalism that defined his career.
He added: “At Italia 90, I was a late call-up to the squad so I didn’t feature there either. So the two World Cups I was at, or could have been at, I didn’t play at either.”
Despite that personal sadness, McAllister is hugely excited about Scotland’s prospects in the United States and draws strong parallels between Clarke’s current squad and the one Brown built thirty years ago.
He believes Scotland’s current midfield trio of John McGinn, Scott McTominay and Lewis Ferguson is as strong as any the nation has produced, matching the celebrated unit he formed with John Collins and Stuart McCall at Euro 96.
McAllister said: “We’ve got McTominay, McGinn and Ferguson. This is as good a midfield as we’ve had since the one I played in at Euro 96, absolutely.”
McGinn arrives at the tournament having lifted the Europa League and finishing strongly in the Premier League, while McTominay has been outstanding in one of Europe’s biggest leagues throughout the season.
McAllister believes that if Scotland can progress from their group, containing Haiti, Morocco and Brazil, these players will enter a different tier of Scottish football legend entirely.
He said: “If these boys can get through this group stage, they’ll jump above all of us. You’re then talking about going ahead of people like Graeme Souness and other amazing players because they’ve managed to take Scotland into the knock-out stage.”
The sequencing of Scotland’s fixtures, with Haiti first and Brazil last, could prove crucial, and McAllister believes a strong start might create a scenario where anything becomes possible in Miami.
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