Scotland midfielder Kenny McLean admits his famous halfway-line goal against Denmark will follow him for the rest of his life, even on routine supermarket trips.
He laughed that in years to come he will be picking up a pint of milk in his local Aldi when someone will shout “shoooooooooot” at him from down the aisle.
Not that McLean is complaining, with that moment of magic last November becoming an instant iconic piece of Scottish football history.
The Norwich City midfielder sealed qualification against Denmark with a stunning strike, and the Tartan Army have been urging him to have a go ever since.
McLean said: “I wouldn’t say it’s off-putting. It’s encouraging more than anything. You can hear it but sometimes it might not be the right option to take.”
He did attempt a 35-yard effort during Scotland’s 4-1 World Cup send-off win over Curacao at Hampden, with goalkeeper Eloy Room forced into a decent save.
McLean said: “I was closer than obviously all the other times, so I had a pop and the keeper made a decent enough save.”
The midfielder is determined that the Denmark goal represents a beginning rather than an end to Scotland’s story on the world stage.
He said: “We don’t just want to rest on what we have done already. We believe that we can be better than what’s been previously and we know we’ve got the quality.”
McLean added: “We think we’ve got a good chance of getting out of the group and we’ll go there with confidence and we’ll give it everything because that’s all we can do.”
The 34-year-old was just six years old during Scotland’s last World Cup appearance in 1998 and holds few personal memories of that tournament.
He said: “When Scotland aren’t there, you’re not really invested as a fan. We want to give people memories and things that they can talk about.”
McLean said he hopes the long wait for a World Cup will not be repeated, adding: “We’ve got here, so we need to enjoy it, we need to embrace it, we need to do all we can.”
Scotland face Haiti first before Morocco and Brazil in what promises to be a demanding group stage assignment in the United States.
The Curacao warm-up win built momentum, although a red card for striker Jurgen Locadia helped ease Scotland’s path after a difficult opening half-hour.
Youngster Findlay Curtis opened his Scotland account before Lawrence Shankland’s double and a Ryan Christie penalty secured a confident send-off at Hampden.
McLean reflected that the crowd’s appreciation at the final whistle demonstrated how much excitement has been building over Scotland’s qualification campaign.
He said: “I think everybody’s excited for what’s to come in the next month or so. It’s going to be amazing, so it was just good to get a better send-off than we did previously.”
McLean also wore the captain’s armband during the match, describing it as something that fills him with a lot of pride before paying tribute to regular skipper Andy Robertson.
He said: “We’ll all be following Robbo out this summer. He’s the man, he’s our captain. He’s amazing at what he does, on and off the pitch. A special person.”
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