Scotland will face Denmark, Austria, Israel, Faroe Islands and Moldova in their quest to qualify for their first World Cup since France 1998.

The draw for the European section of 2022 FIFA World Cup Qualifying took place yesterday in Zurich.

The ten group winners will automatically qualify for a spot at the finals in 2022 with a further three places available to European teams. Those places will be contested for via play-offs made up by the 10 group runners-up and the two best 2020-21 Nations League group winners.

The qualifiers will be played between March and November 2021

Scotland Head Coach Steve Clarke: “When you go into any campaign you want to finish as high as you possibly can and that’s what we aim to do.

“The draw is decent but I’m sure that Denmark, Austria and everyone in the group are looking at it thinking it’s a decent group.

“It’s always going to be tough. We have to keep improving, keep working hard, don’t get carried away. We look forward to the games in March.

“I think the fact we have managed to break the hoodoo and qualify for a tournament that we can all look forward to in the summer is great, but I tend to look at the last two games and I’m a little disappointed that we finished with two defeats because we had been on such a good run going into the match against Serbia.

“All we can do now is try to start a winning run in March. Hopefully the fixtures are kind to us, we get a good start in the group and we can look forward to a good World Cup qualifying campaign.”

Dates of the qualifying fixtures will be announced shortly.

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John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.