Gary Caldwell's perfectly good goal against the Dutch on Saturday was disallowed for no obvious reason but Scott Brown doesn't think it would have made much difference to the result in the Amsterdam Arena clash. The Celtic midfielder knows the Scots have to put that game aside and concentrate on Wednesday's game against Iceland if they want to keep their World Cup qualification dream alive.
"It hurts your pride when you lose a game like this one, especially because we were never really in it," said Brown. "But the most important thing now is to get our heads up and make sure we get the win we need against Iceland. It's not as if you're going to come up against quality like Holland's every week so we have to take this on the chin and move on."
"Sometimes you have to be honest when you have come up against a quality side," he continued. "The Dutch are awesome. I thought I was fast but Robben was like lightning out there. At one point I was chasing after him and he was moving so quickly it felt as if I was running backwards. The guy was unreal.
"Then in the second half they brought Sneijder off the bench," added the Celtic number eight. "And for half an hour or so he just totally ran the show. I thought he was the best player on the park, something special. But for us the most important thing is getting the win we need against Iceland."
Gary Caldwell remains optimistic despite the defeat and he thinks qualification for the World Cup is still entirely possible for the Scots. "We can't panic." he said. "We have to win our home games and we have to beat Norway away. It is the position we have left ourselves in and I believe we can do it. It doesn't knock confidence losing to Holland, but we have to believe we can win because, as good as Iceland are, they are not as good as Holland. We have to take the good bits from our performance and add to it at Hampden."
"There is a chance Stephen (McManus) will be fit for Wednesday and it will be a boost to have him back because we obviously have that understanding from playing together most weeks for Celtic," added Caldwell. "At international level, injuries happen and teams chop and change, so you have to be ready to adapt. I think the guys who came in handled it really well."
Caldwell was disappointed that his goal was disallowed when the score was 2-0 and he continued to remonstrate with the referee as they left the pitch at the end of the game. "I think if that had gone in we might have panicked them," he said. "It is just a shame we never found out. We lost two sloppy goals but showed a bit of fight in the second half. The talking point was the goal that never was. I did nothing wrong. If you look at their second goal, and the one I had disallowed, the jostling for theirs was a lot worse."
mikbhoy@monthehoops.co.uk