It's the very thing the senior squad have been accused of lacking.

As Steve Clarke's side succumbed to consecutive, bruising defeats to Russia and Belgium the question was floated - what exactly were we trying to do here?

Especially against the Russians, when a highly promising opening period was inexplicably replaced by a crippling anxiety following John McGinn's opening goal.

But on Tuesday night Scotland U-21s provided welcome relief to the Hampden shambles.

A late Connor McLennan brace stunned top seeds Croatia to secure a potentially massive result in their own Euro 2021 qualification bid.

Sandro Kulenovic gave the hosts a 10th minute lead before Aberdeen youngster McLennan struck twice in the closing stages.

It was a gruelling test for Scot Gemmill 's young team, but as his stars reflected on victory afterwards there was a recurring theme.

The gameplan.

McLennan, Fraser Hornby and Glenn Middleton used the word five times between them in post-match interviews, perhaps without even realising, to hammer home how well drilled this U-21 side has become.

And it was no fluke either.

A double from Hornby inflicted the same fate on the Dutch U-21s, exactly one year before last night's triumph in Sibenek.

McLennan scores his first against Croatia

Here's a flavour of how the youngsters reacted to the landmark win.

McLennan said: "It was a mad 10 or 15 minutes! I think we stuck to the gameplan well and that's what the plan was, to throw a bit of fresh legs on with me and Glenn.

"We went to counter a couple of times and thankfully we got the win."


Middleton said: "I said the other day interviews after the San Marino game that the coaches were going to give us a gameplan and it was up to us to go ahead and carry it out.

"Obviously everyone wants to start the game, but when the gameplan works out like that you can't have any complaints at all.

"We've shown tonight there is good stuff happening behind the scenes. Everyone's proper working hard together and it's starting to show now.

"Game by game we're showing what a good team we are. The coaches are giving us the gameplans and, like I said, it's down to us to carry it out from there which we have done."

And Hornby added: "It's not the first time we've been away to a top seed, we did it last year away at Holland.

"It's a message that Scott, Housty, Malky and the rest of the coaching staff get across to us that if we stick to our gameplan we know that we can hurt any team.

"The message before the game was to not make it easy for them, stop them playing the way they wanted to play and I think we did that."

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