Scotland at the FIFA World Cup Costa Rica, Sweden, and Brazil, but the Scots lost 1–0 to Costa Rica. While they recovered to beat Sweden 2–1 in their second game, they lost to Brazil in their third match 1–0 and were once again eliminated after the first round. Goalkeeper Jim Leighton fumbled a shot that allowed Brazil to score the only goal. Craig Brown guided Scotland to qualification for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, finishing as the best runners-up. Scotland were drawn against holders Brazil in the opening game of the World Cup. John Collins scored from the penalty spot to level the score at 1–1,
1998 FIFA World Cup seeding 1998 FIFA World Cup seeding To calculate the seeding for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, FIFA used the FIFA World Rankings in combination with performances of national teams in the three previous World Cups. For the ranking part, points were allocated on the basis of 32 for the best achieving of the 32 qualifiers for 1998 FIFA World Cup in each of the three fields considered, down to one for the lowest ranking. For the World Cup performance part, points were allocated as follows: The seedings table uses these points obtained from the 1986 FIFA World Cup, 1990 FIFA World