The night a new Scotland was born as Callum McGregor, John McGinn and Ryan Christie signalled changing of the guard

Malky Mackay only took charge of Scotland for 90 minutes against the Netherlands. But much of the success that sees the nation about to step onto the European Championships stage for a second successive time can be traced back to that otherwise bleak night at Pittodrie.

The 1-0 defeat to Dick Advocaat’s Oranje might not have lived long in the Tartan Army’s memory. Delve deeper though and you'll find it was a changing of the guard moment for Scotland. Mackay, then the SFA’s performance director, took caretaker charge after the exit of Gordon Strachan and handed debuts to Callum McGregor, Ryan Christie and Ryan Jack - three of the Euros squad who now sit on a combined 129 caps ahead of Friday night’s opener against Germany.

John McGinn, then at Hibs, was given only his second start for his country. Kieran Tierney won his ninth cap and was made captain. But, crucially, he reverted to left centre half inside Andy Robertson having been deployed at right back in recent outings under Gordon Strachan.

Scots stalwarts such as Darren Fletcher, Scott Brown and James McArthur who had been cruelly denied a chance to strut their stuff on the big stage of the international scene stood down as the new generation got their feet firmly in the door. The rest is history. Twenty-three years of big tournament exile came to an end. Now it’s back-to-back Euros.

Mackay not only made the changes that night, he left with a plea to whoever was next in charge to keep the group together. Do that, he said, and Scotland will soon rise above mid-ranking teams and back onto the big stage.

He was absolutely right. Speaking this week, the newly appointed Hibs sporting director said: “Scott Brown came along that week and helped out alongside me and Eric Black.

“He was a good foil because he had a radar on players’ characters and personalities. We picked a squad and a team that was young-ish.

“I gave the captaincy to Kieran Tierney and asked him to play left-side centre-back that night. He’d asked not to play right-back where he had been playing a few times for Scotland.

“I asked him to play centre-back and told him he’d be a Rolls-Royce in there. On the night, I thought we played well. If we’d had a centre-forward we could’ve scored three or four, we created a number of chances.

“I told the board if your next manager keeps this young group of players together, they will grow and start to beat mid-ranking European teams. And they did.

“John McGinn was starting his second game. McGregor, Christie, Ryan Fraser, Jack, Tierney, Robertson – a real good group of young players that could grow together.”

For Celtic skipper McGregor to not win a cap until he was 24 might raise eyebrows now. But Mackay said: “You’ve got to be fair there to Gordon Strachan. He’d just finished a campaign where they basically hit the post in terms of qualifying. He was very loyal to a group of people.

“He was maybe stubborn in terms of there was a lot of people clamouring to be involved, but when you look at it was a loyalty factor with that group that had gone the whole way with him. I completely get that.

“Once that was finished, there were ones who had ran their race, and it was up to myself as part of the performance department at the SFA to look at the future.

“We had some real young talent coming through – Christie, McGinn, McGregor, Robertson and Tierney. They were young and exciting, and you think ‘if they get experience behind them, they could really go’. You just look at the careers they’ve all had.

“And I’m delighted for the young players that have come through the 19s and 21s – Greg Taylor, Nathan Patterson, Aaron Hickey, Lewis Ferguson, Billy Gilmour. That was the group coming through behind them, and then you had Ben Doak coming through behind them.”

Of course the breakthrough group of 2017 is only half the story. Along with Alex McLeish who was appointed soon after that Netherlands game and then Clarke, Mackay drilled down on a list of “English diamonds” who had Scottish blood in their veins.

Scott McTominay was first to commit after a game of patience. Che Adams was next. Then Angus Gunn. All three will be huge players in Germany.

Mackay said: “We were trying to hunt down those English diamonds. We said: ‘Let’s go and aggressively hunt down the Scottish ancestry.’ I spoke to Angus Gunn’s dad, spoke to Che Adams and his parents, spoke to Harvey Barnes and his parents about coming. And we spoke to young Scott McTominay as well.

“I remember when we actually got him, and Jose Mourinho came up to the game at Hampden. I looked after him that night because he was Scott’s manager at the time.

“We have to keep trying to look at all these avenues for players. Three of them have come across and will hopefully play a big part at the Euros.

“I think we’ve got the best chance we’ve had in a number of years. There’s good people and good staff around it aswell. I just hope he can keep everyone fit.”

• Mackay was speaking at the launch of his dad, Malky Mackay MBE’s, book ‘What 'am sayin' to you is’ which charts the Queen’s Park stalwart’s remarkable 60 years in football.