Souttar reflects on bittersweet Scotland debut
The Hearts defender played the full 90 minutes in Glasgow.
John Souttar admits his Scotland debut was soured by the pasting dished out by Belgium.
The Hearts centre-back was blameless as Romelu Lukaku and Eden Hazard both struck before Michy Batshuayi’s double wrapped up a 4-0 win for Roberto Martinez’s men at Hampden.
But that did not lessen the hurt as the 21-year-old’s first international start ended in a crushing disappointment.
“It was obviously a tough start for me but it was great to get the debut, which is something I’ve been striving towards,” said the Jambos defender. “Of course you never like getting beat so the way the game finished was always going to put a dampener on the debut.
“It was good to test myself against top players. We’re a young team, you can see that at the end, there’s a lot of new faces and it’s going to take time to adjust to how the manager wants us to play.
“At 1-0 at half-time and them having had a lot of possession, it didn’t look too bad.
“But obviously they are a top team, they finished third in the World Cup so it was always going to be a test.
“You can say what you want but if you make individual errors it’s going to be tough.”
The friendly loss is the last thing Alex McLeish’s side needed ahead of their Nations League opener with Albania.
But Souttar is confident his side can bounce back on Monday night.
He said: “The big game is against Albania and we’ve got to look forward to that.
“It’s important we don’t carry this disappointment into Monday. It’s a hard one to take but I’m sure we will sleep on it, have a look at it tomorrow and that will be it.”
