The qualifying draw for the 2016 European Championships took place on Sunday with Scotland drawn in Group D.
Manager Gordon Strachan saw his Scottish side drawn alongside Germany, Republic of Ireland, Poland, Georgia and UEFA newcomer Gibraltar for the qualifying campaign which kicks off with a trip to Germany on September.
Following the draw for the France tournament, which took place in Nice on Sunday, Strachan suggested that the qualifying phase will be very exciting for the Scotland team.
"Let's just say this challenge represents a bigger hurdle to get over than that advertising board," said Strachan with a smile, referring to his attempted jump over the advertising hoardings after scoring against West Germany in the 1986 Mexico World Cup.
"But I think we are quite pleased with the draw. We're excited about it but it's also quite daunting as well. It's an exciting challenge. That's good.
"Over the last couple of weeks it hasn't really bothered me, but then I turned up here, looked at the pots and thought 'Here I am, this is good, I like this'.
"It could have been easier, but I think it's exciting for a lot of reasons. First of all, you have Germany who are one of the best teams in the world and then you have Gibraltar who are new to the competition.
"But between that you have four teams, any one of which is capable of finishing in second place. People might think it will be between ourselves, Poland and the Republic of Ireland but I think Georgia will be in the mix as well. I think there are four teams who will be gunning for second place.
"I was looking about during the draw trying to work out who we could get. I was thinking to myself, 'Do you want to be in that group? Hmm, maybe not!'
"There were other groups that I quite liked the look of but then someone else would join it and suddenly it didn't look like such a great idea now. So the group we have ended up with is fine.
"I have walked out of that hall feeling that we have a chance of straight qualification and that's a good thing. I would have felt that way no matter what group we ended up with."
Scotland will be looking to qualify for their first major tournament since they competed at the 1998 World Cup in France. The last time they were in the finals of the Euros was in England 1996 when they failed to get past the group stage.
