Billy Stark feels his Scotland side can qualify for the UEFA Under-21 Championship play-offs even if they lose one of their last two group matches.
Scotland drew 1-1 in a friendly against Sweden at St Mirren Park on Wednesday night but their qualification hopes were lifted when group rivals Austria and Belarus drew 3-3. Four points would assure Scotland of top place in the group and Stark feels that three would give his side a very good chance of progressing as one of the four best runners-up.
"If you look historically, I think with 17 points you would be desperately unlucky not to qualify," Stark said.
"I've never felt we needed two wins in the last games anyway. One win might be enough.
"Denmark qualified from our group on 16 points. You can give yourself a sore head trying to work out what might happen, but I don't think 16 points would leave it impossible to qualify.
"But I think the best way to approach it is to feel that you can go and win the next game. I'm sure that's the way Belarus and Austria will approach it."
Scotland needed a stoppage-time strike from Hibernian midfielder David Wotherspoon to earn a draw against a Swedish side who carved out the majority of the chances.
But Stark felt there were some "solid" performances in his under-strength team and is sure the exercise was a good learning process.
"Sweden have a team ethic and good all-round ability," Stark said. "They maybe don't have absolutely outstanding players but they are all good players and we can learn from them.
"We're striving for a bit of belief, which should be there from the way we've been performing in the group. It wasn't quite there in the early part of the game and we still have to have that, that they go and put pressure on teams and not allow them to dictate to us. That was a good lesson."
Source: PA
