IT isn’t just passes that Scotland’s international footballers ping at each other. Like many workplaces and sports teams across the land, Alex McLeish’s squad have a group chat set up to keep lines of communications open. While Kieran Tierney is reluctant to get into details, let’s just say it is a fair bet that most of the content on there is rather racier than the online Uefa Nations League manual which was posted by one of the coaches by way of explaining the newest and most complicated addition to the international calendar. Now, if only the SFA could find a way send one out to all of the Tartan Army before tonight’s opener against Albania.

“You don’t want to know what we chat about!” said Tierney. “No, it’s important to have a group chat and have some banter. If someone needs help then everyone is there for him. It’s good to get to know everyone and it’s a modern-day way of bonding.

“It was one of the coaches who put in the path of how it [the Nations League] works and it didn’t do anyone any harm to read over it,” he added. “It’s not the easiest to understand. But you just think one game at a time – you just need to win the next game.”

For the record, a grand total of six matches – home and away against Albania and Israel then a one-off semi-final and final at a mystery location – could see Scotland become eligible for this backdoor entry point into Euro 2020, a competition in which matches will be hosted at Hampden. And having failed to make it to a major finals by conventional means for 22 years, a nation such as ours, of course, has no right to be sniffy about this avenue. Tonight’s opponents Albania, stuffed with players who strut their stuff in Serie A and Greece, reached Euro 2016, currently top this group, and finished only behind Spain and Italy when it came to World Cup qualifying.

Tierney, of course, is no stranger to fraught early-season play-offs against unheralded teams who you are expected to overcome. With he League C Group 1 ties wrapped up by November, with a play-off round to follow in March, there is a comparison between the Uefa Nations League and the Parkhead side’s Champions path to the Champions League. And we all know how that ended this year.

“I had never thought of it like that but it probably is like the Champions League qualifying,” said Tierney. “You know what’s at stake, you’re up against tough teams. But you also know that, if you turn up, you stand a good chance. So it’s probably like that – and the Celtic boys have all been through it a few times. Unfortunately, this year, it didn’t go our way in the Champions League. But hopefully the Nations League will work out for us. We know that these are four massive, massive games.”

It would be remiss, of course, to sit down with Tierney and not get stuck into the thorny issue of how the talents of both he and new Scotland captain Andy Robertson should best be shoe-horned into the one team. An experiment actually first started by Gordon Strachan in the 2-2 draw against England, Alex McLeish’s solution to having two of the best left backs in Europe is to play neither at left back – with Tierney playing on the left side of a back three and Robertson ahead of him at wing back. It is an experiment McLeish will persevere with tonight, even if Belgium had a worrying amount of joy down that side on Friday night.

“We played that formation for the first time the other night and it’s not going to be perfect right away,” said the Celtic full back. “We’ve had a week of it in training and we’ll get better and better at it.”

The question is whether too much of the team shape is being sacrificed to get both men in, and whether too much is being taken out of both men’s game by playing that way. While Robertson has taken the armband Tierney wore for the first time against Netherlands last March as well as his more advanced position on the left flank, the Celtic defender has no gripes about either slight and is happy to adapt his part for the team.

“I’ve had to put the brakes on a few times – with Celtic as well as Scotland!” said Tierney. I got moved in there for Celtic, bombed forward and then thought ‘Oh, hang on, that’s not my job, I need to tuck in and protect’.

“I don’t know if that’s why the manager has changed the formation, just to get me into the team. But I’m grateful.”