Whoever put the argument that Scotland do relatively well considering their small population is wide of the mark too.
A quick search suggests Scotland's population as of the last census was about 5.2 million.
An equally quick search reveals the following...
Denmark (qualified automatically as group winners) 5.3 million
Montenegro (qualified for play offs) 0.6 million
Republic of Ireland (play offs) 4.2 million
Estonia (play offs) 1.4 million
Slovenia (recently qualified for World Cups) 2.0 million
Slovakia (ditto) 5.4 million
Croatia (play offs, have reached WC semi finals in recent memory) 4.5 million
Bosnia & Herzegovina (play offs) 3.9 million
Armenia (narrowly missed out to Irish) 3.2 million
Norway (missed out to Portugal on goal difference) 4.9 million
I accept you could also use population as a stick to beat England with, so it works both ways, but spare me the "we're only a wee nation" rubbish. Ireland don't even have a league worthy of the name, and not a single member of their squad plays for an Irish team, but they still made it.
It was me making the point that Scotland had done well for a small nation but my argument was based historically not on this year's performance. The current team is too poor
. I can't be arsed to look it up but I bet that Scotland has a better record in reaching championships than nations far bigger.
Obviously, a lot of those countries are only a few years old so it's hard to compare them with Scotland and that might change in the future but my argument was that Scotland had done pretty well for itself over the last 50 years.