Well. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

It’s a unique aspect of Sport that there are “ways to lose”. You can go down fighting, trying to maintain your game plan when victory seems impossible. Most football fans will be able to forgive a loss if those on the pitch have run themselves into the ground for the team. There are ways to lose. 5-1 is not a way to lose.

Only the most optimistic of Scotland fans would have predicted a victory: this is the best Scotland team in years; Germany has had a series of poor tournaments and only just restabilised; it’s the first match of the tournament, remember when Senegal beat France in ’02? Most would have been hoping for a draw. Nothing too special, just a hard-fought point and sights set on the (relatively) easier targets of Switzerland and Hungary.

After 10 minutes the thought process became “Keep ‘em quiet, don’t do anything stupid; maybe nick one back before half-time.” After 20 minutes: “Bollocks.” At half-time, pubs began to empty.

It’s quite unbelievable to have watched last night’s match and then go on reading about how the German public isn’t particularly hopeful. They dominated everything. 20 shots, 10 on target, five blocked. More key passes than Scotland, more successful dribbles, more attacking plays and chances created, over 600 total passes. Look at a heatmap of the German team and it is just a white-hot circle around Toni Kroos – Germany’s number eight was at the centre of everything: his distribution, vision, and link-up play unmatched. The game plan seems to be “Make the run and Toni will find you”. 100 of Germany’s total passes were created by their mercurial midfielder.

Scotland on the other hand was abysmal. No shots at all (own goals don’t count – blame the Stats Gods). A handful of charges down the left wing from Tierney and Robertson came to nought. Scotland had set up to press Germany and hit them on the counter, but didn’t. Germany had six attacking-third recoveries: when they lost the ball, they pressed Scotland high up until they got it back. The Scots need a tactical and mental rethink.

It’s a bit of a joke amongst Scottish fans that supporting Scotland is a great day out ruined by 90 minutes of football. And if you’ve seen any of the images from Germany, that rings so true. It looks like the greatest party on the face of the earth. A pub in Munich ran out of beer; the entire city had to suddenly shift to an Oktoberfest-style service. A procession of pipers through the main plazas, fan parks full to the brim three hours before kick-off, queues for a pint and sausages stretching for hours on end. It’s estimated that anywhere between 150,000 to 200,000 Scots were in Germany. That’s four per cent of the population. At one point, Munich was competing with Aberdeen to be the third most populous Scottish city behind Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The excitement made for a weird day of work for me. Rather than the flood of people stocking up before the 8pm kick-off, it was instead a light trickle. Everyone who came in had some opinion about the match, but it was few and far between. Empty shop, empty street. Everyone had already set up base camp in pubs and bars across the city.

I had to watch the first half at work since we didn’t close until 9. And aside from one or two people who hadn’t gotten the memo about Scotland playing in the first game of an international tournament, I was able to watch them fail to give the Germans any real difficulty without much interruption. Only an Angus Gunn save within the first ten minutes and a free-kick being awarded to Germany instead of a penalty were the only positive shouts in the shop. Halftime: 3-0 to Germany, Scotland reduced to 10 men. My co-worker decided to go home. In all fairness, he did say he wouldn’t stick around if it was 3-0 at halftime.

So up the road I trudged, into the pub where my mates sat; a pint waiting for me. And suddenly, something strange happened. The football melted away. Heads dipped down, but more so that we could focus on the conversation. Our wee group had been apart for so long. The fact that the football was only worth having one eye on didn’t dim the mood, in our group or the pub. We drank. We laughed. Stories were shared and catchups were had. We roared in joy – sincere and ironic – when Scotland got one.

Several hours and many pints later, we saw one of our numbers off on the last train back to Glasgow and then went our separate ways. Stumbling down the road, hoarsely still cracking jokes, I vaguely remembered there had been a football match on. There will be more to come: one down, 50 to go, with three a day for the next two weeks. And I definitely will be watching Scotland despite last night. After all, if only 90 minutes of your day are ruined, that’s still a pretty good day.