Scotland’s automatic hopes European Nations League The promotion ended after a 2-1 defeat at home to Slovenia.
Sebastian Bocconioli’s men were looking to build on their 2-0 win in North Macedonia last time out, and took the lead on the half-hour mark when Ryan Christie slotted home from close range.
But Aljosa Matko scored into the bottom left corner in the 56th minute to level the scores for Slovenia, who then completed the turnaround when Danijel Sturm capped off a fine move down the right flank with a simple touch from Matko’s cross.
The home team’s fans booed at Hampden Park as Scotland suffered their second defeat in four matches, leaving them in third place in Group A in League Two with only four points.
With Switzerland’s easy 3-0 victory over North Macedonia thanks to goals from Johan Manzambi and Dan Ndoye, Scotland was unable to top the group, as the gap separating it from the leaders by eight points could not be recovered with two remaining matches.
They are three points behind Slovenia, which occupies the playoff position in the group. With their head-to-head record in the tie-break, Scotland must improve on Slovenia’s results in their final two matches next month to leapfrog them into that position.
In the third league, San Marino suffered great grief after being deprived of the famous draw with Albania from a penalty kick in the 93rd minute.
Christian Asllani opened the scoring for Albania in the 11th minute to put them seemingly on their way to a routine win over the opposition.
But Lorenzo Lazzari stunned the fans in Tirana when he headed home a cross from Lorenzo Cappuccione.
It looked as if that would be enough to give San Marino a point, but there was a crushing blow to the tail end for the small side when skipper Fabbri was adjudged to have handled the ball in the penalty area after a VAR review, allowing Aslani to rescue Albania and seal a 2-1 win by curling into the bottom right corner from 12 yards.
Other C League results
Kazakhstan 2-2 Faroe Islands
Belarus 1-0 Finland
Estonia 0-0 Iceland
Luxembourg 0-2 Bulgaria
Moldova 0-4 Slovakia
