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Minutes after the final whistle sounded in Piraeus, a roar went up from the Tartan Army packed into a corner of Stadio Georgios Karaiskakis. Undiluted euphoria. Proper jubilation.
The celebration of Ben Gannon-Doak scoring to make it 3-1 and Ryan Christie scoring to make it 3-2 were loud and lusty, but this was somehow different. Joy laced with relief and disbelief.
A gift from Copenhagen. Full-time, Denmark 2 Belarus 2. Scotland died a thrilling death in Greece but Belarus' impossible draw resuscitated Scottish hopes of automatic qualification for the World Cup.
A win against Denmark at Hampden on Tuesday night and it's done. An opportunity that looked like it had been trampled underfoot when the dismal visitors in Piraeus fell three goals down, was reborn thanks to Belarus, the unlikeliest of unlikely heroes of the night.
In the birthplace of Western drama, a classic night unfolded from around the hour-mark, in Greece and in Copenhagen, a tragicomedy and a mystery and a farce.
This wasn't the ancient amphitheatre of Herodium down the road, but it was a sporting spectacle all the same, twisting and turning, bewildering and perplexing.
While Scotland were starting to find themselves in Piraeus there was a hell of a production going on in Copenhagen. For the last half an hour we existed in two places at once, body in Greece, mind, or part of, in Denmark.
Before it all started to get trippy, Scotland were losing 3-0 and Denmark were winning 1-0, a series of results that made Scottish hopes of automatic qualification a dead duck. Hampden would not have its howitzer showdown. The play-offs beckoned. Oh well. Luck had run out. It was bound to in the end. And then. And then.
What madness was this coming down the line from the Parken Stadium in Copenhagen. Belarus, with a world ranking of 103, had scored a 62nd minute equaliser against Denmark with a world ranking of 20. Denmark, the top of the table thrusters, being held by Belarus, the bottom of the table whipping boys?
And now, three minutes later, a goal for Ben Gannon-Doak to make it 3-1, a just reward for all of Scotland's pressure towards the end of the first half that saw Scott McTominay's shot from distance come slapping back off Greece's crossbar, that also saw Che Adams miss from close-range just before Gannon-Doak did likewise.
Noise and hope for the visiting fans. A draw in Denmark meant that Scotland could still qualify automatically with a win against the Danes at Hampden on Tuesday. Direct entry to the World Cup was back on. Cancel the sob stories. A dream was alive despite Greece lording it.
But hold up, what lunacy is this? Within seconds of Gannon-Doak's goal, Denmark 1 Belarus 2. And five minutes after that, Greece 3 Scotland 2, Ryan Christie heading home. Goals flying around like snuff at a wake. The Tartan Army in delirium. Scotland driving at Greece's heart in a bid to sicken them again after sickening them at Hampden earlier in the group.
In that moment the Greeks might have looked at Scotland as something from a Hollywood B movie, an evil creature in a lagoon, riddled with bullets, stake through the heart, as dead as dead can be only for a hand to come shooting out of the water to signify life and menace.
McTominay came within a Odysseas Vlachodimos wonder save from making it 3-2. Then, a red card from Tasos Bakasetas, the Greece captain. Then, more Scotland pressure. Then, a Denmark leveller. Then, a wait.
Some of the Scotland players hung about on the pitch to hear the final score from Copenhagen, A Denmark winner was the doomsday, the mood killer for Tuesday night when the sides come together.
Seconds went by and then confirmation. A draw, "Winner takes all at Hampden," gushed Andy Robertson. Rarely in football has one man sounded so happy after losing a game of football that everyone thought they could not afford to lose.
A gigantic favour from Belarus? In the millions of words said and written in the preamble to this game, in all the different scenarios presented about how it might all pan out, nobody came up with this. Nobody saw this twist in the tale. A clairvoyant wouldn't have called it. Mystic Meg on her best day wouldn't have predicted it.
Lady Luck leaves the building... then returns
Beforehand, we wondered if the luck that Scotland enjoyed in their two previous games in the group would hold and for the longest time it looked like Lady Luck had left the building, storming out in an almighty strop.
Greece were outrageously dominant and led 1-0. Only Craig Gordon's excellence kept the score down, but time looked to be running out for Scotland. One became two and two became three - and it was a shambles. Defensively, Scotland were shocking. Grant Hanley and John Souttar looked like nervous kittens, spooked by the vision and accuracy and brilliance of Christos Tzolis and the coruscating teenager Konstantinos Karetsas.
Scotland conceded six shots on target in the opening 45 minutes, their highest total in a first half in more than nine years. They ceded space and time to Greece, who had it easy. Ahead of Tuesday night, Scotland's limp beginning isn't so much food for thought for Clarke, it's a veritable feast, a banquet of things to fix, in tactics, in formation, in selection, in psychology.
Belarus broke Scotland out of jail. Just when you thought they had drained the well of good fortune they got the biggest and most unpredictable dollop of luck imaginable.
And so to Clarke talking later. He was asked if he'd ever known a night like this one in football. "Plenty of them," he said. We wouldn't mind interrogating him further on that one. Name them…
He called it a strange game and posited the theory that the 2-1 win against Belarus last month, when Scotland were booed off, was a better three points than people imagined. Freakishly, he might be right on that.
He didn't hide from the fact that Scotland were blessed by the miracle of Belarus. How could he? But he also said something that has a deep relevance to the endgame in this group. "We have to believe in ourselves more," he pointed out, before elaborating on Scotland's dominance late on, the chances they created, the power and aggression they showed, the quality they put on the pitch that was invisible for too long.
"For the last 15-20 minutes we put a very good side on the back foot, we put them to the sword," he said.
It's all of those minutes that went before that were the problem. How can a team that finished so strongly look so passive and so vulnerable at the start? He doesn't have long to find the answers, but Scotland's World Cup aspirations now depend on him figuring it out.
