Hello and welcome to 1999! We closed 1998 out joint top of our European Championship qualifying group – you can catch up here. It’s going reasonably well. I’m in shock. Howay the ladzes!

First stop it’s an away trip to the ice men. It’s a tricky tie and Iceland have two goals scratched off by the linesman. We are thankful. Kinkladze was unable to impress himself on the game.

That puts us 2-points clear of Lithuania and Croatia. Another of our players earns a big move.

It’s just a shame his first appearance is in a 5-1 defeat to Man Utd in a cup final. The only Spurs player to get a good rating however, we’ll have that. We follow it up with news that makes us very sad.

It matters not one bit as we continue to race away from our rivals.

Shota to pieces! He should have had more.

The group is looking nice.

Just as he gets on the sheet, our young Georgian wonderkid (-1 potential) gets himself knacked.

The injuries keep coming.

With all these injuries coming I’m worried. However, the ladzes pull off a massive result in the next game. Shota with the winning goal.

Next up it’s a customary 5-0 against the lowly minnows of the group.

As the league season ends, we’ve built up a 6-point cushion with 3 games left. We should qualify even with a single win.

We’ll have to do it without our lynchpin.

Somehow, Austria are terrible despite having a host of highly rated players at their disposal (Cerny, Purk, Polster et al).

EURO 2000 HERE WE COME!!!

The FA are pleased, and we set some records too.

Finally, we are getting what we deserve from the FA.

The next lot of results are matter less and the players seem to acknowledge that in their performances.

With Shota, Kinkladze, Iashvili and Lobjanadze injured and big Kav suspended, we lose our final group game having to play with no recognised striker.

It’s worrying and shows that any minor injuries will derail any slim chance we have of progressing in the Netherlands next year.

Those two results over Croatia were so important. Croatia still qualify as one of the two best runners up. We are seeded third for the draw. Which means we’ll get a crap group.

Jesus. That is a difficult looking group. We’ll need at least to beat Finland and steal a draw at Spain or Germany. That is a big ask. See you in the millennium for a taste of European Championships with our Georgian golden boys. Tempted to cancel all the friendlies to avoid any stupid injuries. See you next time.