Ryan Christie left Hampden with something much more important than a Man of the Match Award.
The trinket from the hosts was especially hollow after a 4-0 defeat with the Celtic midfielder generally viewed as the best of a bad bunch as Belgium ran out 4-0 winners without hitting top gear.
Kevin Du Bruyne ran the show from start till finish with strong assists for the first three goals before completing his performance with a brilliantly executed shot beyond David Marshall.
Next midweek Celtic return to Europe when they take on Rennes in the Europa League with Christie going into that match with the performance of the Manchester City playmaker very fresh in his mind.
“He’s a frightening player to be honest, you could see it out there,” he told The Sun. “It’s nice for me to play against him because he plays in a similar position to me. It’s important to watch the positions he picks up and the damage he can do on the ball, even when he has two or three men around him. That’s something you have to aspire to and try to be as good as these guys.
“I’ll go back and look at the video of the game and look at what De Bruyne did. It will be painful, but I will also focus more on my own performance. In the first 15 minutes, I was getting the ball in good areas, but not really causing a threat.
“It’s nice to get voted man of the match, but it hasn’t really lifted my spirits. I wasn’t happy with my performance at all. When you get the ball in good areas against these teams, you need to make it count. I didn’t have enough shots or create enough chances, but that’s on me and the other attacking boys.”
The 4-0 defeat from Belgium piles the pressure on the SFA and Steve Clarke with Scotland going into next month’s match away to Russia in fifth place in Group I with Cyprus joining Kazakhstan and the big two ahead of Scotland.
Christie’s next match will be at Hamilton on Saturday where he will be looking to pick up on Celtic’s victory in the Glasgow derby.
