Scotland maintained their unbeaten start in their bid to qualify for the 2026 World Cup after a workmanlike 2-0 victory over Belarus.

Despite it being an away match, Belarus are under a UEFA sanction which forbids them hosting any games, as well as playing any in front of fans. This meant that the game was held in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary, in front of a crowd of 0.

Goals from Che Adams and an own goal from Belarusian defender Zakhar Volkov were all that was needed for Scotland, in what was a very convincing performance as they picked up all the points in their second qualifier of the campaign.

Scotland lived up to their tags as favourites and imposed themselves in the opening quarter of an hour. It looked like Billy Gilmour may have won a penalty 15 minutes in, but the referee and VAR correctly awarded a Belarus goal kick. Just two minutes later, the Napoli midfielder chested down a cross from Ben Gannon Doak and fired a half volley goal wards from the edge of the box, but this was saved by Fedor Lapoukhov.

Gilmour’s club teammate and Ballon D’Or nominee Scott McTominay came even closer just on the half hour mark, where he got onto the end of Max Johnston’s first time lobbed cross, but his stabbed effort went wide of the mark.

Gilmour again nearly gave Scotland the lead with a low bullet being saved onto the post just minutes before the half time break, but from this the ball broke to John McGinn, who curled a cross in from wide right, which was met by McTominay who headed it across the six yard box for Torino forward Che Adams to slide on to as the two Serie A players linked up to put the Scots ahead just before half time.

The workmanlike performance continued from Scotland as they continued to impose themselves on the game, with McTominay putting a trademark leaping header straight down the Belarus keeper’s throat eight minutes after the restart.

But the two goal cushion came 25 minutes from time, with Gilmour and Adams playing a neat one-two, finalised with a Gilmour header being knocked into the Belarus net by Volkov.

Che Adams could’ve had a double on the 81st minute. The striker, who scored his 10th goal for his national side tonight, opted to round the goalkeeper after a zipped ball into his feet from captain Andy Robertson, with the resulting effort cleared off the line by Pavel Zabelin.

Scotland now have 4 points from their opening two matches, tonight and a resolute 0-0 draw away to Denmark, and have a great opportunity in the October international break to stamp their authority on the shaping of the group with a Hampden double header against Greece and Belarus respectively.

SCOTLAND: Gunn 6, Robertson 7, McKenna 7, Souttar 6, Johnston 6 (Hickey 2), Ferguson 6, Gilmour 8 (McLean 1), McGinn 7, McTominay 7 (Miller 1), Doak 8 (Christie 2), Adams 7 (Dykes 1)

BELARUS: Lapoukhov 6, Pechenin 5 (Malkevich 2), Zabelin 6, Volkov 4 (Demchenko 2), Parkhomenko 5, Karpovich 4 (Pigas 5), Ebong 5, Kalinin 6, Myakish 5 (Gromyko 3), Barkovskiy 5, Malashevich 4 (Melnichenko 4)