World Cup: Are Scotland ready to make mark at finals?

Fifteen minutes before Scotland began taking Bolivia to the cleaners at the Sports Illustrated Stadium, a weather warning was issued by New Jersey’s department of environmental protection. Code Orange, apparently.

Code Orange? Air quality alert. Pollution central.

Temperatures had just hit 32.7 degrees, a potential problem for those with respiratory conditions, for elderly folk and – we feared – for Scottish footballers and for those sweaty foot soldiers following them.

Bolivia, we knew, were no great shakes. Their weak attempt to qualify for the World Cup was enough evidence of that.

But suffocating conditions should be an advantage to a side that plays home games in Tarija, 6,000 feet above sea level, and in the city in the sky that is El Alto at 13,600 feet. They beat Chile last June and Brazil last September in the latter.

The problem for Bolivia was not the heat that mother nature was inflicting on them – it was the heat they were getting from Scotland, who were patient, precise and clinical.

As an opponent, the South Americans were a perfect match, a useful punchbag in boxing parlance, but this was a pleasing victory and another four goals to whet the appetite before the truly big stuff starts to happen next Saturday.