Before Doak started driving, this was shaping up to be a compliment to Luka Modric and his delightful array of passing, his uncanny ability to make everything look so effortless and his otherworldly ability to find space in crowded places.
Scotland sent man after man to approach him and he counted them and counted them again.
No Scotsmen ruffled his feathers. That job fell instead to an Israeli. And what a job referee Orel Grinfeeld did. World-class whistles, at least from a Scottish perspective.
Grinfeeld sounds like a character from the Fantastic Beasts films and, by sending off Petar Sucic just before half-time, he became a beautiful creature for a previously distraught home crowd.
The tartan army lived on nerves until that moment. Scotland were lucky to be even. Frankly, they were everywhere.
Harassed and harassed and looking at the entire world as if they were preparing to sink deeper and deeper into the bottomless pit of bad results.
Croatia should have scored one or two goals, but they didn’t. If they were frustrated, it was nothing compared to the state they were about to reach.
It was considered that Sucic, in a caution, had collided with John Souttar and the red card was issued. It was unfair and suddenly Modric lost his form.
He screamed, laughed sarcastically, waved his arms in disbelief. And then he was reprimanded. Portugal will miss on Monday.
At half-time, one of his trainers stared at Grinfeeld in a slightly comical scene. When the Croatian advanced, he received a yellow card. Pantomime stuff. Marvelous.
