New Scotland manager Craig Levein hopes the visit of defending champions Spain to Hampden Park will galvanise the entire country after the two were paired together in the 2012 European Championship qualifying campaign.
Levein, who took over from the sacked George Burley just before Christmas following three years at Dundee United, saw the European champions pulled out of the hat to face his new team in Group I in Warsaw today.
"To draw Spain will capture the Scottish people's imagination," said Levein following the draw which also saw the Scots pitted against the Czech Republic - who beat them 3-1 in a friendly in May, 2008 - Lithuania and Liechtenstein.
"Obviously Spain are the favourites but there's an opportunity to pick up points against all the teams in the group.
"There's a lot of research to do but we've got the time."
Levein, hoping to succeed where a succession of Scottish managers have slipped up, revealed he secretly harboured a desire to play England but said Spain would do just as nicely in the race for a berth in the finals in Poland and Ukraine.
"I did wonder whether it might be England but whoever we got from pots one and two was going to be tough," he said.
"I'll have time to digest it all over the next few days and then the most important thing will be trying to fix the dates."
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