NO sports scientist has to tell Alex McLeish about how tough the conditions the Scotland players will encounter in Mexico when they take on their hosts in the early hours of tomorrow morning. The manager knows from bitter personal experience. He suffered the lowest point of his international career in the Central American country.

McLeish was ruled out of the World Cup here in 1986 after playing in the opening group game against Denmark when he was floored by a sickness bug. He missed the matches with West Germany and Uruguay. The episode led to him briefly falling out with his manager Sir Alex Ferguson and still smarts today some 32 years on.

“I took ill after drinking some ice in my Coca-Cola,” he said last night after the national side had taken a look around the Azteca Stadium where they will play a friendly in the early hours of tomorrow morning.

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“Alex Ferguson did a fitness test on the morning of the Germany game. I had some breathlessness. I was absolutely gasping. I said: ‘Boss, there’s no way I can play tonight’. My legs were heavy, I’d been sick the night before and I just couldn’t get from cone to cone in a time that would render me fit to play the game. I watched it in my bed that night.

“I really was floored. I couldn’t move. It was as if I had the flu. I was sore, my muscles were sore. I sat and watched it in bed that night and jumped out of my bed when wee Gordon (Strachan) scored the opener and then saw the Germans slowly dismantle us.

“The manager didn’t select me for the Uruguay. He said he didn’t think Davie Narey had done anything wrong in the Germany game, which I wasn’t too chuffed with. I fell out with the boss, on the way back I kinda gave him the cold shoulder.”

McLeish added: “I think the ice was the culprit. Maybe it was from their tap water to make the ice. Their bellies are used to it, ours aren’t. We have obviously told the players here to avoid ice and things like that. It will be straight from the cooler or whatever.

“I actually said that in a team meeting the other day. I said: ‘Look, the performance guys have told you what to expect and I can give you actual evidence of what happened to me’.”

Scotland only arrived in Mexico from Peru late yesterday due to the advice they had received about how to best cope with playing at altitude from Graeme Jones, the SFA head of high performance, as well as MLS managers, who have to take their side to play Colorado Rapids high in the Rocky Mountains.

But McLeish appreciates the change in temperature from Lima – the heat is expected to be around 30 degrees Celsius - will still make it difficult for his understrength national team to get a result.

“I’ll need the factor duffel coat myself,” he said. Hopefully we’ll be able to breathe for 90 minutes. We’ve done the kind of sports science stuff and there will have to be a lot of intake of water.

“The fact we are going in just a day before, that’s supposed to work in your favour. We’re hoping that going in the day before means there will be no fatigue, because apparently you can get a little bit lethargic if you are in three or four days before it.”

He added: “Mexico are probably going to play their strongest team and give a run out to six substitutes or something like that. We’re playing with a team that is not the strongest that Scotland have ever put out. But having said that they players surprised us the other night.

“Peru are above them in the rankings. Looking at the two teams on video, the Peruvians maybe move it a little bit differently to Mexico.

“Mexico like to play through the middle because they are technically good, but they love high-infiltration full-backs and wingers running inside. Listen, I think if we cope with heat and the altitude then that will be half the battle.”

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McLeish will give Jon McLaughlin of Hearts and Scott Bain of Celtic, two uncapped players, 45 minutes each against Mexico. There will be easier introductions to international football for a goalkeeper. But he will encourage both men to savour and rise to the occasion.

“This is the first time any of the goalkeepers have played for their countries and we all saw the Champions League last weekend, when a goalkeeper makes a mistake it’s invariably a goal,” he said. “But it’s an amazing place to make your Scotland debut.”

A famous Scotland victory over Mexico in the Azteca Stadium sprang to mind for McLeish this week when his former Aberdeen team mate Neale Cooper tragically passed away aged just 54. Cooper played for the side that won 1-0 there in front of 86,582 fans in the World Youth Championship in 1983.

“Big Neale was part of the last Scotland team to get a shut-out there,” he said. “It’s a fantastic venue. I said to the players the other night, these are the best days of your lives, in your young football days. Embrace it and go and show the world what you can do. But it’s easy for me just to give them big words, it’s up to them to show the mentality that they have what it takes.”