Six minutes was all it took to kill Scotland’s Euro 2012 dream stone dead here.

As if the news filtering through from Kaunas that those damned Czechs had scored after two minutes wasn’t painful enough, matador David Silva plunged a sword through Tartan Army hearts as he swept the ball past a less than convincing Allan McGregor.

Hard to believe, even against these mesmerising Spaniards, that many Scots fans had barely taken their seats before a nation’s great expectations were effectively snuffed out.

Give us a kiss! Spain celebrate as David Silva (centre) scores against Scotland

If the Scottish bull was in its death throes so early in the contest, its carcass was already being carried out of the building by the time we heard that Jan Rezek, the man who dived to win a penalty at Hampden, had put the Czech Republic two up.

Sixteen minutes in and were were looking at 16 years of painful football exile from the major stages. By the 44th minute, that man Silva had scored again to rub salt in our wounds.

When Craig Levein did all the mental equations in La Manga ahead of last night’s make-or-break Euro 2012 showdowns he must have hoped at the very least his team would still be in with a shout at half-time.

But let’s be blunt here: Scotland’s planning for the World Cup campaign looming 11 months down the road had already started at the interval.

David Villa added a third shortly after the break as Vicente del Bosque’s men signed off from Group I with a 100 per cent record, chalking up an international record of 14 successive competitive wins.

Substitute David Goodwillie’s 66th-minute penalty – his first goal for Scotland – ruffled the Spaniards’ strutting plummage just a little, albeit he should later have squared for Craig Mackail-Smith to set up what would have been a grandstand finish. But we’re clutching at straws here.

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