After success with Ayr and Aberdeen, in May 1977 the Scottish Football Association appointed him manager of the Scotland national team. He introduced himself to the squad with the blunt statement: "My name is Ally MacLeod and I am a winner." In his first months in charge, Scotland beat England at Wembley and qualified for the 1978 World Cup from a group containing Czechoslovakia, who had won the 1976 European Championship, and Wales. Scotland's World Cup expectations gathered momentum with MacLeod happy with the wave of massive optimism, saying to the press his team would return with "at least a medal". Scottish comedian Andy Cameron recorded a version of "Ally's Tartan Army", which reached number 6 in the UK charts just before the World Cup.