The consequences of the 2-1 reverse in Aalborg, and the reaction to it, appear beyond anything known in recent times. Even allowing for Celtic's final Champions League group game at home to Villarreal, the way they folded in Denmark after leading 1-0 with 17 minutes remaining against the weakest team they have faced in six such campaigns will leave a stain not easily washed away.

Never mind that they will seldom have a better opportunity to end their winless away run in the group stage which has now stretched to 18 games. Never mind that the Danish debacle caused them to lose out even on a UEFA Cup place against a club whose player budget is a 10th of Celtic's £40m spend.

In denying Scotland a victory after 13 attempts from the country's five European representatives this season, the Aalborg calamity, coupled with Rangers' Champions League qualifying flop against Kaunas, could have a horrendous impact. It appears destined to cost next season's Scottish champions automatic entry to the group stage for the start of the 2010-11 season, with Greece firmly on course to replace them as the 12th and final-placed nation who enjoy that luxury. Scotland look destined to end up with their lowest season ranking and single co-efficient points total.

It was all so different last season when we had three teams competing in Europe after Christmas, with Celtic progressing to the last 16 of the Champions League, Rangers appearing in the UEFA Cup final and Aberdeen reaching the last 32 of the same competition. Those performances led to an exalted fifth place in the rankings. In the space of 12 months, our standing has fallen off a cliff to the point where, with no European involvement in the new year, they are squealing from the foothills in 32nd position of the same list. Throw in the Scotland national team winning only one game in a calendar year for the first time in two decades, sliding down 19 places to 33 in the FIFA rankings in the process, and the broader picture appears a mid-winter midnight shade of black.

Cue "game in crisis" newspaper sections and coruscating comment from all quarters about the impoverished standards and contracting economic scales that have manifested themselves in a "worst ever" season in continental competition for our clubs; a period said by the bloodthirsty to demonstrate Scottish teams are now "the whipping boys of Europe". Is this the reality? Has there honestly been a nine-month decline so acute that Scotland can never again expect to scale the heady heights of last season? Or, as players, coaches and officials in the game have rushed to claim, is this season merely a blip caused by two results, in Lithuania and Aalborg, that were "freakish"?

Err, "yes" and "no" might be the best way to answer all of the above. In effect, the country has experienced not one but two extreme seasons. In 2007-8, Scottish clubs seemed to enjoy an inexhaustible supply of good fortune. Celtic won three home Champions League games courtesy of two deflected winners – one of these netted in the 90th minute – and a 93rd minute goalkeeping howler. Rangers reached the UEFA Cup final with only two victories in nine ties, and through scoring only five goals as they played out whole games without troubling opposing keepers. Aberdeen recorded only one win en route to the last 32 of the same competition. "If you look back a year ago, the national team's ranking and that for our clubs was probably falsely high. Now it is falsely low," says Rangers defender David Weir.

"We can compete, and most seasons Rangers and Celtic will give a decent account of themselves, as they have for the majority of the past decade. But we are not so equipped we will always reach the levels required. Last year we went to Lyon and won 3-0, then lost 3-0 to them at home.

"Only the elite nations, and maybe then even just England and Spain, will always have teams in the latter stages. Look at the Champions League now. Every team we played in our UEFA Cup run is in it. We were a better side than Sporting Lisbon, pretty convincing 2-0 aggregate winners over them, but they qualified for the last 16 this season with two games to spare. I don't think things have changed that much since we played them. We are at their level. We just have a problem in Scotland because we want everything, every year, and if we don't get it, it is all doom and gloom."

Specific doom and gloom has been applied to Celtic's performance in Aalborg. It simply defies analysis that they, almost masochistically, contrived to squander a host of chances and only the second winning position they have enjoyed in an away Champions League group game. As soon as the home team equalised in 73 minutes it was as if psychological scar tissue flared up, as if the Celtic players felt they were in the grip of invisible forces they could not prevent pulling the encounter towards the same conclusion as their prevent eight group games on the road under Strachan.

"I don't think that is the case," Maloney says. "I don't think when we lose a goal that happens, but I know the other night it looked like it did. I don't think we collectively panic as a team, it was just the momentum. With the away record we have there must be a reason for it, but I can't put my finger on it."

To Paul Lambert, who played for Celtic when, four years ago in the Nou Camp of all places, they secured their one point from 54 in Champions League group travels, there is no great mystery to Celtic's away record; or the fact that both Glasgow clubs were turned over by patently inferior teams in Europe this season.

"In both Denmark and Lithuania, Celtic and Rangers were forced into playing cup-tie football," he says. "In these sort of games, anything can happen. It doesn't matter a jot if you are paid 100 times more than your opponent. These teams are boosted beyond their normal levels by the occasion, the appearance of the cameras, a full stadium roaring them on. Any result becomes possible, as cup-ties always prove. Scotland showed that in beating France, Celtic in the wins over AC Milan and Manchester United, and in the home results in my time.

"If Celtic were in a two-team league with Aalborg and Rangers were in a two-team league with Kaunas, they would win the vast majority of the games. I was part of the crappy away run and so I'm not going to throw stones at the current Celtic guys about it continuing.

"We had an excellent manager and an excellent squad but let ourselves down against Rosenborg, Anderlecht and Porto. A stigma has built up for Celtic over this and they will have an extra burden in away games until they break free of it.

"But take a wider view and, with two UEFA Cup finalists and three teams in the last 16 of the Champions League across the last six years alone, our small nation has punched above its weight. When you do that, there are bound to be seasons you also take some thumps."

Yet, in both of Scotland's big hitters suffering low blows in the same year, the entire contingent of the country's European representatives has accumulated fewer co-efficient points than Aberdeen alone did last season. A statistic that Pittodrie manager Jimmy Calderwood puts down squarely to "bad luck".

"Celtic did enough to win the other night and if Rangers had signed Pedro Mendes in time to play against Kaunas, I'm sure they wouldn't have lost in Lithuania," he says. "But with the money becoming ever tighter it will become ever more difficult for other Scottish teams to make an impact. We have lost a host of the players who helped us into the last 32 of the UEFA Cup last year and even Rangers and Celtic are vulnerable to losing their best players to England, where the finances are phenomenal."

The 1.375 co-efficient total – which would be pushed up slightly were Celtic to beat Villarreal in 10 days' time – will remain on Scotland's record for five years. And, when the 10.250 figure from last season is loped off in four years' time, Scotland will struggle to maintain its current standing... but for another miraculous European odyssey as enjoyed across 2007-08. Furthermore, the format changes initiated by UEFA president Michel Platini that will come into force next season are likely to count against Scotland, who do not have the strength in depth of other nations.

Maloney, who maintains the current Celtic squad boast technically better and fitter players than the group he helped reach the last 16 of the Champions League before departing for Aston Villa two years ago, insists: "It is not the time to go completely overboard about the state of Scottish football."

Too late. Even if, with an outrageous trough having followed an outrageous peak, a year down the line might be the proper time to take stock.

It is worth recalling that in 2006, one season on from the 5-0 Champions League qualifying defeat away to Artmedia Bratislava that stands as the club's worst result in 46 years of cross-border competition, Celtic enjoyed their best showing in the continent's top tier tournament for more than three decades.

With middling players, they and Rangers have their work cut out to bounce back in similar fashion. If they don't, however, this season's write-off could indeed become the Scottish script for future European chapters.