The fitness of Norwich City club captain Grant Hanley is a concern for Scotland legend Gordon Strachan on the eve of Friday’s European Championship opener against hosts Germany.

Hanley endured an injury-disrupted domestic campaign as he recovered from Achilles surgery and missed most of the Championship play-off run-in to undergo a fitness programme.

But the 32-year-old made the final cut for Steve Clarke and has started both of Scotland’s pre-tournament friendlies against Gibraltar and Finland.

Hanley is the only survivor within the current squad of the last meeting between the countries on German soil – a Euro 2016 qualifier under Strachan – and his former national boss is backing the defender to prove his class.

“Grant will never let you down, people are often surprised by how quick he is, but my only concern with Grant is his fitness,” said Strachan. “If he was fit, I’d pick him. I can absolutely understand why Steve’s given him every chance to play his way into it but he missed a lot of games last year for Norwich and I just wonder how fit he is.

“You can train as much as you want and play friendly games but at the level he’s got to go into against Germany – it wouldn’t be for the lack of effort – it might just be that there’s not enough in his tank to go for 90 minutes in a game like this.”

Hanley is joined by Norwich team mates Angus Gunn and Kenny McLean in the squad for Friday’s Munich opener (kick-off 8pm UK).

Scotland captain Andy Robertson is urging the Tartan Army to make history by becoming his country’s first squad to reach the knock-out stages of a major tournament.

“We believe we can be the team to make history,” he said, quoted by PA. “We have put ourselves in a good position by qualifying first and foremost and let’s see what we can do.

“We’re excited by the challenge, we’re excited about what’s ahead and if we perform the way I know we can perform then I’m confident we can make history.

“We know what is at stake. As I said, what’s the worst that can happen? You join the list of good Scotland teams that failed to make it out the group.

“The flipside to that is we can be the first team to do that.

“We have lots of incentives to do well but that is the main one, to become a legendary squad, the first team to make it to the knockout stages.

“That is driving us forward but we are in a difficult group and we have to be at our best to have a chance of doing that.”