BEING DRAWN against Scotland, Celtic or Rangers in international or European football amounts to being hit by a human tidal wave, and last week Barcelona was the latest city to be submerged. There isn't a country in Europe which matches Scotland for the willingness of its people to up sticks and swarm across great swathes of the continent behind one of its football teams. It is easy to forget that the sheer volume of people moving around is staggering and that no other country does it on the same scale.

Celtic supporters get teased about using their "Seville calculators" to exaggerate how many of them were in the Spanish city for the 2003 Uefa Cup final, but having been there to cover the match there was no doubting the place was choked with enough bodies to suggest the reports of 80,000 fans following Martin O'Neill's team were close to the mark. It was the largest single movement of people across Europe since the Second World War, according to someone who had the time on their hands to work out such a thing.

While we were on the Rangers flight to Barcelona on Tuesday morning another mind-boggling statistic started doing the rounds. It was pointed out that Walter Smith's team was being backed by the largest travelling support in the history of Champions League group games. So in 15 years no team - be they any of the giants from England, Germany, Italy, Spain, wherever - had been followed by as many fans at this point of the tournament.

To put all of this in some sort of perspective, remember Bayer Leverkusen returned half of their 14,000 ticket allocation for the final of the 2002 Champions League at Hampden due to lack of interest (despite having average home crowds of 22,500). Last week Lokomotiv Moscow requested six tickets for fans attending the Uefa Cup tie at Aberdeen. No, not 6,000. Just six.

Our human stampedes also involve the Scotland team. The SFA's security advisors tell of the disbelief they sometimes meet from foreign counterparts when they reveal the number of Tartan Army fans expected to travel to some far-flung fixture. "What? How many," they will splutter, reckoning that the SFA man has taken leave of his senses or has added a zero during translation. No, really, you heard it right the first time: there really will be 15,000 flying in to watch - whether it's Scotland, Celtic or Rangers.

Even Aberdeen are getting in on the act, with around 6000 reckoned to be heading out for their Uefa Cup tie with Atletico Madrid this month, more than double the club's ticket allocation.

What a windfall Scottish football provides for the airline industry. You would think one of the popular airlines would have the decency to offer something back by way of sponsorship considering how much money has been ploughed in by fans of the Old Firm or the national team in the past 10 to 15 years.

Why do our supporters travel in such huge numbers when almost no-one else does? The combination of a reasonable amount of disposable income, ingenuity when it comes to hitting the internet to find tickets and immediately book cheap deals when fixtures are announced, and bloody-minded determination to get up and go in the first place are all part of this social phenomenon.

In one sense it is quite sad, because it also suggests a poverty in the domestic scene. Many Old Firm supporters get their kicks out of the big European events rather than the SPL. Why else would so many travel to major trips without tickets, which is an aspect of Scottish fans' travel which Italians, Spaniards, Germans and others look upon with either bewilderment or pity. Some have an expression which asks: but haven't you got anything better to do?

The great mercy is these invasions usually pass off peacefully. Ten thousand or more Scotland, Celtic or Rangers fans can occupy a place without significant incidents, which comes as a relief and even a surprise considering how tanked up many of them are from start to finish.

It would be stretching the point to claim that they are welcomed with open arms everywhere because Barcelona council leader Javier Trias hit on a universal truth when he bemoaned the four tons of waste, widespread drunkenness, boisterous city centre singing and urinating in the streets which was part of the Rangers roadshow last week. That's how football fans from this country behave when they are abroad in big numbers, no matter who they support - but Barcelona's publicans, hoteliers, restaurant owners and taxi drivers milked it for all it was worth and it will be the same story when Celtic are in Milan next month or if Scotland make it to the Austrian and Swiss cities at Euro 2008.

But just think how many would hit the airports if the Old Firm ever met in the European Cup final. And spare a thought for the poor, Godforsaken city that had to host it.

Just six days left, then. By the end of this week the Holyrood parliament building might burn to the ground and it still wouldn't be the main item on the Scottish news bulletins (if it happens on Saturday it won't even make the Sunday front pages). You want a game hyped to the point of national hysteria? You got it. At 5pm on Saturday this country is going to take a deep breath and hold it for 90 minutes.

How is it going to go at Hampden Park? I suspect that we are destined for a draw but I hope I am wrong.

More than that, I hope I'm wrong in the right way.