Brown would like an early trip to Prague for Scotland

Former manager Craig Brown has stressed the importance of the fixture list as Scotland prepare to plot a course to the 2012 European Championship.

Spain, the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Liechtenstein await the Scots and the qualifying schedule will be decided at a meeting in Madrid on 19 February.

"I'd have been more than pleased if I got a draw like that on any of the four occasions I was involved," said Brown.

"A strong chief executive has to get the fixtures the manager wants."

The Scottish Football Association came in for fierce criticism for the scheduling of the failed bid to reach this summer's World Cup finals.

Scotland opened a dismal campaign with a loss in the searing Macedonian heat and were thrashed in Norway just as the new domestic season had started.

"Spain are out-and-out favourites," explained Motherwell boss Brown, who was in charge when Scotland last reached a major championship - the 1998 World Cup.

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"They will be expected to beat everyone and qualify comfortably, so what we want is Spain towards the end of the campaign, when they have already qualified.

"We want to get them at Hampden when they might be experimenting a bit.

"My philosophy was to get the major rivals away first. In my opinion that would be Czech Republic, so we want to go to Prague early.

"If you get something, great; if not, they've still to come to Glasgow.

"You don't want to be playing in June, which means you've got to keep the players fit after the end of the season.

"We want to avoid the heat in September, which would probably eliminate a trip to Spain.

"And I wouldn't want to go to Lithuania in the depths of winter."

The nine group winners and the best runner-up qualify automatically for the finals in Poland and Ukraine.

The remaining eight second-placed teams then compete home and away in November 2011 for the final four qualifying places.

"The smaller countries will want Spain early, to attract television money and big gates while they are still involved," added Brown, who also reached Euro '96 as manager.

"Lithuania and Liechtenstein will also want Scotland before they are effectively eliminated, for the same reasons.

"Some of the bigger nations will try to make agreements before the meeting but we were always strong and didn't allow that to happen."

Scotland have arranged a Hampden friendly with the Czechs in March and SFA chief executive Gordon Smith has confirmed that the game will go ahead despite the countries being drawn together.

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