THE fanfare that greets Scottish clubs' qualification for Europe tends to be disproportionate to the length of time they actually remain in the competition.

The inaugural Scottish Professional Football League Premiership campaign will begin early next month with Celtic expected to comfortably retain the title, leaving the other 11 to scrap it out for the three places available in the following season's Europa League qualifying rounds.

Every team needs something to motivate them, and the prestige of playing in Europe is as good as anything for those who realistically have next to no chance of becoming champions. And yet, when they get there, the majority of Scotland's representatives tend to lack either the ability or readiness to hang around and make a decent fist of it.

Three of our clubs head back into Europe this week and only one will have genuine designs on making it an extended stay. Celtic's pre-season results have been poor but they will be widely expected to get past Cliftonville over two legs when they return to Champions League action on Wednesday. From there they will face two more qualifying rounds that will increase with difficulty at each juncture but, given their status as seeds and their route down the champions' path, they are well-placed to make it through to the group phase once more.

It will be a major ask of Neil Lennon's side to then reach the last 16, as they did last season, but at least they are continuing to make a positive contribution to the ailing Scottish co-efficient. How they could do with some help. With Rangers not likely to return to the European forum for another four seasons at least, it has fallen to the others to try to bolster our sinking reputation. On that front there hasn't been much to cheer about in recent times. Outwith Celtic and Rangers, only Hearts, in 2004, and Aberdeen, in 2007, have reached the group phase of either of the two European club competitions. Plenty others have celebrated reaching the qualifying rounds only to bow out fairly quickly once the action gets underway.

Perhaps the worst part of it all is that failure is now both anticipated and then meekly accepted. Granted, there have been occasions when the financial gulf between the Scottish club and their opponent has been so great that it barely constitutes a fair fight. But there have also been other times when the draw has thrown up what looks like a fairly even match-up only for the continental side to progress with relative ease. European ties are in danger of becoming useful only as an extra pre-season friendly for the team and a jaunt abroad for supporters.

This week's ties are a case in point. Neither Hibernian nor St Johnstone are widely expected to make it past Malmo or Rosenborg respectively. Both Scandinavian clubs have decent European pedigree but neither could be considered among the elite. Malmo finished third in the Swedish top division last season and Sweden as a country is ranked only one place higher than Scotland in the UEFA list. Rosenborg were Champions League stalwarts for about a dozen years and made the Europa League group phase in two of the last three seasons. They finished third, however, in their domestic championship last year, while Norway is listed one place below Scotland in UEFA's country ranking. Despite both Scandinavian sides being some way into their season, the ties are far from lost causes but, with Scottish confidence rock bottom, there will be no calls for an inquest should Hibs and St Johnstone tumble out.

It then becomes something of a vicious circle. The poorer the results, the lower the Scottish ranking becomes making it even harder for our clubs to make it to the group phases in future. Next season, as a result of our country ranking dropping from 18th to 24th place, two of our Europa League entrants will again begin in the second qualifying round, with the other having start to out in the first qualifying round – a tie that traditionally takes place in the first week of July. Through accident rather than design, summer football is becoming increasingly on the agenda.

The only way out of this cycle of misery, of course, is to start winning games. The Scottish national team's surprise victory in Croatia last month meant nothing in terms of qualification for next summer's World Cup finals but had the effect of carrying the team up the FIFA world rankings. More importantly the impact on morale – both of players and supporters – was plainly evident. Scotland might not win too many away games in future but at least now they can travel with some degree of expectation having shown they can do it. How our clubs in Europe could do with a similar fillip.