After Craig Brown, Scotland looked to follow England's example and appoint a foreign manager, due to the success of Sven Goran Eriksson. The front-runner was former German manager Berti Vogts who won Euro '96 in his reign. Vogts though was currently manager of Kuwait, and the SFA had to negotiate with their FA to terminate his contract. After negotiations, Vogts was free to take over as Scotland manager on 1st March 2002.

Vogts had little knowledge of the Scottish game, therefore Tommy Burns was recruited as his assistant. Unlike previous managers, he had no knowledge of the pool of players, therefore he searched the English Premiership for players who were eligible to play, and many of the players that he recruited were unknown to the Scottish fans as they did not play any first team football. They were players such as Kevin Kyle, Michael Stewart, Paul Devlin, and Robbie Stockdale; and at the end of Vogts' reign, not many of these players were still playing for Scotland. He also persuaded captain Paul Lambert to come out of international retirement.

His first game in charge couldn't have been any harder, World and European Champions France in Paris, and the Scotland team showed their inexperience, as they were defeated 5-0. In Vogts' first six matches in charge, Scotland lost five and their only victory was against a Hong Kong XI.