Roxburgh was appointed as the Scottish Football Association's first Director of Coaching in 1975. He led the player and coach development work in Scotland for over 18 years – coaches such as
José Mourinho studied under Roxburgh and he also helped to develop talents such as
Paul McStay. This appointment meant that Roxburgh also coached the Scotland youth teams from
Under-21 level down. After the Scotland senior manager
Jock Stein collapsed and died at the end of
a 1–1 draw in a
1986 FIFA World Cup qualification match against
Wales, Alex Ferguson was appointed as the team manager and guided Scotland to the 1986 World Cup by winning a playoff against
Australia. Scotland failed to progress beyond the group stage of the World Cup and Ferguson rejected the offer of staying on as Scotland manager afterwards. Roxburgh was subsequently named as the new Scotland manager on 16 July 1986, Roxburgh would remain in the role for more than seven years. Scotland failed to qualify for
UEFA Euro 1988, but Roxburgh then guided the team to qualification for the
1990 FIFA World Cup. Scotland defeated
Argentina in a pre-tournament friendly, but were eliminated in the group stage with one win (against
Sweden) and two losses. The team then qualified for
UEFA Euro 1992, the first time Scotland had qualified for a European championship finals. Once more they lost two and won one of their group matches at the tournament and were eliminated. Roxburgh resigned in September 1993, following 61 matches in charge, after failing to achieve qualification for the
1994 FIFA World Cup. He was succeeded by his assistant,
Craig Brown. ==UEFA==