Avoid a heavy defeat against Brazil and Steve Clarke will break new ground. Dawson Walker, Willie Ormond, Ally MacLeod, Jock Stein, Alex Ferguson, Andy Roxburgh and Craig Brown all failed to lead Scotland’s national football team to the second stage of a World Cup finals. On the cusp of history, appreciation for Clarke’s efforts tends to be granted through gritted teeth, if at all.
After two rounds of fixtures in Group C the Scots stand on three points and a goal difference of zero. A point against the five-time World champions will remove any doubt over their fate by guaranteeing a place in the last 32 for the first time. Lose and the squad return to their training base in North Carolina and an anxious wait to learn if they have done enough to be one of the eight best placed third place teams from the 12 groups.
There’s a growing chance that they will. Unlike Scotland’s group the teams finishing third in groups A, E, G and H look unlikely to make it to three points. Thanks to a convoluted, expanded 48 team tournament a team barely fit to retrace the footsteps of those who went before are close to achieving something Denis Law, Kenny Dalglish and Joe Jordan could only dream of.
You wouldn’t know it from the reaction. A 1-0 defeat to Morocco, the team ranked sixth in the FIFA world rankings, drew sharp criticism of the tactics and the approach and the manager. During the Euro finals of 2020 and 2024 Clarke’s Scotland struggled to muster a shot on target let alone win a game and, despite shifting the money from their back against Haiti, boredom and irritation with the way the team play is mounting. Effective they may be; pretty to watch they are not.
Supporter frustration generally falls on the manager and for that reason alone Steve Clarke makes a conscious choice to steer clear of social media. Seven years at the helm has bred a level of familiarity and he knows better than most where that leads.
“Social media? I don’t look at that, I really don’t look at it,” he says in matter of fact fashion.
“If I look at that then I could be affected a little bit, and I value my mental health.
“It’s important I stay reasonably sane. So it’s not something I look at.”
The average football manager has the shelf life of used car these days. After two or three years - assuming they get that far - bored supporters crave a trade in and a new model on the driveway. Something flash and shiny, ideally from overseas.
Jens Berthel Askou has a lot to answer for. The Dane’s success with a crowd pleasing, attacking brand of football at Motherwell created a noose for those, like Clarke, who favour a more pragmatic style.
While no one disputes the Dane’s excellence on a Fir Park budget - he earned a move to French side Toulouse - few care to remember that during Clarke’s time at Kilmarnock he finished third in the league. Askou’s Motherwell finished fourth.
The Kilmarnock era shaped perceptions of Clarke which are hard to shift. Some continue to bear some ill will over the night he challenged chants aimed in his direction during a league game against Rangers. Others looked down their nose at the way his Rugby Park team played the game.
While pragmatism and being difficult to beat can be effective and secure results it offers no guarantee of much love or appreciation; not even from the fans of the team in Scotland.
Against Morocco Scotland failed to manage a shot on target and that has been a feature of the last two tournaments. While many think that’s a direct consequence of the manager’s attitude to risk and reward, Clarke rejects that idea.
While this Scotland team has players operating at a high level in the game a side is only ever as strong as its weakest link and World Cup quarter quarter-finalists in Qatar Morocco were patently athletic and technically gifted. Pick out the most effective players in dark blue Scott McTominay, John McGinn and Lewis Ferguson are noted for their physicality. Only Ben Gannon-Doak offers the pace and invention desperately missing elsewhere.
A move which angered supporters further there was logic behind the decision to use the Bournemouth winger as an impact sub against Morocco. Analysis showed that the North Africans ran out of energy in the later stages of games and, against Brazil, he’ll be in from the start.
“Since coming to this camp I’d say we’ve concentrated more on attacking play then defensive play,” Clarke argues.
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“You could see the fruits of it when we played Bolivia. I know a friendly is different and they’re not a top ten team. And if you don’t defend well against the top teams then you know you’ll get punished.
“You’ve got to give yourself a platform.”
Its difficult to build a platform when the foundations fold and collapse after 70 seconds. Morocco’s Ismael Saibari thundered an outstanding finish into the postage stamp corner and, after a ropey half hour, when the Scots struggled to pass or control the ball, the team rallied in the second half. Had one of the two legitimate penalty claims been granted by a hopeless referee from Uzbekistan Brazil might have been tantamount to a dead rubber.
“I was pleased how we responded to a really poor start. I think people forget how games change on a goal.
“To lose one so early was a blow and we had to show a little bit of resilience and ride our luck in the first period, up to the advert break, sorry, the hydration break.
“But after that I felt we found our way into the game. But, we didn’t do enough to create chances.
“We were good back to middle third and middle third to final third. But not so good after that because we didn’t ready create anything clear and that’s been something we’ve been working on. Especially for games against the top ten teams.
“It’s an area, if I’m honest, where I’ve been looking for solutions for quite a long time. To try and find ways where we can hurt top teams.”
Finding the middle ground between defence and attack matters in a situation where goal difference could be critical to qualification. The armchair coaches with an advanced diploma in Championship Manager calling on Scotland to ‘have a go’ will be the first to call for his head if the team ships five against Brazil. While scrutiny of the SFA decision to give him a new four year contract before the Euros is fair, Clarke is now damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.
“If I go gung-ho in attack and get beat 4-0 you’ll hang me from that bird’s nest up there,’ he argues.
“Listen, it’s one of those things. Because we’ve done what we haven’t done before, and got points from the first game which gives you much better platform for the rest of the group stage, we know that a narrow defeat would maybe help us.
“But there’s no guarantee. We don’t go into this game thinking ‘let’s get a narrow defeat.’ We go into it thinking ‘can we beat Brazil?’
“We have to ask that question. And we have to ask that question of Brazil.
“I think we’re at the stage where four points would be enough for us and that’s the mentality we have to have.
“I don’t think we get the draw if we just sit in to defend. I know that’s how you guys think that’s how we set out to play against Hungary in the last tournament, but it wasn’t.
“We spoke more about attacking and trying to create problems in the last game. But by the time we reached the third game at Euro 2024 I think my key players were empty.
“They didn’t have a lot to give. That was shown in the performance, but I think this time we’re better prepared.”
The heat and humidity of Miami - a home from home for Brazil - will test reserves of energy to the full.
At the age of 62 Clarke needs to preserve his whenever he can and the full-on intensity of a World Cup leaves little scope for rest and recreation.
“I'm loving it,” he insists. “I was crabbit yesterday, because we lost. But that's just me.
“That's just the way I deal with things.
“I slept for about four hours before the game, I slept about three hours after the game.
“Last night, I slept for 10 hours, and I woke up this morning and I thought ‘bring it on, let's go.’
“We had a fantastic debrief on the Morocco game, where I could show them what the can improve on and hopefully we take that into this game.”
