The better it gets, the harder it is to tell any more.
Well, Steve Clarke never has been one for bothering with life’s little details. You know, like showing human emotion. Not when he’s got football on his mind. And yet, somewhere deep inside, as he attempted to exude an air of complete indifference facing the media in the Ullevaal Stadium, he must have felt fireworks go off in his belly.
The game face stayed the same throughout as the questions rained down upon him, following another quite historic Scotland victory. Eyes staring into the middle distance. Mouth turned down at both sides. Nine points from nine in Group A. Another victory over Georgia tomorrow will mean Clarke has managed something no other Scotland boss has achieved by rattling off four qualification wins on the bounce. What is happening here is bordering on the extra-ordinary as Clarke and his players peer down on Spain, Norway and the rest while closing in on automatic qualification for Euro 2024.
If he wasn’t feeling it he wouldn’t be human. But Clarke believes that keeping all the excitement in check has become a major part of his Scotland success story.
It’s 10 minutes later, after the cameras have been packed up. He’s a little more relaxed now, standing in a corridor, arms folded. Almost cracking into a smile – but not quite.
The first question is an obvious one. How on Earth does he do it? How can he remain so resistant and so detached from the moment when what he’s just done has overwhelmed every other Scot inside the place?
“Listen,” he says with a concessionary shrug, “It’s a big result for us but, as I said after the last camp, you have to capitalise on the next one. I don’t want to beat Cyprus, beat Spain, beat Norway and not qualify! I want to qualify.
“So all I can do is try to keep everybody’s feet on the ground and focus on the next game. Because if we mess it up on Tuesday night – if we don’t get three points – we’re looking back and thinking, ‘This could be a tough second half to the campaign’. So we want to cement and solidify what we’ve done so far.”
Of course we ought to be delighted to have him. A shovelful of this earthy pragmatism is precisely what’s required right now as Scotland’s feet disappear into the clouds. Clarke knows he cannot allow that to happen inside his own camp.
Which is why he kept the fuss to a minimum inside Scotland’s dressing room on Saturday, minutes after seeing Lyndon Dykes and Kenny McLean send the rest of us into the stratosphere.
Clarke said: “After the game you congratulate the lads because they came in on a big high. During the last couple of minutes I had to calm my bench down because I thought they were going mental behind me. And sometimes, if players look at the bench and see everybody jumping around ,it makes them nervous on the pitch.
“So if we stay calm on the sidelines the players can see the game out properly. Which they did. Obviously tonight when you win a game it’s nice. But I’m a coach, I’m always thinking about the next one and what if it doesn’t go right? I’m sorry but that’s the life of a head coach.
“When I retire it will be nice to look back on moments like this and enjoy them. But at the moment I’m focused on Tuesday.”
It’s this attention to the details that matter which mean Clarke’s cool head is required. So when it was pointed out to him that a fourth straight Group A win would scrawl his name all over Scotland’s history books, the mouth turned down on both sides all over again.
He said: “You love history don’t you? I never studied history at school – I was more of a geography man!”
That was Clarke’s way of keeping the hyperbole to a bare minimum. And ensuring that his own players don’t make the mistake of taking this winning streak for granted, especially not with Napoli’s wizardly Khvicha Kvaratskhelia around.
He added: “Listen, it’s good but you have to respect your opponent. Georgia are a good team and they have one exceptional player - probably one of the best dribblers in Europe at the moment – who can create something out of nothing.
“They’ll defend well, they are a good team. So we’ll pay them respect, We’ll recover and then we’ll try to go again.”
That process began late on Saturday night after the players had been safely returned to their new five-star Glasgow hotel digs. And that continued yesterday when Clarke conducted a head count at their Lesser Hampden training base before working out his next starting XI.
On Saturday he was able to turn to his reserves at a critical moment after Erling Haaland had smashed home from the spot. While the Manchester City man was replaced moments later and allowed to put his feet up, Clarke was making the changes which would turn the game around while Haaland could do absolutely nothing about it.
He stuck with Dykes even though the Aussie had run himself into the ground without a sniff of goal. He threw on Billy Gilmour to grab control of the midfield, even though it was at the expense of the almost always irreplaceable Callum McGregor.
And McLean was given a wildcard pass which no one else in the ground saw coming. All of these decisions combined to devastating effect.
And Clarke will have more of them to make over the next 48 hours. He said: “As head coach, when you turn around and see that quality sitting on the bench, it’s a great place to be.
“But we’ll go away now and see how everyone is. We’ll start to look at the bodies and start to see who’s fit, who’s not fit, who’s feeling something. And then you start to shape your team for Tuesday night.
“Normally we’ve got to flog somebody like Callum to death. But because we’ve got a similar type of player who can get on there, get on the ball and make us play, we’ve got that with Billy. Listen, the whole squad is in contention for Tuesday night but we’ve got to wait and see who’s feeling good, who’s feeling bad and then we choose from there.”
As he turned to head off, Clarke was hit with one final question from left field. What is it he carries in that little shoulder bag he takes with him everywhere? The game face returns with a weary roll of the eyes.
“A lot of stuff,” he fires back over a shoulder before being asked if there’s anything secret to his success hiding in there. No, no secrets. Just a laptop, some pens. You know, the usual coaching s***e.”
Don’t ever change Steve Clarke. Please God, don’t ever change.
