SCOTLAND manager Steve Clarke has outlined the reason for his angry exchange of words with his set piece coach Austin MacPhee during the heavy Euro 2024 defeat to Germany.
Clarke unleashed a verbal volley at former Hearts caretaker MacPhee at one point in the second-half of the opening Group A game against the host nation in the Allianz Arena in Munich on Friday night.
He took exception to being questioned about the technical area incident immediately after the bruising 5-1 loss and stated that “football is an emotional game”.
However, the 60-year-old spoke to the media at Scotland’s training base in Garmisch-Partenkirchen near the Austrian border yesterday and he revealed what the bust-up had been about.
“It was really simple,” he said. “I’m frustrated on the touchline, everybody is frustrated. You get these moments all the time, but you don’t normally see it because we are tucked under a canopy.
“Austin just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time as I turned round after taking a short free-kick when we should have been putting the ball into the box, as we did when we scored the goal.
“It wasn’t Austin’s fault because players make that decision on the pitch, and we got counter-attacked. I’m thinking ‘We’ve lost enough goals Austin, we don’t need to lose any more goals’. We just had a little discussion, that was all.”
Clarke admitted that he would give a few of his players “a cuddle” before the meeting with Switzerland in the RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne on Wednesday night – and would give a few others a “kick up the backside”.
Asked he would be giving Aston Villa coach MacPhee a cuddle to ensure there was no lingering animosity as a result of the altercation, he said: “Listen, he has long blonde hair, but I’m not going to give him a cuddle!”
Meanwhile, the former Newcastle United, Chelsea and Liverpool assistant has accepted personal responsibility for the humiliating 5-1 loss which Scotland suffered at the hands of Germany on Friday night.
But he refused to rule out the national team’s chances of bouncing back from the reverse against Switzerland – who defeated Hungary 3-1 in Cologne on Saturday afternoon - and getting a result which keeps their hopes of reaching the last 16 alive.
“Obviously we got a lot of things wrong and we have to put that right in the next game,” he said. “What would I have done differently? Give a better message. If I criticise myself – and I always do, I start with myself – maybe I gave too much information.
“I have spoken to one or two players around the squad, whose opinion I value. I had a good chat with a few of them. I had a little chat with a lot of them on the training pitch this morning, just to try and put one or two things in their head that maybe they didn’t do when they went on the pitch, that they should have done.
“I have been kicking a couple of backsides, giving a couple of cuddles, getting them together as a group, making them understand why we had that performance on Friday night and making sure we don’t have that again. I am always confident in my players and I am confident in myself.
“You’ll find out on Wednesday night if it works. In a way we are lucky, playing first game on the Friday gives us an extra day. We let them clear their heads a little bit yesterday and then we started working towards the game on Wednesday night. So I can’t really answer that question until we see what happens on Wednesday.
“Listen, there are no excuses. When you lose a game 5-1, and I have been in this a long time, you have to take all the criticism that comes. You have to respond.
“The good thing for me is, I have been in this position before. I have always responded pretty well. The players have always responded pretty well. I talk all the time about how the players respond. So that’s what we will try to do.”
Meanwhile, Clarke has revealed that his wife and children had to endure an expletive-laden evening in the Allianz Arena on Friday night after getting seats one row behind the Scotland dugout.
Asked if anyone had given him a cuddle after the match,” he said: "No, no one has given me a cuddle. My wife, she was at the game. My family, my wife, my daughter, my two boys, believe it or not were in the first row behind the dugout. So now they know that dad’s language is not always very good. I'll leave you with that.”
