Steve Clarke believes Haiti have given the Tartan Army with a timely wake-up call ahead of Scotland’s World Cup curtain raiser in Boston.
A coaching contingent from the Scotland camp watched the Caribbean side thrash fellow qualifiers New Zealand 4-0 in a warm up game in Miami on Tuesday night.
And Clarke believes no one back home should be in any doubt over the athletic and technical abilities Sebastian Migne’s side.
Speaking before his side play their final warm-up against Bolivia in New Jersey this evening, Clarke said of the Haitians: “They were good the other night. I think you could see that.
“We have a terrible habit, not just in Scotland but the UK in general, of looking at these nations and thinking they are not very good or looking at where they are ranked in the world.
“They play in a different section of the world. Maybe their section is really good.
“I think if you watched them play the other night, they were much better than New Zealand. Big, strong, physical.
“And not only big, strong and physical but they are also technical. They have good players who play in good leagues.
“I was never under any illusion it was going to be a tough game. It is probably nice that some people get to see how they played the other night. It is going to be a difficult game for us.
“They have a freedom about themselves. You can’t say it’s ‘free-style’ because the structure of their team is actually pretty good.
“And their athleticism to get around the pitch makes that structure quite difficult to play against.”
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Clarke lost Napoli midfielder Billy Gilmour to injury in the last preparatory game against Curacao before the squad flew to the United States.
While the Scotland boss is keen to avoid any more set-backs he will not tell his players to hold anything back against Bolivia.
“Do you want to wrap them in cotton wool and [they] don’t train? You need to work.
“Injuries are part and parcel of football. When it happens, especially when it happens in the circumstances it happened to Billy, it is really disappointing.
“Everybody has got to take a deep breath and move forward again. That is what we will do.
“Selection is straightforward. We have to do what we have to do to prepare for the Haiti game. Some players need minutes. I need to see one or two players in position on the pitch then we have a week to prepare for the first game. It is all about preparation, there is no trying to protect players. Injuries unfortunately are part of football. We don’t expect any but you never know.
“Obviously we have spent time, six days, down in Florida trying to acclimatise.
“We didn’t get much sunshine, it rained a lot, so it was nice to come up here and see the sun. It was good, a fantastic facility at Inter Miami. We had a good week’s preparation and hopefully we have a good, competitive friendly match against Bolivia.”
The likes of Jack Hendry, Che Adams, Scott McTominay and Kieran Tierney are likely to see game time in the Sports Ilustrated Stadium with a UK kick-off time of 9pm.
“There are always places up for grabs. There are always little niggles in training. We have two or three players with nothing major but that can happen the night before or training the day before so you have to be ready for every eventuality. That is what we will try and do.
“A couple of them missed training the other day but joined in today. We’ll see how they react.”
