Scotland’s manager reacts to their 1-0 victory over Croatia at Hampden.
Steve Clarke insisted that Scotland needed a break after a first-half red card for Croatia enabled his team to secure an overdue competitive victory with a John McGinn goal four minutes from time.
Two minutes before halftime, midfielder Petar Sucic received a second yellow card for a strong challenge on John Souttar. According to Croatia manager Zlatko Dalic, referee Orel Grinfeeld’s judgment impacted the game.
Clarke wasn’t going to disagree. “I think when you put two yellow cards together to get a red, I’m not sure it was strong enough to be a red,” according to him. “If I’m being honest, if it had happened against us, I would have been just as disappointed as they were.”
Scotland pushed hard to break down the 10 men, and did so with four minutes left thanks to John McGinn and more fantastic wing play from winger Ben Doak, who was named man of the match despite being only 19. When asked to evaluate the teenager’s performance in only his third start, Clarke responded that he expected such a good performance from a player in whom he clearly has faith.
“It was good but I thought he might be,” he told me. “He’s joined the team, he’s demonstrated a great good attitude, and he provides us something a little different than what we’ve had previously. So I’m quite pleased with Ben, and he gets the assist for the goal on the run. He could have had a few more and scored one himself. So that’s a contribution from a young guy who we need to protect and look after, but we also know he’s good for the moment and hopefully for a long time in the future.”
Doak will undoubtedly be crucial if Scotland wins on Monday in Poland and avoids inevitable relegation from the Nations League’s top flight. They still have a chance to finish second in the group and advance to the quarterfinals if they win in Warsaw and Portugal beat Croatia in Zagreb, both of which need a three-goal swing. Clarke is solely concerned with gaining another three points in the first instance.
“We have to win,” he declared. “The first job is to go there and win; if we do that, we’ll count the goals and everything else. But let’s take it one step at a time. It’s been a long time since we’ve won; now we need to win again on Monday night. So it would be fantastic to have back-to-back triumphs.” Clarke believed Scotland could play far better than they did against Croatia, who were clearly the superior team in the first half and had their moments in the second half. Indeed, the manager assessed the performance as the poorest at this stage of the Nations League.
“We can play better,” he remarked. “I believe we can improve our ball control and clinical play in the last third of the pitch. Obviously, the sending off changes the course of the game, but we needed a small rest.”
There was a wonderful moment at the end when Clarke made a beeline for Croatia captain Luka Modric, who had performed admirably once more on what could be his final appearance in Scotland. When asked what he said to the 39-year-old, Clarke replied: “I just wished him well, good luck for the last game,” stated the manager. “We had a little chat about the game-changing incident.”
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