A NATION IS DARING TO DREAM
World Cup play-off draw has opened a path of possibility for Clarke’s Scotland
IT’S been a good few generations since Scotland fans dared to dream of our boys mesmerising a global audience and shaking up the world.
But yesterday’s play-off draw gives us a puncher’s chance, at least, of once again becoming fully paid-up members of Planet Football.
With or without an assist from Gareth Southgate, a potential mine of useful intelligence, Steve Clarke seems quietly confident that his battle-hardened group can repeat their Euro 2020 play-off heroics on a much more demanding stage. He’s surely only reflecting the much-improved national mood.
First up, Ukraine at a completely off-the-hook Hampden. Followed, hopefully, by a final against opponents who could hardly be more beatable, in this particular context.
Easy? No such thing. Not at this stage, certainly. With UEFA afforded only 13 places at Qatar 2022, the process could never be anything but progressively demanding; the further you go, the tougher it becomes.
As TV executives slowly recover from the shock of learning that one — if not both — of Italy or Portugal will be absent from the most important sporting broadcast on earth next winter, nobody should need reminding of that.
‘When you look at the qualification process for international football, every game is almost a must win,’ said Clarke (below), speaking just minutes after yesterday’s draw.
‘Even when you are playing the so-called minnows in the group, you still have to win those games. We managed to do that well throughout the campaign.
‘We have shown over the course of the play-offs for Euro 2020 that we can handle the high tension of those semi-final and final games — and hopefully we can prove that again in March.’
Asked if he might consult England counterpart Southgate, who presided over a 4-0 thrashing of Ukraine in the Euro 2020 quarterfinals, Clarke said: ‘I haven’t really thought about it. I am still digesting the draw and thinking about what we will do. ‘I will watch the (England) game and, if I feel Gareth can help us, then I am sure we will bump into each other over the course of the next four months, travelling around the country looking at players. ‘I haven’t had time to analyse Ukraine yet, obviously. I will go away and analyse their games properly and then come up with an idea so we can play in a certain way to beat them. ‘They are well-organised and difficult to beat. I don’t think they lost a game in their qualifying campaign, although there were a lot of draws.’ Clarke is right, of course. Ukraine didn’t suffer a single defeat in eight fixtures, with even World Cup holders France failing to beat them. Now under the leadership of Oleksandr Petrakov — a wily old fox who guided his nation to Under-20s World Cup glory in 2019 — since the summer departure of Andriy Shevchenko, they’ve also dropped points to such superpowers as Kazakhstan and Bosnia and Herzegovina. It says a great deal about Scotland’s current trajectory that we’re not simply adopting the brace position and fearing the worst at such an advanced stage of the qualification process. Therein lies the value of backto-back home wins over Israel and Denmark, with those results boosting morale and securing the guaranteed home draw. ‘Being at home was important for us, of course,’ said Clarke. ‘But, if I’d said to everyone at the start of September, before we played those games, that we would be in the play-offs and not seeded, then everybody would have bitten our hand off. ‘Actually beating Denmark in the last game and getting the seeding was just a little extra bonus.’
Clarke is optimistic that FIFA will give final approval to expunge all bookings from the group stage, removing the threat of players being just one yellow card away from missing a potential final.
‘The last information I got, which hasn’t been confirmed or clarified, was that we are looking good for an amnesty,’ he said.
‘It means a lot of the teams can go in without the threat of yellow cards hanging over the final, if you are lucky enough to get there. That is important.’
On the prospect of either a Home Nations clash in Cardiff or a return to Vienna, where Scotland were 1-0 winners in September, Clarke said: ‘We know the Austrians well because we played them twice in qualifying.
‘We know what to expect going to Austria. I know the Austrians will also want to improve on what they did in the qualifying campaign. They will be dangerous.
‘If we are lucky enough to go through and face the Welsh in Cardiff, then that should be a fantastic occasion.
‘But you know me, I am not going to start talking too much about a Wales v Scotland game in Cardiff when we have a really tough game against Ukraine to get over first.’
We’ve got four whole months to fill with countless predictions and limitless excitement. Sixteen-anda-bit weeks of fretting every time Billy Gilmour or Kieran Tierney goes into a 50-50 with some bruising hulk on a wet Wednesday night of Premier League action.
Even allowing for the tension, terror and terrible anxiety that comes as standard for any Tartan Army recruit, it’s going to be absolutely wonderful. All of it.
Having endured almost two-anda-half decades of failing to get even this far, with World Cup campaign after accursed campaign leaving us feeling either despondent or frustrated, this opportunity feels like a godsend.
So what if it’s going to be difficult? Inclusion in the World Cup shouldn’t be a consolation prize or a participation award. It should be earned.
We may not have reached preArgentina ’78 levels of euphoria, of course. Never again and all that.
But just being in the mix at this stage of the competition, standing alongside the current European champions and other elite nations in a simplified play-off process that gives outsiders a much fairer crack of getting through, is reason enough to believe in endless possibilities.