SCOTLAND boss Steve Clarke admitted he blasted his squad for playing like the Norway qualifier was a TESTIMONIAL.
Clarke said he ordered his side to up the tempo after they’d twice fallen behind in the final Euros qualifier.
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He said: “I spoke to them at half-time – very calmly and quietly – and just asked them to play with a bit more intensity.
“I thought we played the first half like a testimonial.
“It was like ‘Look at us, we’re a great team, we’ve qualified for Germany’.
“That’s not us, that’s not Scotland, we have to be on the front foot, we have to be aggressive and get about the opposition.
“The second-half was a much better performance than the first half and we looked a much better team.
“That’s why it was so disappointing to lose the goal at the end – we switched off a little bit with the cross to the back post but we’ll learn from that and hopefully we’ll get better.
“It was nice on the park at the end, but I didn’t smile because I was still fuming because of the third goal we conceded.
“That’s just the way I’m made up.
“I might by-pass thinking about the game. It was a strange game, a strange atmosphere – you don’t get too many 3-3s in international football.
“But overall the lads’ performance in the group is fantastic, to qualify in the manner we did.
“The draw was favourable to us, with the three home games to start with. But you have to capitalise and we managed to do that.
“We put ourselves in a great position, and got over the line with two games to spare – and they turned out to be two difficult games for us.
“It’s probably not a night to over-analyse this one.
“To analyse the campaign, taking three points off Spain here at Hampden was crucial.
“We took four points off Georgia, four points off Norway, six points off Cyprus and suddenly we end up with the same points total as we had from the World Cup minus the six points from the Pot 6 team – when we finished second to Denmark.
“So, pretty consistent.”
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Scotland took the cheers of the Tartan Army on a lap of honour and Clarke told Viaplay: “The connection wasn’t always like that.
“But this group of players have shown the Tartan Army and the people of Scotland they want to turn up and do well.
“The most important thing for me was to be competitive every time we went to the pitch.
“When you look at the games in the last couple of campaigns, that’s what we have to be if we want to be a team that qualifies for major tournaments.
“When I looked at the group I identified a core group I wanted to pick every time, even if they’re not playing at their clubs.
“I’ve been pretty consistent in selection – the same message is passed to that group of players when they come. Keeping the core group together was key.
“I tweaked the system, I’d a lot of time to think during Covid about how to stop us conceding goals.
“I came up with the back three idea and we started with Scott McTominay there.
“I wanted to find a way of playing that would become our identity and we’ve gradually built on that.
“We brought in different types of players where we could squeeze the game because we have a little bit more pace at the back.
“I’m not even thinking about the squad for next summer.
“There’s six months of football to play, something will happen that you’re not expecting.
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“I won’t lose any sleep about it now, maybe when I get to March I’ll start to think about narrowing the squad down to 23.”
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