After a delay of nearly thirty years, here we are once more. The cast have changed but the script is almost identical. Scotland head into the final group game of a (real) major championship with a fighting chance at progressing for the first time to the second phase. Emerge victorious against Hungary on Sunday evening and for better or worse, the rest takes care of itself.
Thursday’s draw with Switzerland saw green shoots of recovery post Munich mauling and shades of the team we grew to know and love over the last two years were exhibited on the European stage. Scotland looked for long spells of the match to have rediscovered themselves – a point referenced by every player interviewed post match.
Each member of the squad and staff had to search within themselves following the humiliation on the opening night. Recovery and convalescence at the Alpine training base of Gramish-Partenkirchen would’ve been as geared towards the psychological aspect of the experience as it was the physical, perhaps with even greater emphasis placed on the former.
Whatever went on between Saturday and Thursday it worked, and Scotland produced exactly what they needed to – a response.
Intensity made a welcome return as did directness, width and measured aggression – all components that made Clarke’s Scotland side so successful in the not so distant past and all components they must call upon on Sunday.
The performance was not without it’s snags. Once the intensity cooled, Switzerland were allowed too much time and space to move the ball around swiftly and slickly but they weren’t able to hem Scotland in permanently in the unforgiving way Germany did and neither will Hungary.
Right-back remains a huge headache for Clarke, even if his public declarations state the opposite. Anthony Ralston is in the line up by default, much in the way Stephen O’Donnell was last time. His area is the one Switzerland targeted with regularity and they were unlucky to only get change out of this approach once. Could Clarke reshuffle the pack and thwart any plans the Hungarians have of following suit?
If Ralston is fortunate to be in the team, then someone at the opposite end of the spectrum is Ryan Christie. Physical, intense, a goal threat and an all round pest, he has been designed for games such as Sunday. Since Anadoni Iraola converted him to a deeper role at club level, he’s given him the final string to his bow which grants him legitimate status as the complete midfielder.
Just who could he replace though?
If the question had posed in the aftermath of the Germany game, the obvious candidate would be Callum McGregor. Now though, focus has shifted to John McGinn, who to this point has offered very little and seems a shadow of the player who carried the nation on his back in recent years.
Kieran Tierney’s absence raises questions over the three man defence that was engineered specifically to accommodate both he and Andy Robertson into the same side. Scotland operated with a four man back-line in one of the warm up games against Gibraltar, could Clarke be cooking something similar up as we speak?
Assistant manager John Carver refused to pour cold water over the notion at Friday’s press conference:
“Steve has always talked about being flexible. For a long spell we went with the three and then we changed it before we played Ukraine.
“We are flexible, we’ve played two different systems already. I’m not going to give a great deal away to the opposition. It is a possibility.”
Despite all the raging debate over tactics and set up, one thing that wouldn’t come as a shock, would be Clarke naming almost exactly the same XI as he did in the last game. Clarke has a deep trust in the men who have served him well to this point and this is a virtue not a fault. This is a manager who’s genuinely achieved things with this group and he has credit in the bank in a way no other Scotland manager has in a generation.
Clarke knows the players and the players know their roles under him. Whatever polemic or diatribe he’s been faced with, be it in print, online or television, he meets it head on in the same deadpan, phlegmatic manner. His innate, stoic disposition and aversion to histrionics has seen Scotland through this far. Come 10pm on Sunday the credits will be rolling and we’ll be in a better position to judge whether what we’ve just watched is a remake of an old familiar, painful movie or if Steve Clarke has directed yet another classic. Only this time, for the first time, there’s a sequel. Stay tuned.
