'I was in a huff' - Steve Clarke recalls his World Cup snub despite Chelsea heroics ahead of Euro 2024 squad decision

In Part Two of a pre-Euro 2024 interview with Steve Clarke, the Scotland manager explains why he knows how some players will feel this summer

Steve Clarke was left out of Scotland's World Cup 98 squad and so missed the chance to face Brazil in the opening game.

Imagine the scenario now. Scotland are preparing to take part in a major finals and a Scot is playing in the top flight in England. He’s not only playing, but he’s tearing it up.

His team Chelsea have won the League Cup and they’re riding high in the league, eventually finishing third. They also lift a European trophy into the bargain.

Any disquiet about the player’s age – 34 – would be dispelled by further analysis of the facts. After all, he played 40 times in this successful campaign, including every minute of the European Cup-Winners’ Cup victory, just weeks before the World Cup kick-off. There’s plenty gas left in the tank for Scotland in what’s proving an extended honeymoon period towards the end of his career.

Steve Clarke of Chelsea holds off the challenge of Liverpool's Karl Heinz Riedle during a match at Anfield in 1997. Pic: Clive Brunskill /Allsport

So what happens? He’s overlooked. Barely even quoted. When Scotland take part in the opening game of the entire tournament against Brazil, watched by several hundred million people, the player in question can’t bear to turn the television on. “I was in a huff,” he later explains. Even now, more than quarter of a century later, it seems barely credible.

Why was Steve Clarke not at the World Cup in 1998? That’s a question only Craig Brown, God rest him, can answer. In his defence, looking back at contemporary newspaper reports, it was not a burning issue. After all, the last of the Chelsea defender's six caps had come four years earlier although unlike some of his peers, Clarke never actually retired from the international side. He was still available for selection, hence why he felt dismayed by his repeated exclusion.

Can you imagine the outrage now? Clarke can. Because he’d be the one getting it in the neck. ‘What are you thinking about man! Get yourself down to Stamford Bridge!’ Now it would be like not picking Manchester United’s Scott McTominay, possibly worse. Chelsea were one of the top three sides in England at the time. Clarke held his own among an array of glittering stars attracted by the likes of Ruud Gullit and Gianluca Vialli.

Clarke would have been valuable to Scotland for his versatility alone. He was switching between full back and the centre of defence, and was playing as well as ever. Chelsea teammate Craig Burley recently recalled on X how he would go away for international duty with a reminder from Clarke ringing in his ears: “Tell Broon I’m still alive!”

Steve Clarke in action for Scotland during a 2-0 friendly win over Hungary at Hampden in September 1987.

But Brown kept faith with the likes of Christian Dailly, Colin Calderwood and Tom Boyd. He capped Clarke once, against the Netherlands just before the previous World Cup. “I just felt that between 1994 and 1998 I was playing some of the best football I ever played because I was playing with better players and I was in a really good place,” recalls Clarke.

“I felt my versatility might get me into the squad but Craig had other ideas! I didn’t really understand at the time. But now I understand completely.”

It’s good to speak to Clarke about such matters in relaxed, informal surroundings. He has gathered a few reporters together for a debrief of the previous year and a preview of a huge year ahead. With all due respect to first ministers, surgeons and the like, Clarke will occupy the position of most under-pressure Scot for a few weeks this summer.

Come June he can expect to have broken some hearts. He knows there’s a good chance someone will be unable to watch Scotland take on Germany in the opening game of Euro 2024 because they believed they ought to be there, just like he felt in 1998.

Steve Clarke lines up for Scotland prior to a 1-1 draw with Malta in 1998. Photo by Colorsport/Shutterstock (5398727gg)

“At least the players know I do have empathy for them, because I have been in that situation myself,” says Clarke. “But there is a long way to go before you get there. I am not going to beat myself up for the next six months wondering what is going to happen, because players will get injured, maybe somebody will turn up who you think ‘he’ll make us better’, and that’s without going down the line of the Newcastle players…”

Clarke has proved unwilling to encourage talk of players being parachuted in although he’s ruling nothing out. Will he turn to Harvey Barnes, perhaps the only one out of the Newcastle quartet made up by Tino Livramento, Anthony Gordon and the already written-off Elliot Anderson who seems a realistic contender? Time will tell. Even Barnes is still recovering from injury and will do well to reclaim his Newcastle place before the end of the season, never mind switch allegiance to Scotland. Fulham’s already capped Tom Cairney might be a more likely out-of-the-blue contender. In any case, Clarke is not likely to discard one of his current mainstays without good reason. However, he does stress it’s a two-way street.

“Loyalty is part of it,” he says. “But with that loyalty must come performances – so long as they are performing for me and for the country then the loyalty can be rewarded. If the performances are not there it’s more difficult to be loyal.”

Clarke had more room to manoeuvre the last time he was handing out golden tickets for a major finals. Covid meant squads were larger at Euro 2020, when three extra places permitted. “It’s going to be a difficult 23-man selection,” he says. “As my coaches keep telling me, that’s why I get paid the big bucks!"

Clarke predicts losing two players to injury before the tournament begins. “We lost Ryan Jack and Kenny McLean last time,” he says. “On average, that’s what happens. Fingers crossed it doesn’t happen this time. And then I just have to make the big calls!”

As he says, it pays to have some comprehension of what those who miss out are going through. That can only help when it comes to the crunch. Players might be unhappy, but they cannot accuse Clarke of not knowing how it feels. Never mind 1998, his ejection from the World Cup squad for Italia 90 was even more painful after being included in the provisional pool.

Andy Roxburgh took a 26-man squad to Genoa in February for a pre-World Cup camp and Clarke was in it, which was promising. He was a late addition to the previous selection Roxburgh had named for the must-not-lose World Cup qualifying crunch match against Norway, after Steve Nicol pulled out. Helping his case was scoring the winner against Everton at Goodison Park on the weekend beforehand as Chelsea maintained top spot in the English First Division.

He wasn’t even stripped against Norway in the end. And when Roxburgh named his final 22 players for Italy, he missed out then too. “At the time, I was having issues with Chelsea,” he concedes. “I wasn’t playing regularly. Andy just phoned me and said, ‘Listen, if you are not playing with Chelsea, then I can’t pick you’.”

What sounds like a lament is also a warning to current Scotland players. Keep your club place or else win it back.