'The country might like us again' - Scotland plan Euros renaissance as Germany boss assessment rejected

Steve Clarke has stressed his determination to fix things for the country as the fall-out continued following Scotland’s humiliating 5-1 defeat to Germany in the opening match of Euro 2024.

The Scotland manager made an unscheduled appearance at a press conference at the team's Euro 2024 base in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. He sought to clear the air after such a comprehensive defeat in one of the highest-profile football games Scotland have been involved in.

All 26 players trained on Sunday as the Scots continued to lick their wounds. Clarke said the inquest had continued until dinner time last night. “Then after dinner tonight, Switzerland,” he said, with reference to Wednesday’s now must-not-lose fixture in Cologne.

Scotland head coach Steve Clarke during a press conference at the Garmisch Olympia Stadium in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Picture date: Sunday June 16, 2024.

He has vowed to make it up the Tartan Army, who have travelled to Germany in their hordes. “With what this group of players have done for the country over a good period of time, we should have expectation,” he said. “We don’t hide from that, we are not hiding from anything. I could sit here and say, ‘Oh, it’s great, we qualified for this’. But don’t hide.

“Expectation is good because it means you have achieved something and people are saying, ‘You know what? This team’s alright’. But the other night we weren’t alright. So we have to remedy that.

“If we don’t let ourselves down then we don’t let anybody else down so we have to look straight at the source of the problem," he added. "What happened? We were the problem. Okay, let’s fix ourselves. If we fix ourselves the country might like us again.”

Clarke maintained that he knows why Scotland looked so off-key from the very start against Germany, when they were 2-0 down within 20 minutes and trailing 3-0 by half-time. “We know what went wrong,” he said. “I spoke to the players about what I feel was wrong from my side, from what I gave them. I think their interpretation of what we asked them to do was wrong so we have worked on that and spoken about that.”

The manager has not been stung by the criticism of him and his players because he knew it was coming his way. "I can’t change anything about the whole bubble around us if people want to have a pop", he said. "We lost 5-1. Come on. This is life. It is probably why I am still in the game after all these years because I know what’s coming. It can’t be inside my head because I have to get as clear a head as I can to go into the next game, which is a crucial game.

"We can’t say anything, we have to take that," he added. "Callum (McGregor) took it yesterday, I take it today, it wasn’t fair to put (assistant manager) John Carver up today because when I turn up the day before the game you would all be wanting to put me on the spot about the last game.”

Germany manager Julian Nagelsmann said in an interview that he thought Scotland looked afraid, and were perhaps overawed by both the occasion and venue. Clarke rejected this. “I don’t think they were afraid,” he said. “We didn’t go into the game with any fear. Maybe the first attack spooked us a little bit when they put it in behind us and (Florian) Wirtz got in behind and Gunny (Angus Gunn) made the block, but he was just offside.

"Maybe that spooked us a little bit and we dropped 10 yards deeper than we should have done, instead of having the strength of mind just to hold and be what we are, which is quite a good pressing team when we get it right. Obviously we got it completely wrong the other night.”

Clarke revealed that his entire family had been sitting in ringside seats right behind him at the Munich Football Arena. “Believe it or not, my family - my wife, my daughter, my two boys – were in the first row behind the dugout,” he said. “So now they know that dad’s language is not always very good…”