Scotland’s hopes of reaching the World Cup final were dealt a huge blow with a 3-0 loss to Brazil, with manager Steve Clarke visibly distressed after the final whistle.
Steve Clarke was clearly frustrated after Scotland’s loss to Brazil
Steve Clarke has insisted it is too early to think about the next step after Scotland’s heavy defeat to Brazil put their World Cup hopes in jeopardy. The team will wait to learn their World Cup fate after losing 3-0 to Brazil in Miami this weekend, but Clarke was clearly in pain as he hurried away from the post-match interview.
With this loss, Scotland finished third in their group in their first major tournament appearance in nearly 30 years. Vinicius Junior scored twice, maintaining his scoring streak in all World Cup games so far, and Matheus Cunha added a third to close out the match.
The 1-0 win over Haiti leaves Scotland with a slim chance of progressing to the Round of 32, where they are one of the strongest teams in third place, with a tough game ahead of them. However, it all depends on the performance of other countries.
Looking at these numbers, they had a good chance of winning even if they lost two or fewer goals, but that probability dropped significantly if they lost three or more goals. As it stands, Scotland have a -3 goal difference and could very well jump over the other teams as they play their remaining group games over the next few days.
Clark and his team won’t know their fate until around Sunday, when Group J concludes.
Speaking on the pitch after the game, he said: “We made things difficult for ourselves. That’s all. We gave them a goal. We gave them the game they wanted. It’s disappointing. We made it difficult for ourselves. That’s it. We gave them a goal and gave them the game they wanted. It’s disappointing.”
Asked for his thoughts on the agonizing wait, Clark added: “I don’t even think about it” before walking away.
Scotland’s hopes of progressing to the knockout stages ended with a crushing defeat by Brazil (Image: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)
As a result, the BBC was forced to reduce Kelly Cates’ appearances at its Salford studios. Clarke later returned to give a full post-match interview and has since stated that Scotland would “definitely” be heading home.
Captain Andy Robertson, who was sent off at half-time with a suspected injury, told the broadcaster: “We started the game well and kept pushing the ball up the pitch. They gave us a false sense of security and thought we had more time on the ball. Then we get punished. We’re 1-0 down so we have to fight back.”
“But we knew we were playing against a really quality team. Just coming off the pitch, my first reaction was one of frustration, because we let ourselves down in certain moments. We didn’t have that luxury. We only have ourselves to blame. Time will tell. We’ll have to take a day or two to figure out what happened. We didn’t want to put ourselves in a position of watching every game and hoping that this team would score. We put ourselves in a really difficult situation.
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“If you ask me now, I don’t think it’s enough. I don’t think I’ve done enough. But maybe time will prove me wrong and we’ll have to do it all over again. I hope so. But the next few days are going to be horribly long, but this is the situation we’re in and we have to deal with it.”
Meanwhile, midfielder John McGinn added: “We were obviously let down. To concede another goal at a bad time against a team that punishes us with quality… We had a few chances to score ourselves, which could have been important in the end, but now we just have to wait. You can see the players are let down. We weren’t as good tonight, but we gave it our all.”
“The players are free now. If we are to advance, we will have to wait and see over the next few days. We gave ourselves a more difficult chance. I think it is unlikely now, but we will see. Brazil hurt us right away. They They allow us to play and at this level you get punished if you make a mistake. This is the top level. We were probably lucky with the goal that was called off. We just need to wait and see.
McGinn continued: “It’s a little raw at the moment, but I’m grateful for the support of the fans. I know how difficult it is to be here and I hope the journey isn’t over. They’ve been really great and if I were to go again, I would go again.”
Elsewhere in Group C, Morocco secured second place with a 4-2 win over Haiti. They are tied with Brazil on seven points, but the Selecao have a better goal difference.
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