Steve Clarke 'excited' by Scotland job pressure as World Cup 2026 qualification campaign edges closer
The Scots kick off their campaign to reach the finals in the USA, Canada and Mexico next month
Steve Clarke is feeling the pressure of trying to end Scotland’s 28 year wait to get back to a World Cup finals.
The national boss has led the country to back-to-back European Championships but the last appearance at the World Cup was back in 1998.
Clarke will name his squad next week for the opening qualifiers against Denmark and Belarus - which he hopes is the start of a journey which he hopes will lead his squad to the finals in USA, Canada and Mexico.
“I’m excited but I feel the pressure,” Clarke conceded. “There is a pressure and we do want to get there.
“The whole country wants to get there and as head coach a little bit of that comes back on me. I relish it and I am looking forward to it.
“For me, I have to stay grounded and not get too high or too low. Expectation is for the supporters and excitement is for the supporters. “They can dream as much as they want.
“The people involved in the business side need to be a bit more stable because you know football can change in a moment. You certainly have to be resilient in this job.”
Clarke is likely to become the manager who had been in charge for the most Scotland games in this campaign. He has insisted that is very much secondary in his thinking.
Clarke stated: “The most important thing is not me becoming the most capped Scotland manager, the most important thing is for the team to get to America next year.”
Scotland did make the play-off for the last World Cup but crashed to Ukraine. That pain is still there for Clarke and those players who remain to right that wrong.
He claimed: “We have a determined group of players and they are all determined to make up for a missed chance to go to Qatar in 2022. Hopefully, we can do it.
“The squad of players and those who I have worked with have shown a capacity to qualify for major tournaments. Even the last World Cup, the group stage of the qualification was good and we finished on 23 points behind Denmark, who had 27.
“We had a great campaign and got to the play-offs against Ukraine and just let ourselves down on the night in what were pretty unusual circumstances. We had to wait from March to June to play the game because the war had just started in Ukraine.
“It was a difficult night and we didn’t play as we can play. The players who are still involved in the squad are determined to put it right this time.”
He has some decisions to make ahead of next week and the goalkeeping position remains an issue with Craig Gordon still to play at Hearts and Angus Gunn and Liam Kelly sitting on the bench at Nottingham Forest and Rangers, respectively.
“I did mention in the summer that we were probably lacking in the goalkeeping department,” the former Kilmarnock boss added. “Craig Gordon hasn’t had any minutes yet, so maybe we will be scrambling around a bit.
“One or two of my picks for goalkeeper are actually the No.2 at the club. That is one area where we have a little bit of a concern.”
The good thing is that the likes of Ben Gannon Doak has got himself a move and Grant Hanley is also back playing. Clarke, speaking to BBC's Match of the Day, explained: “There are one or two who are thinking about a move, going to move or the club wants them out.
“Ben Doak for one, is an example. “He has just left Liverpool for Bournemouth. Hopefully, he will get a few more minutes when he gets down to the south coast.
“You are looking at one or two others. Grant Hanley was looking for a club and he has managed to get back to Scotland at Hibernian.
“It is a little bit more unpredictable in terms of stability of the squad working into the international break.”