{"id":408892,"date":"2025-09-08T22:46:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T22:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/408892\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T22:46:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T22:46:14","slug":"steve-clarke-hails-scotland-patience-in-win-over-belarus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/408892\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Clarke hails Scotland patience in win over Belarus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scotland boss Steve Clarke praised the patience of his players after a solid 2-0 win over Belarus in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary continued steady progress in World Cup qualifying.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having battled to an encouraging 0-0 draw in their opening qualifier in Group C against Denmark on Friday night, Scotland coped with testing conditions from the closed-doors match at the ZTE Arena.<\/p>\n

Che Adams scored from close range two minutes before the break to give Scotland a foothold, with an own goal from Belarus defender Zakhar Volkov making sure of what could be a crucial three points on the road towards the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a tough night. I expected the reaction that Belarus gave,\u201d Clarke told BBC Scotland.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey lost quite heavily in the first game (5-1 to Greece), so the immediate reaction to that is going to be more defensively solid, with a lot of big guys and filled the middle of the park.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to be patient, it was nice to get the goal just before half-time because it gives you that extra bit of security.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just kept prodding and trying to do what we wanted to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey made it difficult for us and we always a threat on the counter because of the pace up front, so it was just to stay patient and managed to get that second goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clarke, though, is not about to get carried away \u2013 his mind already turning towards the October internationals at home to Greece and Belarus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a good start, but it is only a start. Four points will never qualify anybody for anything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two big games next month, but the effort from the players, the help I have had from my staff has been great.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is nice to start (with). I can go home with a smile on my face, but I am already thinking about next month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scotland captain Andy Robertson felt the win was \u201cjob done\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Liverpool defender said: \u201cWe knew after them conceding a few goals the other night they would try to be more defensive and a bit more secure with five at the back.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrossing the ball was difficult, but we had to be patient, took our time to break it down and got perfecting timing for the goal before half-time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe then pretty in control, and got the second, which makes everyone take a big deep breath and we could have had more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robertson believes the players drafted in by Clarke did all what was asked of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe put in some shift on Friday and had to freshen it up. We made four changes and I thought all four were excellent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe four that came out were excellent on Friday and we need the full squad if we are going to qualify.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"WhatsApp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scotland boss Steve Clarke praised the patience of his players after a solid 2-0 win over Belarus in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-408892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-scotland","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115171110720421807","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}