The Scotland squad went straight from a warm weather camp in Turkey to Athens on Friday and Clarke says there are no new injury worries. <\/p>\n
“The players have been good,” he said. “Quite relaxed over in Turkey. Most of them have now got a lot of experience of big games, what to expect and how best to prepare so that they can perform at their maximum.<\/p>\n
“So you have to trust the players that they’re going to get things right on the pitch. The players are ready. They understand the magnitude of the game coming up.”<\/p>\n
Clarke has made up his mind on his team but would not divulge which of his goalkeepers will start. <\/p>\n
The favourite is Heart of Midlothian’s Craig Gordon, even though the 42-year-old has yet to play a single minute of competitive football this season.<\/p>\n
“I came in with an open mind,” he said on his goalkeeper decision. “As a coach, you’ve always got to have an open mind.<\/p>\n
“You’ve got to watch the lads, how they’re training, how they work and then I’ve got to make the decision.”<\/p>\n
Asked if goalkeeping was a particularly big decision, Clarke replied: “When you’re head coach and you’re approaching two games of such magnitude, every decision is a big decision.”<\/p>\n
Clarke spoke about Scotland’s last game, the 2-1 victory over Belarus at Hampden that was so poor it enraged him and his players. Was he spooked at what he saw from his team that night?<\/p>\n
“No, not spooked,” he said. “It happens in football. Sometimes it just doesn’t go for you. <\/p>\n
“My only concern at the time was we might drop points in a game that we shouldn’t drop points.<\/p>\n
“And then suddenly you’re behind the eight ball, if you like, in terms of qualification. That was probably where the anger came from. It probably came from a little bit of fear that we were going to make a mess of things. And we managed to avoid that.”<\/p>\n
Clarke said he was not projecting forward to Tuesday night against Denmark, or imagining what it might be like if Scotland realised the dream and qualified for the World Cup.<\/p>\n
“No, I’m focused on this game,” he stressed. “We need to get a positive result for this game. We need a draw or a win. That makes the second game much more relevant. That’s all I’m focused on.”<\/p>\n
Greece head coach Ivan Jovanovic retains belief that his side are better than Scotland but is not motivated by revenge after his side’s qualification hopes were ended by three consecutive defeats – a 3-1 loss at Hampden sandwiched by two games against Denmark.<\/p>\n
“I don’t see football in this way,” he said. “The Scots have greater motivation, but the Greeks have our own motivation for the fans and for the team. I don’t see it as a revenge match.<\/p>\n
“I respect Scotland – a very good team with very good players. But in our four games, in only one did we not reach the level we believe we have [the 3-0 home loss to Denmark]. <\/p>\n
“Details were not on our side. We conceded goals that we are not used to conceding, but our belief remains high.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Scotland squad went straight from a warm weather camp in Turkey to Athens on Friday and Clarke…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":339562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-379803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115551566732142003","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}