‘I feel the pressure’ – Clarke’s World Cup stress

Steve Clarke, the head coach of Scotland, has acknowledged that he “feels the pressure” to bring the country to its first World Cup title in 28 years.

The Scots have won two European Championships under Clarke’s tutelage, but they haven’t been able to match Craig Brown’s group’s 1998 success.

On September 5, the nation’s most recent qualification campaign, this time for the nation’s finals in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, will take off against the formidable Danes.

The reserved and prone to resentment told BBC Sport, “I feel the pressure.”

There is a lot of pressure, I believe, because we do want to go there, the country wants to go there, and obviously some of that comes back on me as the head coach.

But I’m anticipating it.

As he gears up for what might be his final campaign, the Scotland boss spoke with Kelly Cates from Match of the Day.

The 61-year-old, who will announce his squad next week, has previously stated that he is confident that his country’s reign will come to an end after this World Cup campaign.

Scotland has not qualified for a major finals since that French sojourn back under Brown, which is where the journey began more than six years ago.

The Scots have had their first two attempts at the Euros due to a failed summer fling, despite the Scots having to make it out of the group for the first time.

The group are determined to put that right, according to the former Kilmarnock manager, who is in line to become Scotland’s longest-serving leader, despite having to face a group that includes Greece and Belarus.

He stated on the record, “I knew it was coming up, I didn’t know it was that close.”

The most crucial thing is not me becoming the most successful Scotland manager or whatever, but for the team to reach America next year.

“We have a fantastic lineup of players,” he said. They are all determined to make up for the 2022 opportunity that we saw missed, and we can only hope to succeed in Qatar.

Clarke continued, “I think the players that I’ve worked with have shown us that we have the capacity to compete in significant tournaments.” Even the last World Cup, the qualification process’s group stage was strong.

We finished the contest 23 points clear of Denmark, I believe. Danemark came in with 27 . Our campaign was successful. In what were hardly any unusual circumstances, we made it to the play-offs and then let ourselves down against Ukraine on the night.

“We had to wait until March to play the game,” the player said. Evidently, the conflict had just begun in Ukraine. We didn’t play as we can play, and it was a challenging night.

The players in my squad who participated in that one are determined to fix the situation this time.