Scotland warned World Cup progress would 'continue the embarrassment' as tournament format blasted

Steve Clarke’s men ended their Group C campaign with a 3-0 loss at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, and now must await the outcome of other games across the tournament to see if they progress to the last 32 of the competition as one of the best third-placed teams.

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Their opening-game victory over Haiti means they still stand a chance of advancing to the next stage of the competition with three points. However, the 1-0 defeat to Morocco last week, coupled with their result against Brazil, could see them exit the competition on goal difference. According to former Scotland midfielder Craig Burley, the team aren’t deserving of a place in the last 32 of the tournament anyway.

“I have no problem with Scotland going out, or any of the teams that are down there,” Burley told ESPN. “I’m sorry, I know this is way the bracket works with the 48 teams, but we are just rewarding complete mediocrity here. And we don’t really deserve to go through if we’re being completely honest. I don’t think they will, being completely honest.

“In fact, if they do go through, it’s just going to continue the embarrassment of looking like what Scotland are. It’s kind of second rate, isn’t it? They just don’t have the players. They’ve got a couple. They just don’t have the players of yesteryear. I’m not talking about the players I played with, although they had some very good players, the team Stevie [Nicol] played in had some world class players. Guys like at the back like [Alan] Hansen, who couldn’t even get a game at times.

“They could pass the ball for fun, and they just don’t have that. I don’t know. If they go through, fine, but there should be no celebration if this is the first ever Scotland team team to qualify from the group stage, because it is just really by default. They might do, but they haven’t got much leeway. They are six of eight. The likelihood is they’ll probably go out.”

Fellow ESPN pundit, and ex-Scotland international, Stevie Nicol echoed Burley’s sentiments about the current squad. The former defender, who represented his country at the 1986 World Cup and was a regular in the successful Liverpool teams of the 1980s, believes the introduction of third placed teams being able to qualify is making the World Cup worse as a spectacle.

“Just the quality that the group of players has, shouldn’t be going forward in a World Cup,” said Nicol. “The World Cup is supposed to be the elite. It’s the medal that every single player wants to win more than any other, regardless of what country you play in. It has been devalued when they are certain teams going through that just don’t deserve to be there.”