Warning signs for sobered Scotland as Steve Clarke gets it in the neck and progress calls intensify

The Scotland manager was sitting in the auditorium on Saturday conducting what’s now known as a matchday minus one press conference.

Discussing the prospect of remaining in League A of the Nations League, with Scotland in the driving seat following the 1-0 first leg win over Greece in Piraeus, he brought up the “little anomaly” that seems to have emerged in relation to the FIFA system of ranking teams since the introduction of the new competition. “We have improved,” he said. “If you look at the world rankings, it will tell you different.”

In fact, it’s possible to turn it round the other way. When the list is next published, in early April, it might be argued that Clarke’s side are not as good as the expected rise from the current position of 45 to 44 would suggest. According to Scotland’s Co-efficient, the essential substack and X account, they will, despite Sunday’s heavy 3-0 loss against Greece, jump up one place.

These are not heady heights – Scotland were at 39 around this time last year. Five places worse off than 12 months ago and now preparing for life in League B of the Nations League, it behoves the question: are Scotland going anywhere under Clarke?

You can bet your souvenir Denis Law-fronted matchday programme that this is what was being discussed in bars all over Scotland at around 7pm on Sunday evening. A message from a Tartan Army conscript, who recently marked his 100th away trip, flashed up on my phone before the manager had even made it back into the Hampden auditorium for a bleak post-mortem with reporters.

“Clarke got lucky after Euros because he had to change shape and tactics due to injuries and (Ben) Doak played,” it read. “But back to type tonight and no idea of how to change it when being outplayed. Time to go and give the next person time to prepare for qualifiers.”

Clarke is getting it in the neck again. The recent second – or was it third? – honeymoon is over.

There was much for Clarke to ponder on his drive back home to England. Calls for his removal seem over the top on the back of a poor 90 minutes although, of course, Euro 2024 remains stained on people’s memories.

Clarke won’t face the media again until late May, when he names his squad for the friendlies against Iceland and Liechtenstein. The countdown is on to the intense Autumn/Winter series of six games against Denmark, Greece and Belarus that will either firmly decide Scotland’s World Cup fate one way or the other or leave them relying on play-offs this time next year.

There was no hiding place for Clarke on Sunday night. Greece were, he conceded, the better team on a night. They had come to Hampden with a game plan under impressive manager Ivan Jovanovic and silenced the home supporters. Clarke was left grappling for positives.

Although it wasn't quite as desperate as Craig Brown complimenting Duncan Ferguson for keeping his socks pulled up during a 1-0 loss in Greece in 1994, proposing that the defeat "might work in our favour" because it highlighted recovery difficulties following such a long journey back from Athens was a little hard to digest. Scotland face another trip to Greece in November in World Cup qualifying before hosting Denmark in a potentially decisive match three days later.

Greece looked several notches above the Scots. In three of the four halves of football, they were comfortably the better side. Their starting XI at Hampden, for what should have been a challenging ordeal, included eight players aged 23-years-old or under. One, 22-year-old Christos Zafeiris, broke a Greek national team record for distance covered, registering 13.6 kms (French midfielder Ngolo Kante holds the world record at 13.8 kms against Argentina at the 2018 World Cup).

Another, as we are now very much aware, was one of the stars of the show at just 17-year-old.

Konstantinos Karetsas proved if not the game changer, then one of the main impetuses. Not even a forearm smash from Lewis Ferguson, for which the Bologna midfielder might have been fortunate to receive only a booking, could stop him.

It took just one half in the first leg and 73 minutes in the second for the little Genk midfielder to leave his stamp of quality on the tie having switched from Belgium to Greece last month. The jury remains out on Scotland’s own recent ‘signing’, George Hirst. Scottish teenager James Wilson, meanwhile, spent two minutes on the park with Karetsas before the Greek player was taken off and looks at a completely different stage of development.

It is of course harsh to compare the teenagers. Karetsas looks well on the way to asserting himself as a generational talent. Wilson, meanwhile, isn’t the answer yet. Hardly surprising since he has only 28 first-team games for Hearts to his name. He seemed to owe his record-breaking international appearance having just turned 18 to a sense of panic. Scotland needed two goals and Clarke was simply throwing on strikers in the hope something might stick. Little did.

Alarm is growing. When their phones exploded into life with an emergency alert while they were settling into post-lunch pints in Athens before Thursday’s game, most Scotland fans simply pushed the mute button and took another sip. A fire had broken out nearby and smoke was heading their way. “Stay indoors, close doors and windows,” they were advised.

It’s now getting harder to ignore the warning signs that maybe Scotland just aren’t quite good enough. Currently there are 22 European teams above them in the FIFA rankings. There are just 16 spots available to European teams at the next World Cup, which is three more than last time but still feels restrictive.

Scotland are still desperately hoping to be among them. But that’s the problem, hope isn’t enough. Greece are not even in the top 16 at present and yet on current evidence, seem to be far more potent proposition. It’s sobering to imagine they will only get better the more times their young stars play together.

With an average age of 23 years and three days, it was the youngest-ever Greek XI to start an official match on Sunday. Scotland, by contrast, had an average age of just over 30 and six months, although this was not helped by the inclusion of the remarkable Craig Gordon at 42-years-old. It would also be improved by the currently injured Doak’s presence. It might sound desperate to be relying on a 19-year-old but then Greece have shown the way.