Clarke hopes Scotland squad have made the nation smile again

Scotland boss Steve Clarke hopes his players have realised their goal of making a nation smile again after ending a long tortuous wait to qualify for a major tournament.

David Marshall’s penalty s av e from Aleksandar Mitrovic sealed Scotland’s passage to the Euro 2020 finals and their first appearance on the big stage since 1998.

C larke sa id : “For everyone throughout the world with the global pandemic it ’s been a diffic ult time. For the people of Scotland it’s been a very difficult time.

“We spoke before the game about trying to make the nation smile on Friday morning. Hopefully they are go ing to sm i le tomorrow.

“If we have made them all feel a little bit better about themselves, about the country, that’s great.

“It’s going to take a little bit longer than the postmatch press conference before it sinks in, but we do know what we have achieved.

“We do know what we set out to achieve.

“We have been building slowly. We have spoken often about positivity in the group and tonight you saw the rewards of that.”

Scotland play in Slovakia on Sunday and Israel three days later as they look to hold on to top spot in their Nations League group and potentially earn a second chance to qualify for the World Cup finals.

But Clarke hinted he might not be totally strict abou t h is p layers ’ celebrations.

“Obviously we will prepare properly for the two games coming up because the y are ver y important games,” he said.

“We want to win the section and qualify as winners in that as well.”

He added with a laugh: “But if we are going to have a little celebration it will remain strictly private and confidential.”

Scotland reached the final with a shoot-out win over Israel and they again converted all five penalties in Belgrade.

“Unbe l ievab le the character they showed and they got their reward when we got to penalties and they ke p t their nerve again,” Clarke said.

“Two big games – that’s twice that group of players have held their nerve and it was deser ved. I know penalties can be lucky but over the course of the game, especially the 90 minutes, we deserved to win.”

Clarke revealed his calm message to the players before extra-time.

“Keep believing,” he said. “Sometimes you get the blow at the end of the game and you can let it affect you, certainly at the start of extra-time

“I told them just to keep believing, keep working hard.

“We talked before the game that we had a chance to get to Euro 2020, at halftime it was 45 and at extratime it was another 30 minutes to achieve what we wanted to achieve. And that’s what we did.”

Steve Clarke says victory will take ‘a while to sink in.’