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Steve Clarke had relented shortly before or after a set of penalties that tore the nerves of the country on Thursday night.
But inside, the Scottish manager’s abdomen spinning like the rest of the country and his spirit returning to the 2008 Champions League final when fate gave him and Chelsea the hardest hands.
Clarke is part of Avram Grant’s behind-the-scenes team for the England final with Manchester United at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium and can only seem powerless when Londoners, and John Terry in components, slipped with the trophy almost within range.
The attack ended 1-1 and when Cristiano Ronaldo missed United’s third shot in the penalty shootout, Chelsea captain Terry had a chance to win it with the final kick.
He ran, slipped while he was about to hit the ball and she hit the pole. Nicolas Anelka then jumped through Edwin van der Sar in a sudden death to win Sir Alex Ferguson’s Red Devils Cup.
So, while Kenny McLean stepped forward to throw Scotland’s last kick against Israel on Thursday, Clarke may have been forgiven with him through the cracks in his fingers.
The sound of his players going crazy when the ball hit the net would have told him that, 12 years later, the penalty shootout wasn’t so bad after all, when all five changed and David Marshall stored one.
Clarke said: “It’s wonderful to see the consequences at the bottom of the net. To be honest, football owed me one in a shootout after the last one I played before Thursday.
“I in Chelsea when John slipped and failed what would have been the winning penalty for us.
“So the game owed me one and it was smart to get it on Thursday. It’s great to get in the right look of a shootout this time.
Clarke knows the tight and turbulent 0-0 draw with so much filming in a result that prepares Scotland for a shot at the winner in Serbia next month.
His team created a lot in the offensive sense, but he defended well and when the pushing push came, he showed the bottle needed to do the task from 12 meters.
“They showed courage, ” he said. They were personalities and characters in this situation.
“David has been very intelligent since I called him. It was one of the first calls I made when I was given the task of checking to get it back.
“He established himself as number one. David made some wonderful stops at the games last month, then piled up on penalties.
“All the guards had done their homework on Stevie Woods – you could have possibly heard Woodsy yell from the sideline, telling Marsh where to go, where to stand, how to do it!”
“They had a concept of the fate of the penalty because they do their homework right.
“And for David to save one of his bank takers, Zahavi, prepared us well to win the shooting.
“But you also have to watch the game. There was a lot of tension in this game. It was going to be like this.
“However, the players showed great desire, determination and character for a result for their country. “
Clarke regained his face in shape yesterday, with tomorrow’s clash with Slovakia now at the center of his brain, but did not think of his players enjoying the moment in Hampden’s bowels the night before.
He said: “We’re talking about putting a smile on everyone’s face. It might not have been fair functionality, but it would have been a character feature. And heart-hearted functionality.
“It is an organization of players who want to succeed and show it on the field.
“You may see how much it meant to them when Kenny scored the maximum penalty to win it. But you noticed them in the locker room after we all came in!
“Everyone talks about last month’s two games, they were key games to build this month.
“And the character they showed in the last 10 minutes in the Czech Republic, when they threw everything to the surface and we blocked everything and pulled out the balls, important.
“Then I talked to the players about how a team was built.
“This is how it expands to succeed as a team.
And it was the same on Thursday night with a player organization that sought to get it right.
“The more positive they become, the more positive feedback they get, the more they feel about themselves and a better team. “
Clarke lost six players in the run-up to the attack, three of them connected to Covid, but insisted that he was not concerned that the team that aligned against the Israelis would be smart enough to get the result.
He said, “I knew the character that was on the ground. I knew the guys were determined to do it. “
“Anything presented to us this week can be noticed as an obstacle. But I said it was a wonderful possibility for other people to get involved in the game and Stephen O’Donnell excellent.
“Declan Gallagher played in the middle of a 3 back that others say we can’t play.
“Our 3 central defenders, Scott McTominay, Gallagher and Liam Cooper, have been excellent.
“We were also in the midfield.
“We didn’t create a floor high enough where it was disjointed, but then it was disjointed in any of the boxes. That was because none of the player teams made the decision not to concede a goal.
“So you have to give the defenders some credit for what the game was. “
Slovakia and the Czech Republic will be played in Hampden and wednesday before this war in Belgrade to find out who will move to the Euros next summer. Clarke hopes the next 180 minutes will be a springboard for Serbia.
He said: “Next month’s play-off is an adjustment expected after the next two games. Serbs will be difficult in their own country.
“But if we went to Norway, we would say that norwegians would be in their own country.
“I hope we can go through two more effects from the games here in Hampden.
“It would give us even more confidence to enter the game with the conviction that we can nevertheless take the last step to take the country to a primary tournament. “