Steve Clarke has given his explanation for cancelling Scotland's friendly with Norway after being branded "unprofessional" by their manager.
Clarke's men were due to face Stale Solbakken's in a closed door game as their final preparation for Sunday morning's World Cup kick-off against Haiti, following the 4-0 trouncing of Bolivia last weekend.
It was going to be an opportunity to give some squad members who haven't featured much over the two games against Curucao and Boliva, but there has been a change of plan due to "niggles" in the Scotland camp, with Clarke not wanting to make anything worse.
That irked Solbakken, was says his opposite number didn't pick up the phone to explain the cancellation.
The Scotland boss told BBC Scotland: “It was just going to be a training game for an hour at our training ground.
“We picked up one or two niggles last week and decided it wasn’t worth the risk.”
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Solbakken had fumed: "It was at least as surprising to me, and it is unprofessional of Scotland.
“It is unprofessional that the coach has not called me, that they use the team manager and call and say it after we have finished training.
“I don’t think the injuries they’re blaming came from the last training session. That’s not the case. It’s disappointing. It’s unprofessional. But we have to live with that. That’s why we adjusted a bit in the game.”
Norway‘s team manager, former Fulham defender Brede Hangeland, also blasted: “We have been working on that match for many months. It is embarrassing to cancel it a couple of days before.
“We can’t do anything about it, we just have to forget about it and make the best of it.
“But there has been a lot of organisation, agreements and gentlemen’s agreements and then suddenly they don’t want to. I think that was weak, so to speak.
