Steve Clarke has pleaded with the country to keep the faith in him and his players after the crashed out of Euro 2020 in a Hampden heartbreaker.
A 3-1 thumping from a Luka Modric inspired Croatia torpedoed Scotland’s dream of reaching the knock-out stages of a tournament for the first time ever – and left Clarke’s team anchored to the bottom of Group D with just one point and one goal to show from three games.
And although around 10,000 Tartan Army applauded the players off the pitch, Clarke later pleaded with the punters to stay on board and promised not to make them wait another 23 years to make it to another major finals.
The Scotland boss said: “You have to give me tonight to get over the disappointment. It’ll take a few days and then we’ll sit down and take stock. We’ll look at our performances, I’ll look at my own performance and we’ll see what we can do better in the future. But we’ll make sure it’s not 23 years before we’re at the next tournament.
"We want to go again. We want to make those supporters proud. They were tremendous tonight, we were losing 3-1 and all you could hear was the Tartan Army backing the team.
“That was important. We want to keep them happy and for them to support us. We want to get to big tournaments because that is what they love.
“I’m sad for the players. We’ve waited a long time to get to a tournament and it was a good group of players that got us there.
“There's lots to learn for the next tournament – I promise you it won’t be 23 years until the next one.”
But it was more big tournament misery for the fans who turned up at the national stadium believing Clarke and his players were 90 minutes away from creating history on the back of the 0-0 draw at Wembley last Friday which had set up a win or bust clash with the Croats.
Scotland even recovered from losing an early goal to level up the match at 1-1 before half time when Callum McGregor smashed one home from the edge of the box.
But Modric broke Scotland’s hearts with a stunning strike just after the hour before setting up a third for Ivan Perisic before the end.
Clarke said: “Tonight we were against a team that are tournament hardened and they knew how to play the third game in a group and probably we didn’t. That’s why we’re going home and Croatia are going through.
“We didn’t really get a grip of the midfield. We had a spell just before we got the goal and just after when it looked as if we might get something out of the game. We had some moments when we managed to play some football but Croatia were the better tam on the night and sometimes you just have to accept that.
“We tried as hard as we could and kept going to the end. I’m just disappointed the tournament has ended early for us but we have lot to be happy about - the way we got here after 23 years and the way we approached the tournament.
“We tired to play as well as we could but unfortunately, it wasn’t quite good enough to get to the knock-out round. Croatia were more ready for it than we were and we possibly couldn’t hit the levels we hit on Friday against England. So there’s lots to learn for everybody, head coach included.
“Through all these games they acquitted themselves well and tried their best. They have shown good qualities.
“As a coach, I don’t like to concede as many goals and that is something we need to work on. We can improve. “We have a relatively young squad and we want to improve and hopefully we can do that.”
