What Next For Scotland And Steve Clarke?

Last night, Steve Clarke’s Scotland was on the receiving end of an embarrassing defeat by the hands of Greece as they were relegated to League B of the UEFA Nations League. They had won the away fixture 1-0 thanks to a goal from Scott McTominay, however they returned to Hampden Park to get smashed 3-0. Now they’ll need to turn their focus to World Cup qualification but whether Clarke will be involved is an interesting question.

How Has Steve Clarke Performed As Scotland Manager?

Clarke took the Scotland managerial position in 2019 and began to show signs of improvement pretty quickly. His first match in charge was a home win over Cyprus and despite four defeats in a row against Belgium and Russia, his side were able to qualify for Euro 2020 through the Nations League route. This was Scotland’s first major tournament since the World Cup in 1998 and they were scheduled to play two of their group games on home soil.

Throw🔙

Callum McGregor bagged our first Euros goal in 25 years at EURO 2020 ⚽️pic.twitter.com/vDfCcI6XBr

— Scotland National Team (@ScotlandNT) June 13, 2024

They finished bottom of their group in Euro 2020 with just a single draw, against England, however this was seen as a stark improvement from their previous performances and so Clarke was praised for his work with the team. They were close to qualifying for the World Cup in Qatar, however they lost in a playoff semi-final at home to Ukraine. Clarke’s contract was due to run out at the end of the 2022 World Cup qualifying campaign, but the Scottish FA were pleased with how he had done and so extended it to 2026.

An excellent start to the Euro 2024 qualification campaign for Scotland saw them breeze into the tournament with two matches to spare, beating the likes of Norway and eventual tournament winners Spain. Like the last major tournament however, Scotland were terrible in Euro 2024, drawing once and managing to finish bottom of their group behind Germany, Switzerland and Hungary. Despite two wins in November, their form since the start of 2024 has been appalling, having won just four of their 15 matches.

World Cup Qualification

Owing to their involvement in the Nations League relegation playoffs this month, Scotland’s World Cup Qualifying has not begun yet. In fact they even have two more games, in June, before they begin their journey to the tournament. Their first match will likely be their hardest one, as they travel to Copenhagen to face Denmark, so there is a real likelihood that they could qualify.

🚨 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland will play in the Group C of the European qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup!

📌 Group C:

🇩🇰 Denmark
🇬🇷 Greece
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland
🇧🇾 Belarus

1⃣ Directly to 2026 World Cup
2⃣ To the Qualifying Play-offs pic.twitter.com/RLzpNi7G7T

— The Bhoys Page (@TheBhoysPage) March 23, 2025

Their group has just three other teams, Belarus, Denmark and Greece. Only one of them will qualify automatically for the World Cup and so Scotland will be hoping that they can replicate the form that saw them make it to Euro 2024. Denmark are the obvious favourite, but despite losing to Greece last night, Scotland are probably second favourites. Greece’s win did demonstrate some recent progress under Ivan Jovanovic who has lost just two of his eight games in charge, against England and against Scotland last week.

Will Steve Clarke Be Sacked?

With more teams being able to qualify for the World Cup in 2026, Scotland will have their best chance in recent years of making it to the tournament, however whether Clarke will be the one to lead them there is something that might be decided within the next few weeks. After the embarrassing defeat last night, the Scotland team were booed off the pitch and Clarke admitted that the team didn’t have enough energy to really compete. Strangely, he had made just one change from the previous game on Thursday evening, so fatigue was evidently going to be an issue, especially with the long travel time between Athens and Glasgow.

Scottish fans haven’t been too pleased with Clarke since the end of Euro 2024, as he blamed their failures to progress from the group stage on a single refereeing decision, emphasising that the official was not from Europe but Argentina. In an interview after the game he said “I don’t understand why he’s here and not in his own country refereeing a game.” These comments caused outrage at the time from Scotland fans, many of whom even agreed that they should have had a penalty, but saw how bad their team had been for the whole tournament and realised that poor officiating wasn’t the main thing holding Scotland back.

Steve Clarke should've been sacked after this anti Argentinian rant. Instead he's been allowed to set our national game back 20nyears at Intetnational level with this stone age mentality. #ClarkeOut #SCOGRE pic.twitter.com/UVU6weiFnh

— Barry Souness (@BarrySouness) March 23, 2025

Now, less than a year late, Scotland are in a difficult position. Clarke has shown signs in recent qualification campaigns that he can take Scotland back to the world stage, however recent performances haven’t been good enough. With just three other teams in their qualifying group, Scotland cannot afford to make any mistakes, so it is unlikely that he will be removed halfway through the campaign. That means that if he goes, it will be between now and September, with two games in between for Clarke to save his job.