Steve Clarke’s team had been hoping to make history with progression to knockouts but performances against Morocco and Brazil were unacceptably poor
Scotland have their hopes of reaching the World Cup knockout stages for the first time hanging by a thread after a 3-0 defeat by Brazil.
The loss in Miami on Wednesday leaves them on three points with a goal difference of minus three. They are currently one of the worst-placed sides as far as third-placed teams are concerned, which means that unless extremely fortunate results occur elsewhere, they will be eliminated.
Scotland arrived at this tournament riding on exhilarating waves, that Scott McTominay overhead kick inspiring a remarkable 4-2 win over Denmark that sealed a place in the World Cup for the first time in 28 years.
Their supporters, the Tartan Army, have been some of the most expressive fanbases in the tournament, out there in their traditional dress mesmerising the east coast of the United States.
But the olés that they performed in the opening five minutes of this game did not prevent an utterly shambolic opening half hour from the Scotland team, the footballing equivalent of digging a nice, deep hole and jumping inside it.
Head coach Steve Clarke admitted that he expects Scotland’s campaign to end now, following a performance he felt was well below the standards his side should have shown.
“I think we’re going home,” said the Scotland head coach. “You see [Brazil’s] quality in the final third of the pitch, we didn’t have that. We created chances but it wasn’t enough. Let’s be honest, the best team won.
“The first thing they have got to do is go away and compute their performance and why we lost the game in the manner we did. We can worry about the rest later. We gave them the goals. When you look at Brazil attacking play and ours, really no comparison. We definitely didn’t play as we can play.”
This Scotland team had been hoping to make history by being the first national side to reach the knockouts of a major tournament. A concerning narrow victory over Haiti in their first game was celebrated but then it was followed by defeat to Morocco, leaving their hopes pending on a positive performance against Brazil.
The exact opposite happened. Careless posssession at the back gifted Vinicius Junior two tap-ins in the first 20 minutes. The second was ruled out in a massive let off for Scotland but they were crumbling and a second Vinicius goal came before half time. The tie was effectively over after that. Short of a miracle, so is their campaign and captain Robertson concurred with his manager.
“As a collective we didn’t want to put ourselves in a position of having to watch every game and hope for favours,” Robertson said. “If you ask me now, I don’t think it’s enough, I don’t think we’ve done enough.
“Time will tell, maybe I’ll be proved wrong and we’ll get another shot, I hope that’s the case. The next couple of days will be horrible and long but we have to deal with it.”
