Scotland manager Steve Clarke has urged his players to use the knowledge gained from ending Scotland’s 22 year wait to qualify for a major tournament by taking the country to the World Cup finals.
The Scots, who will compete in next summer’s European Championship, get their bid for qualification for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar underway in March.
Scotland will face Denmark, Austria, Israel, Faroe Islands and Moldova in their qualifying campaign after the draw was made yesterday.
By recent standards the Scots have been handed a fighting chance of qualifying for Qatar and Clarke insists belief should not be a problem for his squad after the excitement of qualifying for the Euros last month.
He said: “Obviously it’s taken us a long time to get back to a major tournament.
“When we get together again in March the events of November will still be in the players’ heads.
“So hopefully they realise how good it feels to qualify for a major tournament and they’ll attack and relish the World Cup campaign the same as they did in the Euro 2020 qualifiers.
“But it helps that we have belief and experience now. They both come together because the more we play the more experience you get.
“I’ve spoken about it quite a lot by saying this is a group of players who are starting to accumulate a good number of caps now.
“They have that experience now of international football, and the experience of qualifying for a major tournament. They know what it takes. They know you have to play well in the big games.
“But they also lost two games after they qualified. So they have to learn that in a three game window it’s not good enough to just win the first one by putting in a big performance.
“You have to back it up in the two games after that and that’s maybe something we maybe have to learn a little bit.”
Clarke knows an expectant nation will be looking to the national team to build on the feelgood factor of qualifying for the Euros by reaching Qatar.
He shares in the optimism but insists the group presents a formidable challenge for Scotland, who were among the third seeded countries in the draw.
He said: “I think the expectation is high because of the teams we’ve got, sure. But also because we’ve done quite well recently.
“We lost the last two games but we actually played quite well in the three games in November. As well as the three games in October.
“So the performances in our last six games have been decent and because of that everyone is in a better state of mind about the international team.
“That’s great for everybody.
“We’ll work as hard as we can and try and get as many points as possible. And if that’s enough for us to qualify for Qatar 2022 then that’ll be fantastic.
“But we won’t be getting carried away as a group.”
Scotland supporters will be daring to dream of a trip to Qatar to cheer on the national team and while Clarke will not deny them their right to ponder what might lay ahead he is taking a more measured approach.
He said: “If the Tartan Army want to get excited that’s great. If the supporters are positive – and hopefully by the time we get to March we’ll have a few supporters inside the stadium with us – then that’ll be great.
“It’s maybe a little bit too optimistic to expect them to be able to travel to the away games.
“But it would be great to think they’ll all have good feeling about the national team and feel positive that we can get results.
“It hasn’t always been like that, even in my short reign as the Scotland head coach.
“Outside, people can get as excited as they want. They can think we’re going to beat everybody and we’ll finish up with however many points it takes to qualify.
“But inside the camp we’ll treat everybody with the same respect.”
