Manager Steve Clarke praised Scotland for showing their true potential after a strong performance in the 1-1 draw with Switzerland.
Scotland were widely criticised after their 5-1 defeat to Germany in their Euro 2024 opening game but the result in Cologne keeps their hopes of reaching the last 16 alive and they can guarantee themselves a place in the last 16 with a win against Hungary in Stuttgart on Sunday.
“That’s how we’ve done it as a team for the last three or four years,” Clark said. “That’s why we’re in the tournament. We knew what to do. It was a good team performance against a strong opponent.”
“We’ll feel a lot better going into the next game because of this performance. This is how we play, this is who we are. We can play, not just on the dirty side of the game. We dropped the ball, we created chances. We did what we had to do. We’re still in the competition. That’s the most important thing. That’s what we were expecting. It’s a good response from a disappointing night. We’re still in the competition.”
Scotland took the lead when Scott McTominay’s shot was deflected off Fabian Schar and into the Swiss goal, before Xherdan Shaqiri equalised just before half-time.
“The reality is, when the draw was made and we found ourselves playing the hosts in the opening game, we looked at the other two games in our group and thought, ‘maybe the points can come from that,'” Clarke said. “And that’s what it turned out to be.”
“Everyone was trying to hype the fact that we had to get something out of this game, but the reality is that even if we had played well against Germany we would still have been in a similar situation of having to get something out of this game going into the last game, and that’s what we did.”
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Clarke confirmed that Kieran Tierney will miss the game against Hungary with what is believed to be a serious hamstring injury.
