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KANSAS CITY – Kansas City prides itself on being known as the “heart of America” – a boast about local hospitality that doubles up as a play on words given its location slap bang in the middle of the country.

That not-so-subtle message whacks you in the face the minute you walk into Kansas City’s spectacular Fifa Fan Fest to be greeted by a giant luminous red heart structure that frames the whole thing.

It feels suspiciously like a sop to the Instagram generation’s need to document their every move and sure enough, people have barely stepped foot inside the event before they are lining up to get their photos taken next to it.

I am a veteran of these things now – from the soulless half-empty Doha fan zone to the Munich version that ran out of beer a few hours after Scotland fans got in – and Kansas City’s offering sums up the vibe of this World Cup pretty nicely.

It is incredibly friendly, relentlessly enthusiastic, brilliantly organised and unapologetically corporate. It is free to get in but once you are inside, bring your credit card. It is really not cheap.

Football? I visited on the night the United States opened up with a fine 4-1 win against Paraguay and the locals were happy enough.

Fireworks set off from the towering First World War monument greeted every goal – and Folarin Balogun’s disallowed effort, for good measure – and it was a nice change of pace not to be showered in beer or performative “limbs”.

Everyone tells me Mexico feels more fervent – and the real party will be reserved for Argentina, who seem to have just as much support in these parts as Mauricio Pochettino’s side.

I took a stroll on Friday and it is nice that they have managed to put a local twist on things, despite the corporate boxes that needed to be ticked. There are puppies at the Purina stand that you can adopt – you can imagine how popular they are – and the Kansas City Royals baseball team are represented with a mini replica locker room.

Home Depot’s stand has been christened “Beckham’s Backyard” and you can queue up to have a go at a keepy up competition.

If you don’t fancy lining up, there are footballs dotted around the festival that kids are merrily dribbling around the park. You wonder how long they would last if we tried the same thing at an average Premier League match.

There are also loads of big screens and a stage for live music. But we have got to talk about those prices, which are truly eye-watering. It is $19 – more than £14 – for a pint of Michelob, Budweiser or Busch Light. Try £21 for a double vodka cocktail and £3.75 for a bag of crisps or Tortillas.

Food is just as expensive. I paid $25 (£19) for an admittedly delicious beef brisket from KC’s Best BBQ and $7 (£5) for an Americano from Mocha Point Coffee.

But here is where the hosts have hit up on something a little bit different – in a city that prides itself on its cuisine all the kiosks have been handed over to local vendors to push their restaurants. So you have got pizza, copious barbecue options, lobster roll, sushi and doughnuts. Lots and lots of doughnuts.

I shelled out $14 (£10) for a non-alcoholic Michelob during the first half to take the tab to £35 and that was before I had the chance to stroll through the Fifa fan store, where they are selling the “pro” version of the Trionda official ball for $200 (£148).

To be fair to local organisers, all of this is optional. It is free to get in – although you do have to register first – and they are putting on complimentary shuttle buses to ferry people to and from the field.

Kansas is making a big play to showcase the city and region this month as a home for world-class events and tourism and Mallory Cage, the Fan Fest director, tells me they want to rid themselves of their reputation as being a “fly-over state” and showcase “what makes the city great”.

The secret weapon is the people because the vibes here? They are immaculate.

Within five minutes of sitting down in the shade three locals tucking into Asian fusion – think steamed gyozas and fried chicken – have struck up a conversation and are offering tourist tips. One is a Tottenham Hotspur fan and seems genuinely impressed that I know Alasdair Gold, Football London’s Spurs correspondent and all-round nice guy.

A few minutes into our chat, I got the offer of playing in a “pick up” game on Saturday morning.

What did our intrepid reporter make of the food and drink?

KC Beef Brisket in a bun – $25 (£19)

• The stall claimed these are Kansas City’s best and it was absolutely delicious – tender beef dripping with barbecue sauce, served in a bun. They pride themselves on barbecue in Kansas City and you can see why. 8/10

Steamed pork dumplings with spinach salad – $18 (£13)

• Asian fusion seems to be a popular second behind barbecue in Kansas City and the dumplings were decent. I was advised to go pork rather than vegetable and they came with a spinach salad that had every bit of nutritious goodness zapped out of it by being drizzled with sauce. 6.5/10

Michelob Zero – $14 (£10)

• A World Cup sponsor so they have elbowed their way into this culinary journey. Weak, tasteless and ridiculously expensive. Steer clear. 0/10

It doesn’t end there. Queuing up in the line to get a free World Cup wristband at the Bank of America stand – for my two kids, honestly – I got chatting to a local who arrived in Kansas City 40 years ago via Mexico. He is also a mad Argentina fan but – true to form – has been massively priced out of the game at the Arrowhead Stadium next week.

“My son wanted to get me a ticket for Father’s Day. He was insisting but it’s $800 and he’s a nurse – so I’ll watch at home with a beer,” he tells me.

Kansas has tried, at least, to make the experience affordable. If only the wretched suits at FIFA were paying attention.

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Newcastle United‘s summer strategy involves two “pools” of targets, signifying a marked change in transfer plans from the club’s previous approach.

The first pool of players, regarded as priority deals, will form the bedrock of a summer in which Newcastle will significantly shift their squad profile, injecting tactical versatility and energy into a team that has grown stale.

The second – and this is where this summer will be different – comprises players that the club are ready to pivot to quickly if an opportunity arises. Having a plan B that insiders are comfortable with is a notable change from 12 months ago, when Newcastle hesitated over alternatives to the gold standard targets that they kept missing out on.

View Osasuna winger Victor Munoz and Ewen Jaouen – the highly promising goalkeeper Newcastle have just signed for a fee close to £18m with bonuses – as from the first pot. Zadok Yohanna, linked heavily last week but who ended up signing for Brighton, probably belongs in the second.

Had the opportunity arisen, Newcastle would likely have gotten involved. But the club suspect that given the market knows the kind of players they are targeting, they will be used to drive up prices and interest of stars they merely have as part of a longer list of names.

It feels like a more strategic way for Newcastle to do business – in and out. Deeper, more data-driven lists are the way forward. Crucially, there is “alignment” on what the club needs rather than different departments moving in different directions, which is what created some of last summer’s chaos.

Newcastle want quick business

After Jaouen, Newcastle want to expedite their move for an Anthony Gordon replacement, whose move to Barcelona has unlocked their ability to spend early in the summer window.

They are also keen on adding a “No 6”, a position Eddie Howe hasn’t considered a priority until recently and one that will give Newcastle greater flexibility and options to play different ways next year.

Although the World Cup has slowed the market, insiders are hopeful of another signing in the next couple of weeks, with “plenty of plates spinning”.

There is optimism around Munoz – with Newcastle working on the structure of the deal for weeks – and groundwork has been laid for a move for James Trafford, although that would require Nick Pope to leave.

Sources have given an insight to The i Paper of how they are working, pointing out that the idea of the club “slapping in bids” for players is an old-fashioned view of how the market works.

Instead, dialogue has been ongoing over Newcastle’s priority targets for “weeks if not months”, including assessing different structures for potential deals and doing due diligence on whether the player retains interest in playing for the club even without Champions League – or indeed any form of European football.

They know the markets they are operating in and it means the spectre of a succession of knockbacks – which sapped morale last summer – is unlikely.

Few – if any – offers these days are submitted “cold” without significant talks taking place before. Most of the preliminary work is done over WhatsApps.

But sources believe prices will generally be lower than last summer, when huge striker moves drove significant expenditure across the Premier League.

The latest on two targets

Newcastle do have “big deals” in them this summer and sought-after Lamine Camara, the Monaco midfielder, is one player in their crosshairs.

But they do not seem ready to trigger Munoz’s £34.5m release clause just yet though, with their summer budget heavily reliant on player trading to satisfy squad cost ratio rules that are imposed by Uefa.

The club are close to agreeing sanctions for breaching last year’s Uefa financial fair play rules and the sanction will include punishments if they record further significant losses. So, boxing clever is not just a preferred option, it’s the only one.

One more big sale ahead

It also means another big sale feels likely – a view that the club aren’t rebutting.

Nothing is close on that front although one source laughed at the prospect of Lewis Hall being sold for anything close to the £40m being mentioned in some Manchester United circles last week. If the amount got closer to double that, a conversation would likely start.

And Sandro Tonali’s future feels uncertain, too. The prospect of him leaving has been planned for at Newcastle but will depend on other movements in the market – when Elliot Anderson‘s future is certain, moves for Tonali may come. But if Anderson is worth £100m, Newcastle will not want a whole lot less for their star midfielder.

Read more

• Transfers: Inside Newcastle’s striker overhaul – including Osula’s new role
• Special report: Newcastle’s season was ‘unacceptable’ – so here’s what comes next

The rules have effectively forced the Magpies’ hand on this front, with insiders pointing out that every Premier League club has to sell big players now.

But there is also an element of realism about where Newcastle’s project now stands. Missing out on Europe has impacted plans – some of their stars expect to be playing in those competitions year in, year out and want to explore other opportunities if they come along. Some of the targets they had in the first “pool” have Champions League options that will now trump Newcastle.

Ambition, insiders stress, remains. But having a clearer identity to sell to targets has already helped them sign one of the biggest goalkeeping prospects in Europe. Similar deals seem likely.

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Of all Fifa’s many World Cup crimes – the high ticket prices, the craven reaction to the banning of fans and referees from certain countries, or the needless expansion to 48 teams – it is hydration breaks which are the most heinous.

At first glance it seems like a reasonable enough rule. Formalising a water break to preserve player welfare? Fair enough, especially with temperatures set to hit 40 degrees in some places.

But as soon as you see it in practice the scales fall. They’re not about water, they’re about opening the floodgates to rampant capitalism. It’s no longer a game of two halves, it’s four quarters, and watching here in the US they’re not even trying to hide the fact.

Fox finds time to squeeze in an incredible six extra adverts during the water break (good news for Verizon, Modelo, Nerds sweets, Valvoline and jobs site Indeed during Sweden’s win over Tunisia).

So desperate are they to get in on the act they even missed the re-start of the World Cup opener between Mexico and South Africa because one of them overran. The commentators on American coverage now openly refer to it as “the end of the first quarter”.

That’s bad but what’s worse is that it’s having a direct impact on matches. Mexico scored a decisive second goal just after the break in the opener but other games have changed course because of it, too.

Morocco’s momentum was checked by the first hydration break in New York and New Jersey, allowing Brazil – managed by wily Carlo Ancelotti – to rally his troops.

Germany recovered from Curacao’s shock equaliser just after drinks, while in two England friendlies they’ve nearly conceded just after hydration was called. Australia scored shortly after both breaks in their 2-0 shock win over Turkiye.

And these things are mandatory: so even when a roof is closed over one of the gargantuan NFL stadiums hosting games, the players still trudge over to the sidelines.

Rhythm matters in football. The old idiom “a game of two halves” took hold because it’s true – half-time can radically change the way a match is going. Managers get a chance to impart knowledge, players mentally reset. Suddenly we have four quarters and a game that has multiple opportunities for momentum to swing.

This is a fundamental change that FIFA has ushered in and did they ask anyone? It wasn’t even put to a vote, never mind trialled for what impact it might have before they unleashed it on the biggest competition in the world.

Who is to say that the genie will ever be put back in the bottle at this level now? This is the summer World Cup so wherever it gets played it’s going to be hot. It was 37 degrees in Marrakesh on Sunday; 38 in Madrid. These hydration breaks aren’t going anywhere.

So far Uefa have been surprisingly feisty in their opposition to Fifa and we must hope they don’t follow suit. No matter how tempting it is to offer up to broadcaster space for more adverts, they must resist – or will face the consequences in 2028’s Euros.

Can you imagine the farce of players going to the side of the pitch to glug water on a rainy Glasgow afternoon? It will be the death of the game as we know it and must be opposed at all costs.

Read more

Mark Douglas: James Corden’s World Cup show is the 10th circle of TV hell

Daniel Storey: The match that exposed this World Cup’s two great hypocrisies

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KANSAS CITY — Ladies and gentlemen, I have glimpsed the 10th circle of TV hell.

If you think the kick-off times back home are tortuous, at least you’ve been spared the spectacle of James Corden and Rio Ferdinand, nursing a pint of flat-looking lager, chewing the fat about the day’s World Cup events.

Welcome to After Hours with James Corden, Fox Sport’s flagship “post-game” programme and the bright idea of an American TV executive who presumably hadn’t suffered through James Corden’s World Cup Live in 2010.

Think the vuvuzelas were the worst thing about that tournament? Not me. I still have PTSD about Corden and Abby Clancy lightly bantering about New Zealand’s 1-1 draw with Slovakia with a succession of uninspiring studio guests. What do you mean you don’t remember “Uru-guy or Uru-girl”, the feature where they picked out a fan who looked a little bit androgynous and guessed at their gender? Shame on you.

Corden brushed off that embarrassment to become the host of The Late Late Show for 10 years, relocating to Los Angeles before creating last year’s absolutely brilliant finale to Gavin and Stacey, the sitcom he helped co-create. He really should stick to that sort of thing, because the live football format is not his friend.

The pints in front of the guests are the first warning sign of what they are trying to do. The second is when they crack a joke about John Stones’s genitalia and a match mascot that isn’t really safe for publication.

Corden has brought his parents, Malcolm and Margaret, along for the World Cup ride, and at the end of the show, he gets his mum to recreate Diana Ross’s missed penalty in the 1994 opening ceremony. Phoenix from the Flames, anyone?

US TV viewers won’t be familiar with David Baddiel and Frank Skinner, or Fantasy Football, so he will probably get away with it but you wonder what the audience is here for. The live crowd cheer at the wrong moments and only seems to get animated when Mila Kunis turns up as the special guest.

Her introductory gambit? “I don’t really know anything about soccer,” she cheerily announces – and it soon becomes obvious that she is not kidding. But she does tell a story about meeting the President of Paraguay in a restaurant, which goes on for about five minutes too long.

It’s genuinely awful. Of course it is. Ferdinand is utterly dreadful, wearing a jacket that no man pushing his fifties should have a second look at, and a charisma void.

On opening night, Corden tried to draw him into some actual chat about football – asking whether it was a good thing that three players were sent off in the Mexico-South Africa match – and Ferdinand babbled something about it being a good thing.

“I just think that’s entertainment,” he wittered. “Get them players off and get the crowd going crazy.” Even Corden looked bemused at the breathtaking stupidity of it.

That’s Ferdinand for you and you do wonder what possessed Fox to invite him across the Atlantic.

Presumably, they thought, as someone who had played in two World Cups for England, he might offer some heft, but his insight here amounted to “goalies being the weirdest dudes on the pitch”.

The pre-recorded bits are markedly better than the live stuff. In the early shows, Corden ventures to the USA training headquarters and chats to the players and manager Mauricio Pochettino and he appears genuinely self-deprecating in the way he talks to them.

He has filmed segments with Declan Rice and Kylian Mbappe, which are quite good too. The players seem to quite like him, anyway – even if Alexi Lalas went viral on Friday calling him a “full kit w**ker” on live TV.

That’s the weird thing here. Corden is actually a proper football fan and has spent enough time watching West Ham to know that this sanitised, anaemic version of terrace “banter” is pretty embarrassing.

Look, I get it. This stuff is difficult to do. In 2021, Peter Crouch – who is genuinely funny – had a crack at it with Maya Jama with Crouchy’s Year-Late Euros: Live and it was terrible. Even Baddiel and Skinner struggled to do live, post-game versions of Fantasy Football in 1998 (although their daily podcast series in Germany 2006 was way ahead of its time).

But I feel sorry for American audiences having to put up with six weeks of this stuff – and just oh-so-grateful no one at the BBC or ITV had this particular bright idea.

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SANTA CLARA – Qatar were the worst team at their own World Cup, possessing the poorest goal difference of the teams that lost every match. They have avoided that feat already. In the end, 100 or so yards away from goalscorer Boualem Khoukhi, several hundred supporters in national dress thrashed up and down. Many neutrals had already left, desperate to beat the famous post-match traffic. That goal was for the real ones.

For Qatar, this was a match of two distinct hypocrisies. When they were awarded the 2022 tournament, Fifa’s oft-repeated claim was their wish to grow the game globally and facilitate the development of new footballing powers. What better way to do that than by hosting the tournament?
Which, quite frankly, has been proven hogwash. The Qatari Stars League is the natural home of a few players you’ve not thought about in a couple of years – Roberto Firmino, Pablo Sarabia, Marco Verratti, Aleksandar Mitrovic – and has been surpassed for gold-plating by Saudi Arabia.

The national team has declined badly since winning the Asian Cup in 2023. In their last six matches before this tournament, Qatar lost four (Ireland, Tunisia, Palestine, Zimbabwe) and drew two (Syria and El Salvador). They scored two goals in those six games.

Even qualifying for this World Cup was a struggle. Qatar lost half of their 10 matches in the second phase, finishing behind Uzbekistan, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Outside Qatar, they were appalling, drawing in North Korea and losing 3-1 in Kyrgyzstan. In the crucial fourth round, matches were mysteriously changed from neutral venues to being hosted in Qatar.

Qatar’s Supreme Committee might not care so much. Their golden child, Paris Saint-Germain, have become the ninth club in history to defend their European Cup; Nasser El-Khelaifi lifted the trophy himself. Perhaps that is what Fifa meant by “growing the game” – paying ageing footballers lots of money and owning the club that dominates Europe while the national team stumbles and stutters?

That is why Khoukhi’s goal matters: it becomes an antidote to that criticism. At the end of the game, as Switzerland’s players sloped off the pitch in embarrassment, the entire Qatar squad and coaching staff posed for a group photo in front of supporters waving flags. There may be little lasting legacy yet but a first World Cup point can become an embryo.

The other hypocrisy makes Qatar the accuser, not the accused. Speaking to supporters outside Levi’s Stadium before kick-off, several wanted to make a point: where is the criticism here? Why the double standards? They believe that their own nation suffered stinging censure for several years that hasn’t come the way of the USA.

And when that criticism has been delivered, the US have largely avoided having to account for themselves. “Western exceptionalism” was one pointed comment. The conversation was good-natured, but it’s clear that bitterness lingers.

There is some merit to their argument. Never before has a World Cup host engaged in war with a competing nation during the tournament. Never before has a host country leader described nations with representative referees as “s**tholes” and then a referee from one of those countries being blocked from entering that host country. “Imagine if this was Qatar,” is their point.

That said, there are clear differences. In Qatar, the principal point of concern was the kafala system of labour that breached the human rights of migrant workers. Many worked 12-hour days in extreme heat outdoors, housed in squalid, cramped labour camps thousands of miles from home in a desperate attempt to provide for their families. They were encouraged to take on debt to earn low wages and had very little recourse to due process if wages were not forthcoming or conditions worsened. Their rights were signed away to Qatari companies.

And whilst there is state-by-state variation on the treatment of LGBT+ communities, homosexuality is not explicitly illegal in any part of the US, as it is in Qatar, where same-sex sexual acts are criminalised.
I wonder if the other answer surrounds the concept of “sportswashing”, a term that has been applied throughout the World Cup’s history – 1938, 1978 and 2018 in particular – but went stratospheric in the buildup to Qatar 2022. The accusation (with overwhelming evidence) was that Qatar were using their host status to forge a reputation that distracted from their human rights breaches.

Here, sportswashing doesn’t really apply because there is a blatancy and lack of apology for everything the Trump administration does. He will say that he wouldn’t pay the ticket prices in New York City. He will tell journalists that the Iranian team probably shouldn’t come to the US. He will offend countries on a regular basis.

The lack of apology undercuts the hope of accountability. At previous tournaments, the World Cup created a Potemkin village, a grand distraction. Trump is not attempting a distraction. You cannot embarrass him and you cannot shame him.

It leaves Qataris feeling resentful on two fronts. They waited for a World Cup and the legacy has largely been lost. They feel victimised by the perceived imbalance in the scrutiny over two controversial World Cup hosts. At least they will always have Santa Clara. In the press centre after full-time, journalists were watching the equaliser on a regular loop. We have our first World Cup upset.

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Fifty questions on the best of the World Cup. Answers at the bottom of the page – no peeking!

Questions

1. In which year did the first competition take place?

2. Which fellow South American country lost to hosts Uruguay in that first final?

3. Brazil were the first team to win the trophy outside of their continent, true or false?

4. Which Russian scored five goals in a single match against Cameroon in 1994?

5. Carlos Alberto Parreira managed sides in how many different tournaments?

6. Which country has lost the most finals, beaten four times?

7. Just Fontaine holds the record for most goals in a single tournament. How many, in 1958?

8. Which two European goalkeepers hold the record for most clean sheets?

9. Germany thrashed which side 8-0 at the start of the 2002 tournament?

10. When was the first final to involve a team keeping a clean sheet?

11. Which side have drawn the most matches (including games going to shoot-outs)?

12. Which North American side have lost the most matches in total at the World Cup finals?

13. Miroslav Klose has the most tournament goals with 16 – one clear of who?

14. Italy’s success in 1982 ended a title drought of how many years for the Azzurri?

15. How many World Cup holders have gone out at the group stage this century?

16. Whose missed penalty cost their side the title in 1994 (clue – not Diana Ross)?

17. Who were the last host country to win the title?

18. How many of Harry Kane’s eight finals goals have been penalties?

19. Who scored England’s 100th finals goal, vs Wales in Qatar?

20. Brazil and which side are the only teams to retain the World Cup?

21. Austria beat which neighbouring country 7-5 in the highest-scoring game, on their own patch in 1954?

22. Honduras hold the record for most matches without a single win. How many?

23. Which European side lost successive finals in the 1970s?

24. Which side scored nine and eight in matches in 1954 and 10 in another match in 1982?

25. Who, in 2010, was the last Golden Ball (best player) winner without the initials LM?

26. Zinedine Zidane and which former Liverpool player are the only players to be shown two red cards at the tournament?

27. In which year did Brazil win their most recent title?

28. Whose four goals make him the leading overall goalscorer in World Cup finals?

29. Which defender is the only player to play in three World Cup finals?

30. Vittorio Pozzo is the only manager with multiple wins. Who did he lead to glory twice?

31. Whose 11-second strike for Turkey in 2002 remains the fastest goal (prior to this year)?

32. Brazil were the most recent non-European third-place play-off winners. When?

33. How many Argentina players were sent off in their 1990 final defeat?

34. Which Celtic player scored Scotland’s most recent finals goal, a lob against Norway in 1998?

35. Lionel Messi holds the record for most matches played, with how many?

36. Which 40-year old lifted the trophy in 1982?

37. Whose scissor kick against Serbia in 2022 won Goal of the Tournament?

38. Which side have featured in all three finals to have been won by three goals?

39. Which side ended a record 64-year wait between tournament appearances in 2022?

40. At 17 years and 41 days old in 1982, who became the youngest player to appear at the tournament?

41. Which side have made four of the last seven World Cup finals?

42. Which Croat was booked three times in a game by Graham Poll in the pre-VAR days of 2002?

43. How many of the last five World Cup finals have gone to extra time?

44. How many red cards were shown in Portugal’s win over the Netherlands in 2006?

45. How many of England’s last eight knockout stage goals were scored by Tottenham Hotspur players?

46. Kylian Mbappe’s eight goals in Qatar was the most by a Golden Boot/Shoe winner since who hit the same amount in 2002?

47. At what age did Roger Milla become the oldest tournament scorer, netting for Cameroon in 1994?

48. Before Mbappe in 2018, who was the last teenager to win the Young Player award, in 1998?

49. How many countries have scored more tournament goals than England’s 104?

50. Which country won the Fair Play Trophy in Qatar?

Read more

• Daniel Storey: Fifa’s biggest World Cup lie is already in tatters
• Analysis: The England twist Gareth Southgate would never have dreamed of

Answers

How did you get on?

Which England manager are you by your score?

• 45+ = Sir Alf – Immortality awaits
• 31-44 = Sir Bobby – National treasure
• 21-30 = Sir Gareth – You’ve fallen slightly short
• 11-20 = Roy Hodgson – Like losing to Iceland
• 0-10 = Steve McClaren – Wally with the Brolly

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Even the kilts have been left at home this time.

Twenty-eight years after a bleached-blonde Ally McCoist and an aviator-wearing Colin Hendry danced around the Stade de France ahead of their World Cup opener against Brazil, Scotland have got serious as they make their long-awaited return to the big time.

In a remarkable twist of fate, Scotland will face two of the same group opponents as they did in 1998 across the Pond this summer, but that is where the similarities end, as Steve Clarke and the Tartan Army look to do something they have never done in their history.

While breaking their World Cup finals qualification hoodoo is a mighty monkey off their backs, Clarke and his men want more, given they have reached three of the last four majors under his tutelage.

The expanded format made qualification easier, while also giving more opportunities to go that step further and reach those previously elusive knockout rounds.

“I have done seven of these as a commentator,” former Scotland international Pat Nevin tells The i Paper. “The first was in 1998. I thought ‘oh, this will be good, we’ll enjoy doing this every four years.’ And all these years later, finally, Scotland are here.

“I’m therefore looking forward to this tournament slightly differently. If we win the first game, beat Haiti, and maybe score a few goals, that’s probably enough. As long as you’re not daft and get hammered against Morocco or Brazil. So three or four points might be enough to get you through. And for Scotland, that would mean more than the world.”

Is Clarke out of his depth on the world stage?

Clarke is seven years into the job, but the jury is still out on the manager.

Three tournaments in four, while only just missing out on the last World Cup, is an impressive return. But in those showpiece events, Scotland have not won a single game, going home every time with the meekest of whimpers.

Naysayers suggest Clarke is too loyal to particular players and lacks the tactical masterplan on the biggest stage. Those who know him best don’t share the sentiment.

“It is hard to criticise when he has brought so much success,” Motherwell full-back Stephen O’Donnell, who played for Clarke at Kilmarnock and Scotland at Euro 2020, tells The i Paper.

“The loyalty he has is towards players who have performed for him consistently. I don’t really see how criticism can be put to him for that, given the success. When you look at the squad, have we had good squads? Yes. World-beating squads? No. So there has to be some tactical astuteness.

“He built a belief that we could qualify for these tournaments from very early on. You see that in the amazing nights in Serbia (in 2020) and then against Denmark, who are a top side with tournament experience. Those nights come about as a result of having belief. He does it by touching on the emotions of what it would mean for a country like Scotland. He draws on your families, being away from them, so make it all worth it.”

Clarke’s CV speaks for itself, when you consider the calibre of coach he has worked with.

“He’s not flamboyant, so it doesn’t light the fire of a lot of people,” Nevin adds. “As a football person, he’s exactly the sort of person I’d like to work under. He is clearly incredibly knowledgeable and very, very good tactically.

“You have to remember his background. You don’t get to work with José Mourinho, Ruud Gulitt, Kenny Dalglish, Sir Bobby Robson, absolutely phenomenal people in football, without being something. They all loved him. They all thought he was a fantastic coach.

“But tell me who, on social media, other than David Attenborough, that’s kind of just generally loved. So that’s the deal.”

Inside Scotland’s 2026 masterplan

Another winless summer would only give those doubters fuel for the fire. Despite penning a long-term deal that would see him through to the next World Cup, three defeats could still signal the end.

His squad selection suggests a formation switch is upon us, to a 3-5-2 system that has brought about great success in the past. In the main, for one particular combination.

“A classic one people forget with Clarke is that he had to find a way to get Kieran Tierney and Andy Robertson into the team together,” Nevin adds. “Because they are two of our best players. Nobody thought he could, given they play in the same position, but he did.

“He changed it to a 3-5-2. One left centre-back, one left wing-back. And Scotland, for a period under them, those two were absolutely unstoppable on the left-hand side.

“And there’s been other things like the Scott McTominay one. Man United had him for years and didn’t quite figure out whether he was a number eight or 10. Well, Clarke did. So much so that Napoli take him on and he has two staggering years in Naples. He’s a God-like figure there.”

Scotland cannot rely on McTominay overhead kicks this summer. It appears that 3-5-2 could again be Clarke’s weapon of choice. It caters for Robertson to get forward while not leaving them over exposed, with the cavalry option of an underlapping Tierney to pose even more threat.

That added defensive cover can free up their two leading lights in midfield, John McGinn and McTominay, too. Which is important, given their options further upfield, as is often been the case with Scotland, are limited.

Fletcher the Clarke curveball?

The squad selection was very anti-Thomas Tuchel, with few surprises.

Billy Gilmour’s heartbreaking withdrawal through injury, however, has got people talking over the border. It was assumed Lennon Miller, a regular in Clarke squads and someone who only just missed out on a World Cup spot, would come in.

Instead, the unproven Tyler Fletcher is the replacement. Son of Scotland and Manchester United great Darren Fletcher, the 19-year-old impressed in a recent friendly against Curaçao.

In training, McGinn was said to have been wowed by the youngster’s ability. He may just be there to make up the numbers, but several insiders believe Fletcher has gone over Miller to bring an additional X-Factor.

The question is, is the teenager, whose twin brother also plays for United and, bizarrely, represents England at youth level, ready for such a pressurised environment?

“Think about how many tournaments he’s played in, how many finals he’s played, how many pressured situations that he’s been through in his journey, I know that number to be quite large,” head of United’s academy, Stephen Torpey, telld The i Paper.

“As a young person, going through the academy system in England and succeeding at many levels, you get drip-fed huge moments from being very young. At a U10 tournament, when you get to the final against Europe’s elite, you might feel a similar kind of pressure. Now it’s just on a different scale but he’s older and wiser. He’s been in preparation for this moment.

“Training with Manchester United’s first team every day for the last six months, the intensity of that training, you could argue is more than playing in certain leagues.”

Whoever it is who steps up, there has never been a greater opportunity for Scotland to really do something for the Tartan Army to cherish on the global stage.

from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/pXjMF26