John McGinn has launched a stinging response to claims that Scotland acted 'unprofessionally' by scrapping a training ground friendly against Norway at the last minute. The Scottish camp have been attempting to cool a fiery pre-tournament war of words after arriving at their World Cup base in North Carolina, where they were scheduled to have one last competitive session against Erling Haaland's side.
Norway's criticism
Norway boss Stale Solbakken branded the U-turn as 'unprofessional', and operations manager Brede Hangeland, a former Fulham defender, doubled down by insisting Scotland's behaviour was 'embarrassing' and 'weak'.
McGinn's response
But McGinn blasted back when those comments were put to him at Scotland's state-of-the-art tournament basecamp in Charlotte. He insisted the Norwegians would have understood the reasons behind the cancellation if they had researched the last-minute injury nightmare that ruled Billy Gilmour out of Steve Clarke's squad.
The Aston Villa skipper said: 'I would say 75 per cent of the squad haven't seen it. I did see it. Our job is to look after Scotland. Norway's job is to look after Norway. And if they've done their research, we lost a very important part of the squad very, very close to this camp. It had a huge impact on everyone. We didn't want to lose another. We've had a few niggles and not everyone has been training. So I think it's a professional way of handling things, to be perfectly honest, to look after No.1, and I'm sure every single country will be doing the exact same this summer.'
When pressed by reporters from Oslo, he added: 'Like I say, Norway will be angry because they'll have their own plans and they were probably set up for that game. But if Norway lost Erling Haaland or Martin Odegaard in one of the games leading up to Saturday, they would have cancelled the game as well.'
SFA statement
In a statement released beforehand, an SFA spokesperson said: 'The behind-closed-doors training game was organised and arranged between the respective team managers - not the head coaches - and this was the same process we followed when we regrettably had to cancel on Saturday. We have had some injuries during our previous friendlies, and when it became apparent that a training game would bring greater risk than potential preparatory reward, we alerted the Norway team manager as soon as possible. We believe this was the right and consistent process. The game was also due to be behind closed doors and not announced publicly - so we were surprised when news of the game broke via Norwegian media.'
Clarke's view
Boss Steve Clarke said only: 'It was just going to be a training game for an hour at our training ground. We picked up one or two niggles last week and decided it wasn't worth the risk.'
Scotland are adamant the Norwegians were informed of the decision before Clarke's side thrashed Bolivia 4-0 in New Jersey on Saturday afternoon, US time. But that hasn't stopped a scathing response from the Scandinavians.
Norwegian reaction
After a final warm-up match against Morocco on Sunday, Solbakken snapped: 'It is unprofessional of Scotland. It is unprofessional that the coach has not called me, that they use the team manager and call and say it after we have finished training. I don't think the injuries they're blaming came from the last training session. That's not the case. It's disappointing. It's unprofessional. But we have to live with that. That's why we adjusted a bit in the game.'
Hangeland added: 'We have been working on that match for many months. It is embarrassing to cancel it a couple of days before. We can't do anything about it, we just have to forget about it and make the best of it. But there has been a lot of organisation, agreements and gentlemen's agreements, and then suddenly they don't want to. I think that was weak, so to speak.'
