Former Scotland manager Craig Levein has insisted that the national team's players must hold their hands up for their World Cup exit, rather than pointing the finger solely at head coach Steve Clarke. Scotland finished third in their group with three points from three matches, after a 1-0 win over Haiti was followed by a 1-0 defeat to Morocco and a 3-0 thrashing by Brazil.
Levein defends Clarke amid criticism
Levein, who managed Scotland between 2009 and 2012, believes Clarke will face the brunt of the criticism for another early tournament exit, but argued it would be wrong to blame him entirely. He pointed to costly defensive mistakes from Grant Hanley and Scott McKenna in the opening stages of the defeats to Morocco and Brazil as the primary cause.
“The players have to take their share of the responsibility,” Levein told the BBC. “This is probably the strongest group of players we’ve had for 20 years. I gauge this simply from what level they are playing their football at. Bar a handful of players, these players are all playing their football at top flight clubs.”
Individual errors prove catastrophic
Scotland needed at least a point from either the Morocco or Brazil game to reach the knockout stages for the first time in their history, but failed to score in either match. Levein described the errors as “catastrophic” and questioned whether the players followed Clarke's instructions.
“Morocco are a magnificent team, really, really good players and what we are doing is giving them goals,” Levein said. “I don’t know what Steve told the players, did he tell them to play out from the back, or did he give them the freedom to make their own decisions? Once you’ve got possession you’ve got control of the game. You’d need to know exactly what Steve told the players, whether they went against his wishes or did exactly what he told them to. But I feel for him because they made two catastrophic errors early in both matches.”
Clarke's tournament record defended
Despite the disappointment, Levein highlighted Clarke's achievement of qualifying for three tournaments, calling it “absolutely amazing”. He added: “As a manager you have to take the punches sometimes when they come. Steve has qualified for three tournaments which is absolutely amazing so he takes the adulation for that. But along with that is the pressure of going to a tournament. We shoot ourselves in the foot in the two most important games. They are individual errors and they have a catastrophic effect.”
Scotland's World Cup campaign began with a promising 1-0 victory over Haiti, but consecutive defeats without scoring sent the Tartan Army home early. Levein admitted it was “so sore to watch” and that he had expected a better performance against Brazil.
