Scotland's return to the World Cup after a 28-year absence has been overshadowed by a bitter war of words with Norway, after Steve Clarke cancelled a behind-closed-doors training game at the last minute.
The match, scheduled for Monday at Scotland's training base in Charlotte, North Carolina, was called off on Saturday. Norway's head coach Ståle Solbakken reacted furiously, telling Norwegian broadcaster NRK: "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."
“Norway calls Scotland 'unprofessional' and 'weak' after cancelling a training friendly hours before the World Cup.”
Norway's team manager, former Fulham defender Brede Hangeland, was equally angered. "We have been working on that match for many months," he said. "It is embarrassing to cancel it a couple of days before. Everything was clarified in a so-called gentlemen's agreement. So I don't think it was particularly gentlemanly to cancel on such short notice."
Atletico Madrid striker Alexander Sorloth added: "It's a real shame and quite unprofessional of Scotland."
The Scottish FA insisted the game had been organised between team administrators – Michael Hughes for Scotland and Hangeland for Norway – not the head coaches. In a statement, the SFA said: "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. 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 later told BBC Scotland: "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."
The decision was driven by the injury sustained by Billy Gilmour during a recent friendly against Curaçao, which ruled him out of the World Cup. Scotland's John McGinn defended the move, saying: "Our job is to look after Scotland. Norway's job is to look after Norway. If they have done their research, we lost a very important part of the squad very close to this camp and that had a huge impact on everyone. We didn't want to lose another."
Norway kick off their Group I campaign against Iraq next Tuesday, three days after Scotland face Haiti in Group C. The Scots played their final public preparation game on Saturday, defeating Bolivia 4-0, with Clarke using most of his squad. But the fallout from the cancelled training match threatens to hang over both camps as they head into their opening fixtures.