Scotland’s return to the World Cup after a 28-year absence has been immediately overshadowed by a war of words with Norway. Steve Clarke and his squad were branded “unprofessional”, “embarrassing” and “weak” by the Norwegians after the cancellation of a training game planned for Monday in Charlotte.
The game, scheduled to afford minutes to players requiring them, was postponed on Saturday. The injury sustained by Billy Gilmour during the recent friendly against Curaçao – which put him out of the World Cup – was apparently uppermost in Clarke’s thoughts. “We picked up one or two niggles last week and decided it wasn't worth the risk,” Clarke told BBC Scotland.
“Norway's Stale Solbakken calls Scotland 'unprofessional' after training game cancelled, sparking war of words ahead of World Cup.”
Norway’s head coach, Ståle Solbakken, reacted furiously after his side’s 1-1 draw with Scotland’s Group C opponents Morocco on Sunday. “It was surprising to me and it is unprofessional of Scotland,” he said. “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.”
Norway’s team manager, former Fulham defender Brede Hangeland, was equally irked. “We have been working on that match for many months,” he said. “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.”
The Scottish FA responded by stressing that the game “was organised and arranged between the respective team managers – not the head coaches”. It added: “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.”
As the story escalated, a batch of Norwegian journalists made an impromptu visit to John McGinn’s scheduled press conference on Monday afternoon. The Aston Villa midfielder backed the decision not to play. “I would say 75% of the squad didn't see it [the Norwegian comments]. I did see it,” he said. “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. We have had a few niggles, not everybody has been training. So I think it is a professional decision.”
Scotland played their final public preparation game on Saturday, defeating Bolivia 4-0. Norway kick off their World Cup campaign against Iraq next Tuesday, while Scotland face Haiti in Group C three days earlier.