\n<\/p>\n
Day one at Scotland HQ, east of uptown Charlotte, and there’s a bunfight brewing – or to be more accurate, angry Norwegians are taking potshots at Steve Clarke, who, we can only surmise, couldn’t care less what the Norwegians think.<\/b><\/p>\n
Stale Solbakken, the Norway head coach, and Brede Hangeland, the team manager, have let fly in the media about a training game between the reserve players from the two countries that Clarke cancelled. <\/p>\n
Who knew that the ditching of a meaningless bounce match could spark such fury.<\/p>\n
“Unprofessional,” trumpeted Solbakken of his Scottish counterpart. “Embarrassing” and “weak” whinged Hangeland. <\/p>\n
Just before the Scotland news conference at their palatial Charlotte base camp, three Norwegian reporters fetched up in search of Scottish retaliatory thunder.<\/p>\n
What they got was a cool response from John McGinn, not just super with the ball at his feet but also pretty nifty with a microphone in front of his face.<\/p>\n
“I would say 75% of the (Scotland) squad haven’t seen it,” he said of the Norwegian anger, smiling as he spoke. <\/p>\n
“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 (in Billy Gilmour) very, very close to this camp.<\/p>\n
“It had a huge impact on everyone. We didn’t want to lose another. We had a few niggles, not everyone’s been training. <\/p>\n
“So I think it’s a professional way of handling things, to be perfectly honest, and look after number one. I’m sure every single country will be doing the exact same. <\/p>\n
“If Norway lost Erling Haaland or Martin Odegaard in one of the games leading up to Saturday, they would cancel the game as well.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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