Big players must step up as Scotland pursue history against Brazil

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<p>It's the essential weirdness of the situation they're in.</p>

<p>Andy Robertson said on Tuesday that he didn't give a damn about permutations, but you can bet he knows all the detail that he needs to know. His obsession, naturally, is on getting the kind of result that powers Scotland into the next round.</p>

<p>You don't get to his level if you're looking on defeat as some kind of victory, which, of course, it could be in the grand scheme of things. Hence, the barmy nature of the world they're living in right now.</p>

<p>It's been 15 years since Scotland played Brazil and 28 years since they played them in a World Cup. If you're very, very lucky you get to face those yellow jerseys once in your career, so best make the most of it.</p>

<p>Scotland cannot be gung-ho, but they have to be more threatening than they have been in their two games in America and in the six that went before in their last two European Championship campaigns.</p>

<p>Against Morocco, they put in a committed second-half performance, they applied pressure and had moments.</p>

<p>Against a team clearly good enough to counter on them with potentially devastating consequences, Scotland played with as much risk as was sensible but still didn't get shot on target. They've only had two in two games so far.</p>

<p>Nobody in the Scotland camp is hiding from that. One by one, coaches and players have spoken about it this week - this need to fire shots, metaphorically and literally.</p>

<p>Clarke has to find a hybrid game plan that keeps things tight against a dangerous, but not imperious, Brazil while at the same time asking questions at the other end, unsettling Brazil, shaking them out of a rhythm and picking away at their self-belief.</p>

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<p>Facing Brazil at a World Cup? Football doesn't get any sexier than this. In six decades, Scotland have faced so many of their immortals - Tostao and Rivellino, Brito and Clodoaldo, Zico and Falcao, Romario and Careca, Roberto Carlos and Cafu, Rivaldo and Ronaldo.</p>

<p>They've never beaten them, not in four meetings at World Cups and not in six friendlies - that draw in 1966 and another in 1974 are Scotland's lot.</p>

<p>A nation that owes its football existence to the son - Charles Miller, the founding father of Brazilian football - of a man from Fairlie in North Ayrshire is targeting a sixth World Cup.</p>

<p>Vinicius Junior is the one they look to now, the heir apparent, the winger most likely to propel them forward. And Brazil are in need of some propelling.</p>

<p>It's been 24 years since they last won this tournament, a veritable eternity for them. In the years since - four losing quarter-finals and a losing semi-final against Germany; 7-1, the horror of Belo Horizonte.</p>

<p>This vintage has not shown itself to be genuine contenders. Not yet. Their qualification was sloppy; played 18, won eight, drew four, lost six.</p>

<p>Of their victories, they took until the 89th minute to beat Chile, the 90th minute to beat Peru and the 99th minute to beat Colombia. They lost to Uruguay, Colombia, Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina (twice).</p>

<p>This game could see the return of Neymar after an absence of two-and-a-half years. The prodigal will play a part, it seems.</p>

<p>Even a glancing look at the Brazilian media reveals their fascination with him, the microscopic detail about his calf injury, the almost hourly updates on what he's been doing in training and what role he might be deployed in - a false nine seems to be the consensus, maybe off the bench if things are going Brazil's way.</p>

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<p>Clarke has his own selection issues. The news of Aaron Hickey is not good, so who plays right-back against the speed and blood-curdling trickery of Vini Jr?</p>

<p>Nathan Patterson, Anthony Ralston, or does Clarke go rogue and ask Kieran Tierney to do one of the least enviable jobs in football? There's sense in that. Tierney has vast experience. This is a day for nous.</p>

<p>Who does Clarke play up front - and is there any prospect that whoever it is might have more than crumbs to feed on?</p>

<p>Che Adams runs hard, but he's unconvincing. Lyndon Dykes is a battering ram, but Gabriel and Marquinhos have seen his sort before in their storied careers. Lawrence Shankland, Ross Stewart and George Hirst are the other contenders.</p>

<p>There is logic in putting Scott McTominay into the role - a curveball for Brazil - but Steven Naismith, assistant manager, dismissed it the other day.</p>

<p>McTominay is big and strong, incredibly energetic, a proper handful and a superb finisher. He has not been at his best in the two games, not even close to his best, but there's always the threat of him sparking to life.</p>

<p>It's got to happen now. It's got to happen for John McGinn, too. It's got to happen for Ben Gannon-Doak, the potential difference-maker out wide.</p>

<p>He was utilised off the bench against Morocco, Clarke hoping he'd have a bigger impact when the game was looser and the space was opening up. Gannon-Doak will start on Wednesday.</p>

<p>Scotland's strength is their endeavour, their hard work, their passion, but those things only get you so far. There is some technical ability in there, but not masses of it.</p>

<p>What was said before Haiti and Morocco is still relevant now - Scotland's big-name players need to step it up. They need to be better, they need to create and be ruthless.</p>

<p>So many things need to happen for Scotland to get a point, or three, from this game, but if they do then the joyous fortnight-long scenes in Boston, a city that adopted the Tartan Army as their own, will feel like a warm-up act.</p>

<p>It's a racing certainty that the Scotland fans, in their revelling and in their bevvying, have extra gears in them. The great hope is that Clarke and his players, in their pursuit of history, have a whole lot more to show in what could be the game of their lives.</p>

<h2>Related topics</h2>

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<li><a href="/sport/football/scottish" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Scottish Football</a></li>

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Guardian Sport · Jun 24

Guardian Sport · Jun 24

234 stories