Scotland calls off friendly match just days before World Cup due to concerning news
Scotland has decided to cancel a secret friendly match against Norway that was set to happen on Monday, according to officials from the Norwegian Football Association.
Steve Clarke’s team had a strong 4-0 win over Bolivia on Saturday, with Lawrence Shankland, Scott McTominay, and Che Adams (who scored twice) helping secure a big win just before their World Cup debut against Haiti on June 14.
After the game in New Jersey, Clarke was happy to report no injuries. “For once, everything went just as I wanted,” he said. “No injuries, a solid performance, and a great result.”
The week has been tense for Scotland fans after Billy Gilmour had to miss the World Cup due to a knee injury picked up in a friendly against Curacao on May 30. So, the team seems to be extra careful as the tournament approaches. On Sunday, it was confirmed that Scotland pulled out of the closed-door match against Norway because of injury worries.
Morten Morisbak Skjonsberg, the Norwegian FA’s media manager, shared the news. “It wasn’t really a secret that we planned a training match against Scotland on Monday,” he said. “But today we found out that Scotland had to cancel because of injuries.”
Norway’s coach Stale Solbakken also confirmed the game was off, which meant they had to change plans quickly. “We wanted to give playing time to those who didn’t play against Morocco on Sunday,” he explained. “Now, because of the cancellation, I’ll make more changes in our match against Morocco.”
After Scotland’s win over Bolivia, Clarke sounded very hopeful about their Group C games against Haiti, Morocco, and Brazil. “We’ve got some great problems to solve,” he said. “We played really well in the first half, and even when I made changes, the team kept its shape. Sometimes you lose a bit of rhythm making many changes, but the players who came in did a great job protecting our goal.”
“We haven’t kept a clean sheet in a while, so that was nice. We’ve been told we don’t score enough, but scoring four goals in back-to-back matches shows good progress. We created plenty of chances tonight, and we have players on the field who can score.”