Steve Clarke issues Scotland promise as path to ending long Tartan Army wait is mapped out

Steve Clarke saw Scotland’s road map to the next World Cup drawn in Switzerland –then promised to lead the Tartan Army all the way to the finals in two years.

The national boss attended yesterday’s draw in Zurich as his side came out of the pot in Group C along with either Portugal or Denmark, Greece and Belarus. The national boss will have to wait until March, when the Portuguese and Danes meet in the Nations League quarter finals, to discover which one of the top seeds he’ll be pitted against – with the losers of that tie dropping into his section.

But Clarke is clear on his ambitions in what is set to be his last-ever campaign as Scotland boss. He said: “For everyone connected with Scotland we are desperate to get back to a World Cup. The last one was in 1998 which was a long time ago – I was still playing, so that shows you what a long time it’s been.

“We appreciate the Tartan Army wants to be there as well. We know that when we do qualify for a major tournament the Tartan Army are desperate to be there. They showed that in Germany in the summer and hopefully we can take them to the USA, Mexico and Canada.

“When I spoke after the tournament in the summer, I said one of my main remaining ambitions is to go to a World Cup with my country. These qualifying games give me an opportunity. I’m going to give it everything I’ve got, I’m sure my players will do the same.

“We’ve played teams at the highest level recently and we’ve seen that we have to be right at the top of our game to get points from them. It was a difficult year but we finished it well. We showed that we can compete against the top teams and that’s what we will have to do if we want to get to the World Cup.

“The fact we’ve already seen so many supporters