Search

19 Nov 2025

Steve Clarke hails quality of Scotland’s goals which helped seal World Cup berth

Steve Clarke hails quality of Scotland’s goals which helped seal World Cup berth

Steve Clarke was stunned by the quality of Scotland’s goals as they sealed their place at next summer’s World Cup with a dramatic 4-2 win over Denmark.

Scott McTominay scored a sensational overhead kick early on, while substitute Kieran Tierney curled in a brilliant finish from outside the box to edge the Scots 3-2 in front in stoppage time.

Kenny McLean then sealed a famous Scottish triumph when he lobbed Kasper Schmeichel from the halfway line with the last kick of the game.

“Scott McTominay scored the best overhead kick I’ve ever seen and it might not have been the best goal of the night!” Clarke told BBC Scotland.

“It was a lot of emotions. High and low. At times, you’re looking for solutions and thinking how to change it. I knew at some stage we’d have to go two up front.

“I felt the Danes were dominating us a little. It seemed like a good time [to make the changes]. Whether they were 10 or 11 [men], we were going to do that.

“I spoke to Kieran before the first game. He’s a key player for me, one of my men. I’ve got loads of them. Fourteen were involved in the play-off game.

“I said ‘listen, Aaron Hickey can’t do back-to-back games, I can see you coming on at right-back and doing very well for us’.

“I’m not sure I envisioned the goal… but when it was rolling back to him on his left foot, I knew he would score.

“When Kenny hit it, I thought ‘what are you doing?!’ but when I saw it in flight, I thought ‘that’s going to go in!'”

To continue reading this article,
please subscribe and support local journalism!


Subscribing will allow you access to all of our premium content and archived articles.

Subscribe

To continue reading this article for FREE,
please kindly register and/or log in.


Registration is absolutely 100% FREE and will help us personalise your experience on our sites. You can also sign up to our carefully curated newsletter(s) to keep up to date with your latest local news!

Register / Login

Buy the e-paper of the Donegal Democrat, Donegal People's Press, Donegal Post and Inish Times here for instant access to Donegal's premier news titles.

Keep up with the latest news from Donegal with our daily newsletter featuring the most important stories of the day delivered to your inbox every evening at 5pm.