Portugal 2-1 Scotland: “Cristiano Ronaldo continues to rage and overshadows the heroics of Scott McTominay”

Scotland are the 48th national team to suffer at Ronaldo’s feet, and that is hardly surprising.

But apart from that game and the defeat to Poland, Steve Clarke’s team still have big concerns. Five goals conceded meant they have conceded 33 goals in their last 14 games.

They have conceded a goal after the 85th minute in five of their last six games. This means they have only won one game in 14 and have not won a single competitive match in the last year.

Against top opponents, Scotland cannot stop the flood of goals. And especially in the last minute.

“I reiterated to my players that we need to understand what phase of the cycle we are in and what we want to build,” head coach Clarke said afterwards.

“We’re trying to refocus after the summer. We can lose these games to try to build and make sure that the end goal, as always, is to qualify for the tournament.”

This suggests that Clarke is trying to re-orientate his team’s style of play after a disappointing season at the 2024 European Championships in which they barely managed to get a shot off.

By switching from a back five to a 4-2-3-1 system, the quality of the offense could be better assessed and Scotland showed a strong phase after conceding the equalizer through Bruno Fernandes.

The inclusion of Ryan Gauld, Ben Doak and Tommy Conway in this camp also suggests a different approach in preparing for next year’s World Cup qualifiers.

Clarke described it as an evolution, not a revolution. The evidence so far suggests there is still a lot of work to be done, but time is limited and high-profile opposition must be faced.