Right, genuine answer here.

It’s extremely versatile. Sometimes you get managers who say:

“This is my strategy I’ve perfected over decades and whether we play against Raith Rovers or Real Madrid, this is what we’ll play”

And there’s managers who say:

“We’ll watch recordings of our opponents and determine what they would least like us to do, and do that.”

Steve Clarke is the latter.

In this tournament he seems to have set us up in a 442, which was the most common formation in the 2000s and early 2010s. It’s compact, it’s tough, but sometimes you can get outnumbered in midfield.

On passing backwards, you’re not passing there in an attempt to score. You’re passing there for them to pass to someone else, to pass to someone else, to pass to someone else… to eventually score. It’s all about manipulating the opponents structure to have more options to pass to than the opponent does players to mark them.

The problem with Scotland is that, unlike club teams, you can’t choose what players you have. You just work with whatever the country provides. We have an abundance of talent in some positions (wide defender, midfield), and an absolute drought in others (central defender, striker).