Scotland bid to exorcise World Cup ghosts by breaking group stage barrier

Steve Clarke’s team start against Haiti in Foxborough with growing optimism of ending their pattern of failure on the biggest stage It is not only ghosts from Costa Rica, Peru, Iran or Zaire that haunt Scotland as they prepare for a long-awaited World Cup return. Instead, there is a broader pattern of failure that Steve Clarke and his class of 2026 need to extricate the nation from. From 23 games on football’s biggest stage, the Scots have won only four times. The expansion of the World Cup should assist them, a team who now and correctly regard merely qualifying for major tournaments as insuf

This story was reported by Football | The Guardian. EUROPES curates Europe's most relevant coverage — read the full report at the original source.