Scotland’s much-anticipated return to the World Cup after a 28-year hiatus has been marred by a contentious exchange with Norway. Following the cancellation of a scheduled training match in Charlotte, the Norwegians labeled the Scots as ‘unprofessional’, ’embarrassing’, and ‘weak’. In response to the criticism from Norway, the Scottish FA expressed their astonishment at the remarks, while John McGinn, an Aston Villa midfielder, urged the critics to familiarize themselves with Scotland’s injury challenges.
With both teams situated in North Carolina, the match was intended to allow players in need of game time to participate. However, Scotland announced the postponement on Saturday, primarily due to the injury suffered by Billy Gilmour during a recent friendly against Curaçao, which ultimately sidelined him from the World Cup.
Norway’s head coach, Ståle Solbakken, was quick to voice his disappointment. He stated, “It was surprising to me and it is unprofessional of Scotland. It is unprofessional that the coach has not called me, that they use the team manager and call and say it after we have finished training.”
Solbakken continued, “I don’t think the injuries they’re blaming came from the last training session. That’s not the case. It’s disappointing. It’s unprofessional. But we have to live with that.” The Scottish FA clarified that the arrangements for the match had been made between team administrators rather than the coaches, thus suggesting a lack of direct communication.
Norway’s team manager, Brede Hangeland, echoed Solbakken’s sentiments, expressing his frustration. He remarked, “We have been working on that match for many months. It is embarrassing to cancel it a couple of days before. We can’t do anything about it, we just have to forget about it and make the best of it. But there has been a lot of organization, agreements, and gentlemen’s agreements and then suddenly they don’t want to. I think that was weak, so to speak.”
As tensions rose, a group of Norwegian journalists unexpectedly attended McGinn’s press conference on Monday afternoon. As expected, McGinn defended the decision to cancel the match, stating, “I would say 75% of the squad didn’t see it [the Norwegian comments]. I did see it. Our job is to look after Scotland. Norway’s job is to look after Norway. If they have done their research, we lost a very important part of the squad very close to this camp and that had a huge impact on everyone. We didn’t want to lose another.”
McGinn elaborated on Norway’s disappointment, suggesting, “Norway will be angry because they have their own plans, they probably set up for that game. But if Norway lost Erling Haaland or Martin Ødegaard in one of the games leading up to the tournament, they would cancel the game as well.”
Clarke also remained unfazed by the situation, having expressed his thoughts before Norway’s criticisms emerged. He noted, “It was just going to be a training game for an hour at our training ground. We picked up one or two niggles last week and decided it wasn’t worth the risk.” The Scottish FA released a statement criticizing Norway for making the issue public, stating, “The behind-closed-doors training game was organized and arranged between the respective team managers – not the head coaches – and this was the same process we followed when we regrettably had to cancel on Saturday.”
They further explained, “We have had some injuries during our previous friendlies and when it became apparent that a training game would bring greater risk than potential preparatory reward, we alerted the Norway team manager as soon as possible. We believe this was the right and consistent process. The game was also due to be behind closed doors and not announced publicly so we were surprised when news of the game broke via Norwegian media.”
In addition to Gilmour’s absence, Scotland’s Scott McKenna and Nathan Patterson have also had their training sessions limited due to minor injuries. Ross Stewart experienced a minor knee issue before the tournament but came on as a substitute during Scotland’s impressive 4-0 victory over Bolivia on Saturday. Meanwhile, Norway played to a 1-1 draw against Morocco the following day.
