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Two summers on, Scotland’s Euro opener proved to be one of their biggest collapses under Clarke – a 5-1 loss to hosts Germany.
“We have to remember how bad it felt,” the head coach said.
Clarke believes the devastating defeat puts Scotland “on the backfoot” for the rest of their tournament, which again ends in the group stage.
“This time, we have to make sure we start on the front foot,” he insists.
On the evidence of the Scots’ warm-up display, there are signs they can achieve it against a similarly-ranked nation this weekend.
The recent adoption of an attacking 4-4-2 shape with two strikers playing centrally and direct winger Ben Doak handling the right feed is a “different Steve Clarke” concept, although he suggested he was unfairly “tagged with a label”.
“I think I’ve shown consistently throughout my time that I’m ready to try something different,” said Clarke, who believes he has the best depth in the Scotland squad.
“Going into this tournament, it was something different to think about playing 4-4-2 to see how it works.
“What people don’t realize is when you’re at a club you can work on a system for a long time and put a lot of training sessions into it. You don’t have that when you’re at an international camp.”
