Clarke believes draw against Austria will give Scotland belief

Steve Clarke believes Scotland’s performance against Austria can help the players believe that they are a good team.

Goals from Grant Hanley and John McGinn earned the Scots a 2-2 draw in the opening World Cup qualifier after Sasa Kalajdzic had twice put the visitors ahead.

Clarke was impressed by his team’s desire to bounce back from both goals conceded and was encouraged by some of Scotland’s play.

“After going behind twice, you have to be happy that you’ve come out of the game with something,” the national team boss said. “We got a point and I thought the performance was decent.

“Two soft goals conceded and two good goals scored. It gives us something to work on but I thought we were good tonight.

“I keep telling the players that they’re a good team. They have to start believing in themselves a little more.

“When you have performances like that against a good team, and Austria are a good team, the belief will come.”

Scotland now travel for the second game of campaign, where they will face an Israel side they’ve grown familiar with over recent Nations League and Euro 202 qualifying games.

“We know the Israelis very well and they know us,”
Clarke said. “It’ll be a tough game but we go there confident and if we can show the same or similar level of performance then I think we can get the three points, which is what we need.”