O'Donnell: Scotland will be motivated enough to beat Belarus despite no Tartan Army in Hungary

Stephen O’Donnell believes Scotland will have enough motivation to produce a winning performance against Belarus despite the Tartan Army being locked out of the game that will be played behind closed doors.

The Motherwell defender admits that he found it hard to switch on in empty stadiums during the lockdown years.

However, he insists the magnitude of Monday night’s game will be enough of a motivator, similar to when Steve Clarke’s side beat Serbia on penalties to reach Euro 2020.

The National Team are taking on the Belarusians in Hungary with no supporters allowed in the stadium due to the country’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

And O’Donnell, who has 26 Scotland caps, is hoping the current squad have enough in their locker to take all three points and stay well on track for a place in North America next summer.

He said: “I obviously played in a few closed-door games during Covid. Personally, I found it to be a lot harder to motivate yourself for some games.

“It was very eerie – you were walking out to silence, and it felt like a reserve game, but you need to try and focus, hone in and be as switched on as possible.

“With it being a World Cup qualifier, the Serbia game I played in to reach the Euros was behind closed doors, but we were definitely all fired up for that one because of the magnitude of the game and knowing we had to get the win, so I think they should be motivated enough, and there shouldn’t be an issue.

“The players have experienced plenty of it, so hopefully we will get a comfortable win.

“There are some things that can be even better when there are no fans, because you can hear everything now, communication is better, you can talk to each other on the park, so it makes all those things easier.

“There are midweek internationals that are better during the week in training, there’s some players that can go missing when fans are in, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out.

“But, I’m sure that with the quality we have in the Scotland squad, and whatever eleven is picked, will be good enough to win the game.”