Steve Clarke makes complaint with Scotland boss left furious after Hungary defeat - 'Explain to me'
Scotland boss Steve Clarke has fumed that his side weren't given a penalty in their 1-0 defeat to Hungary on Sunday night
BBC
Scotland boss Steve Clarke has fumed that his side weren't given a penalty in their 1-0 defeat to Hungary at Euro 2024 on Sunday night.
The Tartan Army were sent crashing out of the European Championships, with Kevin Csoboth netting in the 100th minute after a head injury to Barnabas Varga had caused a lengthy delay.
Towards the end of the match, Scotland star Stuart Armstrong went down inside the box.
But referee Facundo Tello, who is from Argentina, didn't think it was a penalty - with VAR chiefs also not intervening.
Scotland boss Steve Clarke has fumed that his side weren't given a penalty in their 1-0 defeat to Hungary on Sunday night
BBC
Clarke has been left enraged by that decision and has insisted, in his eyes, that his side deserved a spot-kick prior to Csoboth's late goal.
“In a European competition it might have been better to have a European referee,” he said.
“But we had European VAR. Maybe the referee didn’t see the challenge clearly on the pitch but what’s the purpose of VAR if they’re not going to come in on something like that. It’s a penalty.
“It’s 100 per cent a penalty. Somebody somewhere has to explain to me why that’s not a penalty.
"It’s 100 per cent and in a one-goal game, had we got that penalty, it could have been a different night.
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"I’ve got other words but I’m not going to use them.”
Scotland struggled for goals at Euro 2024.
They netted just twice, with Manchester United midfielder Scott McTominay bagging in a 1-1 draw with Switzerland on matchday two after Antonio Rudiger scored an own goal in Germany's 5-1 win in the first match of the tournament.
However, Clarke insisted he was never concerned about goals and insists he needs time to analyse what went wrong.
“Not for us,” Clarke said when asked if it had been a concern.
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“I think it’s very difficult to sit here and analyse and I understand why you are asking the question.
"But sometimes after a defeat like that you need a bit of time to digest everything and work out how the game went and why it went that way.
“We had a lot of the ball and we probably didn’t create enough.
"But we did create enough chances before the goal - that’s clear.
"Is that why we went out of the tournament? Well, we scored two goals this time and we only scored one the last time.
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“But it’s something for me to go away and think about and speak to my coaches, to try to work on something going into the future as to how we can score more goals at certain times in games.”
Clarke is proud, however, of the way Scotland performed at the tournament.
He says they worked tirelessly and that the match with Hungary was always destined to be a close affair.
“We gave it everything and I don’t think you could fault the effort,” said Clarke.
“It was a very tough game against a good opponent.
Euro 2024: Steve Clarke felt his side deserved a penalty as Hungary beat Scotland on Sunday
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"It was very close and it was always going to be decided by the first goal.
"You could tell that after the first half an hour.
“Unfortunately for us, when we opened up forwards the end of the game to try and chase the win that we felt we needed to get to the next stage, we got caught on the counter to lose 1-0.
"But I don’t think there was anything between the two teams.”
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