Steve Clarke has urged Scotland’s players to reach Euro 2024 - so he can spearhead the next World Cup campaign.
The national team’s hopes of reaching Qatar 2022 were ended by Ukraine at Hampden on Wednesday night.
Now, Clarke has to regain momentum through the Nations League before trying to reach the European Championships in Germany.
His current SFA contract expires in 2024 but the Scotland boss has revealed he’s desperate to be in charge for another crack at the 2026 World Cup in USA, Canada and Mexico.
Clarke said: “These players are at an age where they should keep improving, they should all get better.
“In terms of the next two campaigns, I don’t know if I’ll get to 2026 if they don’t get to 2024.
“So I need them. I need them to help me because I want to go to a World Cup with my country.
“I told them that after the game on Wednesday night. I said I can’t do it unless you get me to Euro 2024. So they can help me.
“That is serious, I would love to do it.
“It was a big ambition of mine to go this year and it hasn’t worked.
“I would love to go in 2026 but obviously results and circumstances will dictate what happens to me.
“This group of players, whether they’re led by me or someone else, can definitely go to 2024 and 2026.
“There are actually enough of them in this group who can think beyond that because they’re so young.
“I’m too old to think beyond that! I’ll just think about 2026.”
Clarke will meet his players again today after giving them 24 hours off to be with their families.
He’ll analyse the 3-1 defeat to Ukraine in the hope they’ll be better should they face another play-off in the future.
But after that, his full focus will be on Wednesday night’s Nations League opener against Armenia, then a trip to Dublin to face Ireland on Saturday.
And he expects to see a positive reaction from his squad after their World Cup heartbreak.
Clarke said: “On Wednesday night, there wasn’t much chat afterwards.
“We let the players sulk in their own way.
“I’ve got a debrief ready but I’ve given them a bit longer to recover because we’ve got time.
“We will analyse it. I’ve got some good clips that I think can help them improve the next time we go into a game like that.
“They’ve always shown a good reaction in recent times. If they lose, they come back.
“The last time we lost was Denmark away and everyone thought the campaign was out the window.
“But we then went six games unbeaten so we’ve shown resilience before.
“This is a good group who want to be successful for their country.
“When you’ve got that, you bounce back.
“If we can go on a long, unbeaten run again it will mean we’ve done well in the Nations League and we’re ready for the Euro 2024 qualifying campaign.”
Scotland’s critical play-off tie was delayed from March until June due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
But Clarke refuses to accept that his side would have been better prepared for when it was originally scheduled.
And he hopes the best team wins when Ukraine takes on Wales in the play-off final today.
He said: “We’ve lost to Ukraine in June and we’ve got to suffer for that.
“We have to take that massive disappointment and nobody is hiding away from it.
“We just didn’t perform on the night and we have to live with that.
“I hope it’s a good game in Cardiff on Sunday. I have a lot of friends in the Welsh camp too so I hope the best team goes through.”
