Scotland cancel behind-closed-doors friendly ‘due to injuries’ days before World Cup

Scotland have cancelled a behind-closed-doors friendly on Monday due to injuries, according to the Norwegian FA.

Steve Clarke’s side thrashed Bolivia 4-0 on Saturday night in their last official World Cup warm-up game before the tournament kicks off.

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Scotland get their campaign up and running against Haiti next Sunday.

The Tartan Army were also due to face Norway at their Charlotte training base on Monday in an unofficial game.

Their manager, Stale Solbakken, had revealed this months ago and reconfirmed the plan in the lead-up to the tournament.

However, the match will no longer be going ahead.

Norwegian FA media manager Morten Morisbak Skjonsberg said: “It is a poorly kept secret that we were supposed to play a training match against Scotland on Monday.

“Today we learned that Scotland unfortunately had to withdraw from the agreement due to injuries.

“Instead, we will train at Greensboro.”

Solbakken also said he would need to change his plans following Scotland’s late withdrawal.

He said: “The cancellation means I will make more changes in our game against Morocco.

“The idea of playing Scotland was that we could get some minutes in the legs of the guys who don’t play in the Morocco game.”

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Scotland’s perfect prep

Clarke leads Scotland into their first World Cup since 1998 and have scored eight goals in two friendlies leading up to the tournament.

Just five players in the Scotland squad did not get onto the pitch at some point during the win over Bolivia on Saturday.

Clarke gave minutes to as many as his players as possible with goalkeeper Angus Gunn the only man to play the full 90.

Billy Gilmour’s injury against Curacao on May 30 was the only blight on their preparations thus far.

He was forced to withdraw from the squad and was replaced by Tyler Fletcher, son of Darren.

Speaking after that win over Bolivia, Clarke insisted there were no new injuries to report.

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Clarke said: “Fantastic, fantastic problems.

“Really good first half, then I turn round to my bench and the changes are good.

“When we made the changes, you lose a little bit of the rhythm of the game when you make so many changes, both sides, but boys go in, their priority, really, was not to concede because we wanted a clean sheet.

“It been a little while since we had a clean sheet, so it was nice to get that.”

He continued: “I spoke before that there are no injuries, good performance and we got the result.

“It’s not often they give me everything I asked for, so pleased with that.

“We worked a little bit this week on the shape of the team, 4-4-2 is a system that we’ve only recently gone towards with the two strikers. There’s still a bit of work to be done.

“Some good moments today, but some moments as well that I can see what we can do a little bit better, so we’ll work on that next week and, hopefully, a similar performance next weekend.”

Scotland begin their World Cup campaign against Haiti on June 14 before facing Morocco (June 19) and Brazil (June 24).

All 104 games at the 2026 World Cup will be live on talkSPORT, talkSPORT 2 and the talkSPORT app.