World Cup 2026: Steve Clarke facing five selection questions ahead of campaign

Suitcases are packed, ESTAs are approved, and a petition to legalise haggis in the United States is gathering momentum.

There's only one thing left for the Tartan Army to organise before making the hop across the pond - their preferred starting XI for the opening match against Haiti on June 14.

Five-and-a-half million backseat drivers are preparing to offer Scotland boss Steve Clarke unsolicited advice on how to set his team up and will be willing to passionately defend their own foolproof winning formulas should any colleague, family member, friend or national team head coach dare to suggest an offensive alternative.

Following Billy Gilmour's tournament-ending knee injury sustained in Scotland's final send-off match against Curacao, there are probably only five individuals in which the country would unanimously agree are nailed-on starters for the group opener: Andy Robertson (Liverpool), Aaron Hickey (Brentford), John McGinn (Aston Villa), Scott McTominay (Napoli) and Ben Gannon-Doak (Bournemouth).

McTominay, Robertson and McGinn started all six games in qualifying; Gannon-Doak started the final five after coming on as a substitute in the opening match away to Denmark; and Hickey was only left out of the starting XI for the two matches against bottom seeds Belarus to manage his minutes as he battled injury.

As Clarke prepares to pick Scotland's first World Cup team in 28 years, here are the five selection questions facing the Scotland boss.

Back four or back five?

Clarke ditched his beloved back five immediately after Scotland's anticlimactic Euro 2024 exit and hasn't looked back since.

4-2-3-1 became the new go-to shape as his side avoided automatic relegation from Nations League A later that year - featuring notable wins against Croatia and Poland as well as a stubborn 0-0 draw with Portugal at Hampden which provoked a mini tantrum from Cristiano Ronaldo.

Despite losing the subsequent play-off against Greece, Clarke persisted with a back four for the entirety of last year's memorable table-topping World Cup qualifying campaign. In fact, the only game in 2025 in which he veered away from his new favourite formation was a sobering 3-1 home friendly defeat against Iceland.

So surely he'll stick with the back four? Probably, but maybe not.

In the March 'warm-up' friendlies Clarke set his team up as expected for a disappointing home defeat to Japan before switching to a back five with a heavily rotated side for another 1-0 defeat against Ivory Coast at Everton's Hill Dickinson Stadium.

He will likely want his team to be comfortable in both shapes, allowing tactical flexibility to make in-game changes or adapt depending on the opposition.

Or perhaps his chosen formation could be dictated by personnel and not preference.

That's because, once again, we find ourselves facing the decade-long Robertson-Tierney dilemma at left back.

For years Scotland searched for a solution to allow two of their best players to coexist before Clarke found a way for them to complement one another at left centre back and left wing back as part of a 5-3-2, and latterly, 5-4-1.

He picked a shape which best suited his best players, and it served him well with two major tournament qualifications.

However, when Tierney faced an extended period on the sidelines due to a hamstring injury sustained at Euro 2024, Scotland lacked the bandwidth to continue with the back five without its key component.

Now that Tierney is back fit and firing following a title-winning season at Celtic - in which he scored six goals and contributed 12 assists - Clarke may be tempted to find a starting berth for the man who scored the decisive third goal against Denmark in November.

He racked up 53 club appearances this campaign, 17 more than captain Robertson in his farewell season at Liverpool.

Who plays in goal?

Scotland's goalkeeping trio of Angus Gunn (Nottingham Forest), Craig Gordon (Hearts) and Liam Kelly (Rangers) have made a puny tally of just seven senior club appearances between them this season.

Yet very few people are questioning Clarke's decision to include them in his final squad.

Falkirk's Scott Bain and outgoing Dundee stopper Jon McCracken have been involved before and are the only Scottish stoppers playing regularly in the nation's top-flight; however, both missed the conclusion of the Premiership season through injury.

The only other previously capped goalkeepers are Zander Clark, Cieran Slicker, Jon McLaughlin, Ross Doohan and Jordan Archer.

Slicker is first choice at English League Two outfit Barnet but is unlikely to be trusted again after a disastrous debut against Iceland last year in which he made three costly errors.

Clark hasn't featured since March while on loan at Doncaster Rovers from Hearts, while McLaughlin, Doohan and Archer haven't played a single minute this term as reserve goalkeepers at Middlesbrough, Celtic and Portsmouth respectively.

It's an area that the head coach has highlighted as a problem position a number of times, but who does he hand the gloves to for the World Cup?

It's fair to assume that Kelly is Clarke's third choice. He's earned just two caps for his country, both in friendlies where the minutes were shared with other backup options, so it's essentially a toss-up between Gordon and Gunn.

Gordon is 43 years of age and made his national team debut before teammates Ben Gannon-Doak, Findlay Curtis and Tyler Fletcher were even born.

He's been out with a shoulder injury since February and has only played three times for Hearts this season, but if there was ever a man for the big occasion, it's him.

Despite not having played a minute of competitive football in six months, Gordon was a calming presence between the sticks for Scotland's final two decisive group games in qualifying and even pulled off a match-winning wonder-save for Hearts against Dundee in January when deputising for Alexander Schwolow.

Two years on from missing out on Euro 2024 and playing what was supposed to be his farewell game against Finland at Hampden, Gordon could become the second oldest player ever to play at a World Cup finals.

However, Gunn was Clarke's number one at the last major tournament two years ago in Germany, and in qualifying before injury.

He's racked up 21 caps in three years since switching allegiance from England but has only managed one substitute appearance for Nottingham Forest this campaign.

Whoever ends up playing is going to be rusty…

Who starts up front?

Lawrence Shankland (Rangers), Che Adams (Torino), Lyndon Dykes (Charlton Athletic), George Hirst (Ipswich Town) and Ross Stewart (Southampton) - those are the five men vying to lead the line for Scotland at the World Cup.

Although Clarke started with two strikers for the tournament send-off match against Curacao, 4-2-3-1 was his preferred shape during qualifying.

If we assume he opts for the latter, that leaves just one starting berth available.

Shankland, who has signed for Rangers, has been showing the best form of the lot. He notched a brace against Curacao and netted 20 club goals in all competitions this term as Hearts fell agonisingly short of a historic first Scottish top-flight title triumph in 66 years.

Despite missing two months of the run-in with a hamstring injury, the skipper bagged five goals in the final eight matches and directly contributed 12 points with six match-winning strikes across the season.

He also scored the forgotten second goal on that famous night at Hampden against Denmark in November as his vital tap-in was upstaged by three of the national team's greatest ever goals.

However, Shankland has never been a favourite of Clarke's - his sole competitive start in a Scotland jersey came against San Marino seven years ago. He led the line in friendlies against the Netherlands, Gibraltar and Finland in 2024, as well as last month's game against Curacao, but the rest of his 19 caps have all come from the bench.

Even after being named Player of the Year by PFA Scotland and the Scottish Football Writers' Association in 2024, Shankland managed just 21 minutes of gametime at the Euros.

Clarke rewards loyalty, and rightly so; it's worked well for him in his seven years in charge.

Adams and Dykes have amassed almost a century of caps between them, scoring 21 goals in the process.

It's hardly a remarkable return, but both have been so important to Scotland's success for their work out of possession, and in the build-up, whether that be through Adams' hold-up play or Dykes' aerial qualities.

The pair played together in the opening match of qualifying before Adams assumed the lone striker role for the next four games. Dykes then came back in for the winner-takes-all decider against Denmark and kept his place for the friendly against Japan in March.

However, they have the poorest goal return of the five options. Adams scored just seven times for Torino this season while Dykes managed just five for Birmingham City and Charlton Athletic in the English Championship.

In the same division, Ipswich Town's Hirst and Southampton's Stewart each got 11 goals but are far less experienced at international level with just eight and two caps respectively.

How does Clarke strike the right balance in midfield?

Scotland are blessed with a plethora of talent in the middle of the park, but Clarke has struggled to find a consistent pair of pivots, holding midfielders, sixes, sitters, or whatever you want to call them.

Whether he lines up with a 4-2-3-1, 4-4-2, 5-3-2, 5-4-1 or 3-4-3, he always plays with a double pivot.

I can hear you shouting Scott McTominay and John McGinn, arguably Scotland's two best players, but they both primarily play more advanced roles for club and country.

Napoli's McTominay is normally used as a 'number 10' and has only started in a deeper midfield role once in the last 20 international matches.

Aston Villa captain McGinn has excelled on the right-hand side of Unai Emery's 4-2-3-1 for his club but is usually deployed off the left for Scotland. His last start in central midfield for his country was almost two years ago in a friendly against Gibraltar.

That leaves a fight between Lewis Ferguson (Bologna), Ryan Christie (Bournemouth), Kenny McLean (Norwich) and Tyler Fletcher (Manchester United) for those two deep midfield spots.

Balance here is the key for Clarke; he's selected two right-footed players (Fletcher and Ferguson) and two left-footed players (Christie and McLean).

I won't get too technical, but this is no coincidence.

Having a specialist on each foot makes it easier for Scotland to choreograph an 'out-ball' on each side when trying to break the press. You'll quite often see those central midfield players playing first-time passes round the corner when under pressure, whether the intended recipient of the pass is McTominay at 10 or McGinn or Gannon-Doak in the wide areas.

Quite often the pivot will play on the opposite side of their stronger foot to open up the angle to find McTominay, or even the striker's feet, with a first-time pass. If that's not on, you'll usually see the ball switched out to the opposite wide player.

So that simplifies the equation even further - Ferguson and Fletcher are likely fighting for one jersey while Christie and McLean are fighting for the other.

The evidence certainly points to that anyway. In the last 22 international matches, Clarke has only gone with two midfielders that use the same foot four times, and two of those games were friendlies.

After Celtic captain Callum McGregor (also left-footed) retired from international football following Euro 2024, Gilmour and McLean looked to be the new preferred midfield pairing. They started eight games in a row together but were broken up after relegation to Nations League B in March 2025.

Since then, Scotland have played 12 matches and have only had the same midfield start consecutive games once as Clarke has experimented with seven different pairings.

There are some decipherable trends which may be able to help us hypothesise as to which players he uses and when.

Gilmour often started in games where Scotland were expected to dominate possession (Curacao, Ivory Coast, Belarus, Liechtenstein, Iceland) and Ferguson usually got the nod when the team had to suffer without the ball (Japan, Denmark, Greece).

With the Napoli midfielder ruled out through injury, that could open the door for Ferguson to start against Haiti, a fixture which stylistically is more suited to Gilmour.

That's assuming Clarke doesn't throw in 19-year-old Fletcher for his competitive international debut in the opening game of a World Cup. That being said, he is more similar in terms of player profile to the man he is replacing than the Bologna captain is.

On the other side, Christie appeared to be the preferred candidate to McLean for the big games in qualifying against Greece and Denmark.

Can Clarke find a solid partnership in central defence?

Since any variation of a back five formation would likely include Tierney at left centre back, there are two spots up for grabs in the heart of defence, irrespective of shape.

Clarke has picked five experienced natural centre-backs to take over to the USA: Grant Hanley (Hibernian), Scott McKenna (Dinamo Zagreb), Jack Hendry (Al-Ettifaq), John Souttar (Rangers) and Dominic Hyam (Wrexham).

But none of them are guaranteed starters; Scotland have changed their centre-back pairing in each of their past 10 games.

McKenna, at 29, is the youngest of that quintet and has just eclipsed the 50-cap milestone that has seen him inducted into the International Roll of Honour. The Dinamo Zagreb defender played in 30 of the Croatian champions' 36 league fixtures this term as they won the title by a margin of 20 points.

Only 13 people have played more times for Scotland than the ever-present Hanley who has battled through injury and fitness issues to nail down a starting spot at Hibernian in his first season in Scotland. The 34-year-old was outstanding against Denmark as a late inclusion in the starting XI after Souttar picked up an injury in the warm-up.

Hendry almost played every minute for Al-Ettifaq in the Saudi Pro League this year and played 90 minutes alongside McKenna at the back against Japan in March despite being an unused substitute in five of the six qualification group matches. The 31-year-old started all three games at Euro 2024 but has only made three appearances since then against Liechtenstein, Belarus and Japan.

Souttar was a regular for Rangers - and even wore the armband in captain James Tavernier's absence - before losing his place in the side to Nasser Djiga for the final two months. Having missed out on both Euro 2020 and Euro 2024 through injury, the 29-year-old will be hoping to make his major tournament debut next month.

Hyam was perhaps a surprise inclusion in the squad given his number of caps, but he made 44 appearances in the English Championship this season for both Blackburn Rovers and Wrexham as he skippered the Welsh outfit to the brink of the play-offs. Hyam made his Scotland debut as a late substitute against Norway in 2023 and wasn't capped again until this year for matches against Ivory Coast and Curacao.

Similarly to the midfield conundrum, it appears Clarke does not yet know who his best back two are.