Scotland need 'miracle', admits John McGinn, as Andy Robertson and Steve Clarke also doubt World Cup knockout hopes after Brazil loss

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Andy Robertson says Scotland "let ourselves down" while John McGinn was also left ruing "self-inflicted mistakes", as Brazil cruised to a 3-0 victory on the final matchday in Group C at the 2026 World Cup.

Scotland 'probably going home', admits Clarke after Brazil loss

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Scotland approached their Miami showdown with the five-time world champions knowing a generational performance was needed to secure a spot in the World Cup knockout phase.

A point would have virtually sealed their status as one of the eight best third-placed sides, while a victory would have guaranteed progress past the group stage for the first time ever.

Though they appeared to start the match confidently on the ball, the Scots held out for a mere five minutes before gifting Vinicius Junior an opener.

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Scott McKenna dallied in his own area and was caught in possession, with the ball landing at the Real Madrid superstar's feet six yards out, as he showed his composure to slot the ball home.

Vinicius then thought he had doubled his tally through another error - this time from Jack Hendry - but a VAR review saved Scotland's blushes on that occasion as the Brazilian winger committed a foul.

Keeping Vinicius at bay is a tough task, though, and he made it two before half-time. Matheus Cunha then added some further gloss on the scoreline, with the impact on Scotland's goal difference potentially set to prove very costly.

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McGinn is among those who believes that for sure. He said, via Yahoo: "I feel now [that Scotland's tournament is over].

"It’s not the way you want to go out either. We’ll probably hurt tonight, hurt tomorrow and then just keep our fingers crossed.

"If we go into the last 32, if we get a miracle, we’ll need to be better, we know that.

"Brazil punished us tonight. I don’t think overall they opened us up too many times - it was sort of self-inflicted mistakes and I think the scoreline was a fair one.

"It leaves us in the worst possible position from this morning. We gave ourselves a good platform to go and qualify and tonight we’ve made that very difficult. There’s no hiding from that."

Fellow Premier League star Robertson concurred, as he told the BBC: "As a collective, we didn't want to put ourselves in a position to hope for favours.

"If you ask me now, I don't think it is enough. The next couple of days will be horrible.

"In certain moments, we let ourselves down tonight. At times, we were comfortable on the ball and got ourselves into dangerous areas.

"But against these teams, we cannot afford to make the mistakes we were making. We were punished for pretty much every mistake. It's not good enough. We only have ourselves to blame."

Manager Steve Clarke added in his press conference that Scotland are "probably going home".

Clarke continued: "[Brazil are] deadly in the attacking third of the pitch. We gave them the goals. On the counter, they missed a few chances.

"We created one or two chances, but nothing really clean. When you look at Brazil's play in the final third and you look at ours, there's really no comparison."

Clarke also interrupted a question, as a journalist said: "It's not often you seem angry with your players..."

Before anything could be asked, the Scotland head coach said: "I'm definitely not angry, and I'm not 'prickly' - I think that's one of the words you like as well. I'm definitely not that, either."

The former West Bromwich Albion boss has been criticised by many for his style of play throughout the tournament, and beforehand, despite leading The Tartan Army to three major tournaments.

In what is their first World Cup since 1998, Scotland began with a favourable fixture against Haiti, but laboured to a 1-0 victory via a deflected McGinn effort.

That immediately brought the goal difference issue under the spotlight, as a much-fancied Morocco followed, with Scotland losing that game 1-0.

They currently sit as the seventh-best of the third-placed teams in the group stage, with only two other groups having been completed. From both of those, Bosnia & Herzegovina and South Korea sit ahead of Scotland.

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