- Quote: ‘We’ve had good preparation. Training has been fantastic. We all want to avoid the virus but there’s no point stressing about it. There are certain situations you can’t control’ – head coach Steve Clarke
By Andrew Atkinson
Six of the seven Scotland players who missed the friendly draw against the Netherlands in Portugal on June 2, due to Covid-19 fears, returned to training at Pinatar Arena before Sunday’s (June 6) meeting with Luxembourg.
David Marshall, Stephen O’Donnell, Nathan Patterson, Grant Hanley, John McGinn and Che Adams did not travel to the Algarve for the 2-2 draw against the Netherlands after John Fleck’s positive test that saw the midfielder self-isolating at the training camp.
“We’ll take it a day at a time,” said Scotland head coach Steve Clarke after the 2-2 draw with the Dutch.
“The only one that won’t train is John Fleck. We’ll give him a couple of days. He hasn’t returned any negative tests as of yet,” said Clarke.
Fleck, 29, who tested positive for COVID-19 is asymptomatic but must record two negative tests before being allowed to come out of a 10-day quarantine period early, under Spanish health protocols.
Clarke added: “John’s fine. No symptoms. He’s got to isolate for a few days but we’ll keep an eye on him, we’ll look after him as we do with everybody. Hopefully it stops there.
“Looking at the information we’ve got and relying on the doctors for the medical opinion we’re 99 per cent sure that John brought it into the camp, it came with him.
“It’s just one of those things with the state of the world at this moment with the pandemic.
“We just have to deal with it, as other countries might have to deal with it as well.
“John will be in isolation until he returns a couple of negative tests. I’m not quite sure what the guidelines are in Spain in terms of the number of days he will have to isolate for.
“But we’ll be testing every day with John and waiting for him to return a few negative tests.”
Fleck’s positive result comes ahead of Scotland’s first appearance at a major tournament since 1998 with the squad training in Pinatar.
“For everyone else, it’s just carry on as normal and continue the good work. The thing I don’t want is for this isolated case to overshadow the good work that we’ve done.
“We’ve had good preparation. The training has been fantastic. The boys are in a great place.
“We all want to avoid the virus as much as we can and that’s certainly no different within the camp,” said Clarke.
“We’ll have to be reactive to certain situations but there’s no point stressing about it.
“There are certain situations that you can’t control,” added Clarke.
Scotland face Luxembourg on June 6, before beginning their Group D UEFA Euro2020 campaign against the Czech Republic at Hampden on June 14.
