Scotland have confirmed friendlies against fellow World Cup finalists Japan and Curacao as final home warm-up matches for this summer’s tournament in the Americas.
Steve Clarke’s side will face Japan on Saturday, 28 March (17:00 GMT kick-off) before taking on Curacao on Saturday, 30 May (13:00 BST).
Clarke told the Scottish FA website he is delighted to face a top-20 side as Japan visit Hampden for the first time.
“We’re also looking forward to welcoming Curacao to Glasgow, which should give us a feel for the CONCACAF federation before our game against Haiti,” he said.
It will be a first-ever meeting with the side from the Caribbean island nation, who are currently ranked 82, two places above a Haiti side who are in Scotland’s World Cup group.
The Dutch islanders are currently under the guidance of former Rangers and Netherlands boss Dick Advocaat.
Hajime Moriyasu’s Japan are currently 18th in the world, 18 places above Scotland, who say “we will shortly be in a position to confirm the details for two away friendly fixtures”.
Scotland have played Japan three times, the latest being a 2-0 win for the Samurai Blue in a Yokohama friendly in 2009, having had two previous goalless draws.
Clarke is looking forward to his squad returning to Hampden for the first time since November’s thrilling 4-2 win over Denmark that sealed World Cup qualification.
“It will be great to meet up with the squad for the first time since that crazy, momentous night, when they took us back to the World Cup after such a long time,” he added.
“We can spend the first day reminiscing but then it’s back to the serious business of preparing for the summer.”
I think the fans will want to give them a rousing send-off.
I think it is a good game against the Japanese, I have to say. If you look at their record at World Cups, they have been fantastic.
They are usually a joy to play against because they are an open and attack-minded side.
I advise Scotland fans to get along for that one because they have a lot of good players. Definitely a good test.
What you usually do is try to find teams that are going to mirror the teams you are going to be playing against – and, unfortunately, that’s not Japan. They don’t mirror Brazil, Haiti or Morocco.
But it is about getting belief again and if you can get any sort of result against a Japanese side with the talent they’ve got, their players are playing around Europe and at some of the big clubs as well, and they’ve got real depth in their squad as well.
That will be mostly a get-together. Oddly enough, the real one is the Curacao one. For Stevie Clarke, this is a serious build-up game.
You had to get a team that were like one of the teams in our group.
Haiti are Concacaf as well and Curacao won their group, Haiti won their group, so you will look at it and say ‘if we manage to win that one, it is a good bar’.
And, if you get three points from the three games, that might be just enough [to qualify from their group], so that’s why that’s why we’ve got this game.
