John McGinn says Scotland were acting in the best interests of the national team by cancelling a pre World Cup bounce game against Norway.
The SFA were forced to hit back at their Norwegian counterparts after Stale Solbakken criticised the late postponement, branding his opposite number Steve Clarke ‘unprofessional.’
The two nations planned to play a training ground bounce game in North Carolina today until Clarke pulled the plug on the exercise after he utilised most of his squad in Friday’s 4-0 win over Bolivia in New Jersey.
Co-ordinated by Scotland’s Football Operations Manager Michael Hughes, the Norwegians were informed the following day that the Scots were reluctant to risk any further injuries after Billy Gilmour’s World Cup was ended by injury during the Hampden send off against Curacao.
And Aston Villa captain has now backed that decision, saying: "Our job is to look after Scotland. Norway’s job is to look after Norway.
“And if they’ve done their research, we lost a very important part of our squad very, very close to this camp. That had a huge impact on everyone.
“We didn’t want to lose another player. We’ve had a few niggles and not everyone has been training.
“So I think it’s a professional way of handling things, to be perfectly honest, to look after number one. And I’m sure every single country will be doing exactly the same thing.
“Norway will be angry because they will have had their own plans set up for that game.
“But if Norway lost Erling Haaland or Martin Odegaard in one of the games leading up to Saturday then they would have cancelled the game as well.”
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Speaking after Norway’s 1-1 draw with Scotland’s Group C opponents Morocco on Sunday Solbakken described Scotland’s stance as ‘surprising.’
Speaking to broadcaster NRK Solbakken said: "It is unprofessional of Scotland. It is unprofessional that the coach has not called me, that they use the team manager and call and say it after we have finished training.
“I don't think the injuries they're blaming came from the last training session. That's not the case. It's disappointing. It's unprofessional.
"But we have to live with that. That's why we adjusted a bit in the game."
A Scottish FA spokesperson expressed ‘surprise’ at the Norwegians airing dirty linen in public saying: "The behind-closed-doors training game was organised and arranged between the respective team managers - not the head coaches - and this was the same process we followed when we regrettably had to cancel on Saturday.
"We have had some injuries during our previous friendlies and when it became apparent that a training game would bring greater risk than potential preparatory reward, we alerted the Norway team manager as soon as possible.
"We believe this was the right and consistent process. The game was also due to be behind closed doors and not announced publicly - so we were surprised when news of the game broke via Norwegian media."
Speaking before Solbakken commented publicly Clarke said of the issue: "It was just going to be a training game for an hour at our training ground. We picked up one or two niggles last week and decided it wasn't worth the risk."
The Norwegians kick off their campaign against Iraq, three days after Scotland face Haiti in Boston.
Norway's team manager, former Fulham defender Brede Hangeland, said that they had based their World Cup preparations on the closed-doors friendly ‘for many months’.
Training in Greensboro, 90 miles from Scotland's training camp in Charlotte,’ the Norway operations manager said: "It is embarrassing to cancel it a couple of days before. We can't do anything about it.
"We just have to forget about it and make the best of it. But there has been a lot of organisation, agreements and gentlemen's agreements and then suddenly they don't want to. I think that was weak, so to speak."
