Steve Clarke tasted the pain of a World Cup play-off defeat against Ukraine and decided it was time for a Scotland reset.

He had watched the nation's hopes be dashed not with a mighty effort but a meek 3-1 collapse at Hampden. To be fair, it was a rare off night for his charges whose work has made the Ayrshireman the most successful national team manager in decades.

The result meant he was not going to add a World Cup qualification to his record and things would have to change to get to the next Euros in Germany.

And change they did. Scotland swept through a tough-looking group that included Spain, Norway and Georgia with a ruthless efficiency that felt out of kilter with what 30 years of football had previously taught us about the national football character.

Looking back, Clarke can see the road to Germany began with World Cup sorrow.

“That was a night when we didn’t play to our potential," he reflected. "That was the bottom line on that night. Now, whether we allowed the circumstances to override our concentration on the game, I don’t know. But we certainly didn’t play as well as we could have played.

“We deservedly lost that night. After a home win we then went to Dublin and it was clear we hadn’t really recovered because we didn’t turn up. We were really poor. But you reflect on that for a couple of weeks and ask ‘why did we do what we did?’ And ‘how can we be better?’ “We got them all together again at the end of August and just said we had to reset and go again. I sat with my extended staff and we had a big chat about how we could help the players. We decided to change the environment a little bit. We changed the shape of the team for the next game, just to do something different and freshen it up. And obviously, it worked quite well for us.”

And it wasn't just the tactics and shape that changed, with Scotland moving training camp, departing from the Oriam National Performance Centre in Edinburgh and moving to the newly refurbished Lesser Hampden. With Scotland stars now practising on a perfect training surface and returning to immaculate digs at the Blythswood Square Hotel, the changes understandably made for a happy camp.

"It was another step in the process of re-setting and saying we will do something different," admits Clarke. "It is important because you have to understand that we are working on a really broad spectrum and I will use Motherwell as an example, so from Motherwell to Liverpool.

"Fair play to the boys that are playing in the English Premier League because they don't crack the whip and say, 'we get this at Liverpool, we get this at Man United, we get this at Aston Villa.' They understand that you are trying to push as much as you can within the means that the Scottish FA have got but what they shouldn't be doing is coming into camp and thinking,' oh, this is a bit of a let-down.'

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"They should be coming into camp knowing the Scottish FA have done as much as possible to make them feel as comfortable as possible. And for people like Liam at Motherwell and the Hearts boys, they should be coming in and saying, this is brilliant, I love this. That was the sort of balance we tried to get using the Blythswood which is a lovely hotel, with great spa facilities and obviously the pitch at Lesser Hampden has been an upgrade on the pitch at Oriam so at the moment that works well.

"Oriam was the venue that I was asked to use. It was fine. Initially, it was perfect, it served its purpose. We had some really good camps at the Oriam, some great results, some great moments. We made the best of those facilities and we made them work.

"But after some time, you think, 'okay this is a little bit tired, we are a bit tired of this place and we need to change'. To be fair to the board, as soon as I began to ask for change, they were on it. They understood what I was trying to say to them. Just to freshen it up, to try to improve the facilities a little bit and move close to the top level of facility."

Scotland having a bespoke training centre is ultimately where the SFA want to get to but it's clear that such a development would have to come on the back of more sustained success. While Scotland have now qualified for two of the last three big international tournaments, more will have to come to see that dream come to fruition.

Clarke said: "Unfortunately we don't have our own base in Scotland so we have to find something and at the moment the Blythswood and Lesser Hampden is a fantastic option but I won't stop looking and I won't stop pushing for something else because I want to keep moving and moving. I say it to the board all the time, never stop trying to improve and never stop trying to look for something that eventually, hopefully, can become a Scottish FA facility.

"That would be nice but being realistic, two tournament qualifications in 25 years is not going to help us but you would need to look at another two or three, or three out of the next four, or three out of the next five, a constant extra revenue coming into the association and maybe then they can think about it."

While Oriam now looks certain to be part of the national team's past, Clarke isn't one to suggest the taxpayer-funded complex didn't serve a purpose.

He said: “When I came up I looked at the facilities and I knew that the senior players had looked at them and decided that the wifi was good, the beds were nice and they could get a bath after training so they were reasonably happy! Listen, there were some really good bits at the Oriam, the after training bits where you come off the pitch and you go into the dressing room area, there was a swimming pool and a spa facility. So there were good bits that the players enjoyed.

“At the time we moved there it was probably a step forward. In my eyes, maybe it was a small step but it was a step forward. And what we’ve done again is take a bigger step forward this time because the facilities we use at Lesser Hampden are working really well for us. So we have moved forward and that’s the process, to try and move forward again, eventually.”