Scot Gemmill says Ben Doak’s Scotland call-up ‘huge motivation’ for Under-21s

Scot Gemmill believes there is a “huge motivation” for his Scotland Under-21 players to try to catch the eye of Steve Clarke, who has already recruited Ben Doak to his preliminary Euro 2024 squad.

The 18-year-old Liverpool winger has been handed his first full national team call-up ahead of the European Championships in Germany despite having spent most of this year recovering from a knee injury sustained in December.

Clarke named a 28-man squad, which will be reduced to 26 on June 7.

With some fitness concerns present, he revealed any stand-by players would come from Gemmill’s Scotland Under-21 squad which was named on Thursday morning for upcoming friendlies against Turkey and Austria.

On Under-21 star Doak’s selection for the senior squad, Gemmill said: “I think it is really exciting. Steve spoke about it yesterday, with the squad obviously raised to 26, he named 28, it is a provisional squad so I think it is really exciting and a brilliant opportunity for him, same as all the other players.”

On the potential for more of his squad, which includes the likes of Josh Doig, Connor Barron, Max Johnston and Tommy Conway, to join Doak, Gemmill said: “It is huge motivation and it is fantastic that they know the national team manager is watching the Under-21s so closely.

“We said many times, he knows better than anybody, who is in the squad, what level they are at and the potential that they have and, as he said, anything can happen in football so the players have to be ready.

“The players are very intelligent, they will have watched Steve speaking and are watching the senior squad very closely.

“We will be concentrating on preparing to play our games and if anything happens we will react to that.

“These players have a lot of self-confidence and belief and they are very ambitious.

“There will be players in our squad disappointed that they are not in Steve’s squad and I think that’s good, that’s healthy.

“We want to be working with players with that mentality and they need to keep pushing, they know that.”