STEVE CLARKE believes Scotland can emulate Croatia’s success — but need to do something different to improve the pathway for young players.

Scotland suffered their first defeat in five matches against Friday’s Hampden visitors when they went down 2-1 in Zagreb in the Nations League last month, but Croatia have been far more successful on the bigger stage, and for a sustained period.

Croatia have managed third-place finishes at the 1998 and 2022 World Cups as well as finishing runners-up in 2018, and were also beaten finalists in the previous Nations League.

With a population of less than four million, slightly lower than Scotland, the country has long been held up as an example of what might be possible if Scottish football can nurture talent.

Clarke said: “They’ve got a system set up right from the young ages all the way through because they seem to have a conveyor belt of talent. They keep bringing players through.

“They also have a lot of players with longevity at the top level, with over 100 caps or between 75 and 100.

“They’ve just got the balance right. They produce a lot of good young players and allow them to play a lot of games in their own country before they move out – which is a really good grounding and something we can maybe get better at here.

“And they show a pathway for the young players. There’s a lot we need to try and change if we want to get better.

“We can get to that level but we still have a lot of work to do. At some stage, people have to sit down — a think tank or whatever — and try something a bit different that we haven’t tried before to see if we can improve it.

“If we keep doing what we’re doing, it’s not going to get better.”

Clarke’s focus is on getting three points Friday to ensure Scotland have the chance to stay in the elite level of the Nations League, but he believes others have to examine how to get more young Scottish players competing at the highest levels of domestic football.

A recent Scottish FA report revealed that the country “lags significantly behind comparable nations in terms of young player minutes at every level of the game,” with the ages of 16-21 a particular problem.