How do you sum that up? How do you look at what’s to come? No easy games at this level, are there? What do you make of the way the team fought back in the second half?Not exactly a line of questioning comparable to the Spanish Inquisition. And yet it seems a few head coaches at this World Cup can’t take the heat of a few such softballs being gently lobbed in their direction.The above questions were aimed specifically at either Scotland coach Steve Clarke or his USMNT counterpart Mauricio Pochettino following their teams’ third and final group matches and drew responses which varied from befuddled to grumpy; basically the kind of reaction you’d expect after asking your partner to put the bins out at 11.30pm in the teeming rain in November.Clarke takes the stereotypically grouchy reputation of old-school Scottish male football managers and bolsters it considerably.Get free access to the most comprehensive World Cup coverage in The Athletic appHis interviews and press conferences are known for being terse affairs and, after initially seeming to turn over a leaf before the tournament began, laughing and joking with reporters on the eve of the World Cup, he returned to type in some style after successive defeats to Morocco and Brazil left Scotland on the brink of elimination.This is how he interacted with the BBC’s Eilidh Barbour after Wednesday’s 3-0 loss to Brazil.Barbour: “Steve, we’ll get more considered thoughts shortly, but in terms of how you’re feeling right now, it’s obviously very raw coming straight off the pitch, but how tough a night was that, and what’s your initial thoughts on the 90 minutes as a whole?”Clarke: “We made it difficult for ourselves. That’s it.”Barbour: “Up against top quality opposition like that, I suppose the frustration is they didn’t have to work too hard for their goals?”Clarke: “We gave them the goals. We gave them the game we wanted (to). Disappointing.”Barbour: “Bit of a waiting game now. How do you look at what’s to come?”Clarke: “I don’t even think about that, sorry. I don’t even think about that.”And with that, he walked off before Barbour could ask another question.While it may not seem all that tense in writing, Clarke wore the face of a man who has dropped off his car for a routine annual inspection and returned to be told it needs a new engine, wheels, chassis and windscreen wipers.Readers in the UK can watch the exchange here: