Scotland have appointed Sebastien Pocognoli as their new head coach.

The 39-year-old, who guided Union Saint-Gilloise to the Belgian league title last year, replaces Steve Clarke on a two-year deal.

Pocognoli was a free agent after leaving Monaco in June. Capped 13 times by Belgium, the former left-back played for Genk, AZ Alkmaar – where he won the Eredivisie under Louis van Gaal – Standard Liège, Hannover 96, West Brom Albion, Brighton and USG.

Pocogonoli does have some limited experience of international football at youth level, where he managed Belgium’s U16 and U18 sides.

But this is his first international job – and just his third head coach role in senior men’s football.

Clarke left the Scotland job after guiding the nation to their first World Cup since 1998. But the Tartan Army were sent home at the group stage after one win from three games.

‘I will do everything to make fans proud’

Pocognoli said: “It’s an honour to be asked to become the head coach of the Scotland national team.

“When I first heard of the interest, I was immediately excited about the opportunity. Scotland’s supporters are famous for their passion – most recently at the World Cup in the USA – and I have experienced it myself as a player for Belgium when we played in 2013.

“Along with my coaching staff, I will do everything I can to give them a team to be proud of and build on the success that has been achieved already by my predecessor.

“Since negotiations began, I have been doing a lot of research, asking a lot of questions and looking at areas that we can build on. I am hugely excited by the prospect and look forward to working with the players to achieve even more success.

“We don’t have long until the first camp, so the coming weeks will be spent preparing for the UEFA Nations League and putting those plans into action on the training pitch when we meet up next month.”

Who is Sebastien Pocognoli?

Pocognoli is familiar to British audiences from his spells at West Brom and Brighton.

At the Baggies, the left-back made 21 appearances for the then-Premier League club in two years, before dropping down to the Championship to play on loan at Brighton.

Before his time in England, he was part of AZ Alkmaar’s title-winning team in the Netherlands in 2009, while he also featured for Belgian clubs Genk and Standard Liege.

During a second spell at Liege after leaving England, he won the Belgian Cup in 2018, but retired three years later in his early 30s.

His final club Union Saint-Gilloise – owned by Brighton owner and Hearts minority stakeholder Tony Bloom – offered him the Under-21s head coach role at the club.

After one season, his first club Genk took him on as Under-18s head coach, while he also worked for Belgium’s U16 and U18 youth teams.

USG then offered him the head coach role in the summer of 2024, where he guided the Belgian side to their first league title in 90 years.

Pocognoli was taken to Scotland during his one season at USG, where his team were beaten 2-1 by Rangers in the Europa League.

After winning Belgian Coach of the Year in 2025 and managing USG’s first-ever matches in the Champions League, Pocognoli took up the Monaco head coach role in October of last year.

Despite qualifying for Europe with Monaco, he was replaced as head coach on June 1.

The United States successfully defended the men’s title at the flag football world championships on Sunday but lost the women’s title to Canada, while Mexico’s women and Canada’s men earned qualification spots for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

The US men’s team beat Italy 46-26 to secure a sixth straight title, while the women’s side missed out on a fourth straight after losing 27-20 to Canada.

“Gold is the only standard,” said US men’s quarterback Nico Casares, who threw two touchdown passes. “That’s our motto. That’s what we play by, that’s what we live by.”

The US women’s side started strongly but it was tied 14-14 at the break after Caroline Moquin-Joubert caught Canada quarterback Sara Parker’s pass at the end of the first half.

Parker then set up Frederique Morneau at the start of the second half as Canada took control.

The US had a fourth down, yards from the line, with three seconds left, but could not make the final play count. It was Canada’s third title and first since beating the US in the 2014 final.

The top two men’s and women’s teams outside of the US men’s and women’s teams – because they already qualified as hosts – also earned spots at the 2028 Olympic Games.

Sunday’s two other finalists – the Italian men and Canadian women – earned their place by reaching the final against the US teams, meaning that the bronze-medal games decided who joined them.

Mexico women cried with joy after a 20-19 win over Great Britain – who rallied from 20-6 down – for the women’s bronze and an Olympic spot.

But Mexico’s men lost 34-26 in overtime to Canada, who claimed an Olympic spot.

Barcelona have reached an agreement in principle with Manchester City for midfielder Rodri, a player who is currently on top of the world.

The 30-year-old captained Spain to win this year’s World Cup, where he received the Golden Ball having been voted the tournament’s best player, while being widely regarded as tactically and technically its most significant performer.

The holding midfielder’s performance in the 1-0 win against defending champion Argentina in the final was among the best of his career. He was everywhere — nipping in to intercept a dangerous pass, arriving just in time to provide a passing option to a team-mate in trouble, surging forward on the ball to set up a Spain attack.

His incredible display at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey was a reminder of the talents that led to Rodri winning the 2024 Ballon d’Or, a prize for the best player in the world game over the previous 12 months that usually goes to superstar attackers whose skills and strengths are easier for fans to appreciate.

Rodri’s attributes can be more difficult to recognise from a distance but, in that World Cup final, Argentina were well aware of his importance, trying everything to stop him, including fellow midfielder Leandro Paredes hitting him with a cynical cheap-shot off the ball.

But those on his side always know his worth. “We’ve always said that Rodri is the best player in the world,” Spain head coach Luis de la Fuente said after the final.

Rodri added the World Cup to his list of honours that already boasted the 2024 European Championship title with Spain, and the 2022-23 UEFA Champions League, plus four Premier League titles and five domestic cups in England, with City.

Rodri won the Champions League and four league titles at City (Lewis Storey/Getty Images)

In a neat twist of fate, Rodri was also in the north-east of the United States during Spain’s other World Cup final win, back in 2010.

Two years ago, he wrote in The Players’ Tribune about watching Spain’s win over the Netherlands in that South Africa-hosted tournament on a mini laptop owned by one of the counsellors at a summer camp in the middle of a forest in central Connecticut, which the then 14-year-old Madrid native was attending to improve his English.

That is just one example of how Rodri is not an ordinary footballer. He has no social media accounts, and does not care for expensive sneakers or fast cars.

Even after he started to come to prominence at La Liga club Villarreal as a teenager, he was still studying for a degree in accounting and economics, living in the university’s residential areas and driving a battered Opel Corsa to training. Around then, he also started dating Laura, a medical student who is now his wife.

Rodri thrived at Villarreal, having been released by his first club, Atletico Madrid, when he was 16 due to concerns he was too small to make it as a professional (pretty ironic now he stands about 190cm/6ft 3in).

In 2015, he won a European Under-19 Championship with Spain, along with future senior international team-mates Unai Simon and Mikel Merino. A La Liga debut with Villarreal soon followed, and within three years he was a full Spain international and had returned to Atletico in a €25million transfer (about $28m/£21m at current rates).

Rodri spent just one season in Atletico’s first team — and there were tensions as he and the club’s Argentine coach Diego Simeone had different ideas about the role of a holding midfielder. Rodri has since paid credit to Simeone’s influence on his career.

“When I was at Villarreal, I was very good with the ball at my feet, but I was still a bit soft,” he later told The Players’ Tribune. “Under Simeone (himself an international-level defensive midfielder in his playing days), I learned what it means to be the bad guy. To be a bit of a b*****d on the pitch.”

Rodri playing under Simeone, who he praised for improving his game (Oscar Del Pozo/AFP via Getty Images)

During and after this summer’s World Cup final against Argentina, Rodri did not react to the provocation from over-aggressive opponents. But he did also show a streetwise side to his game with a sly jersey tug in the first half to make sure Argentina’s star man Lionel Messi was unable to counter-attack dangerously.

That hard side to his character and his playing style also allowed Rodri to thrive in the Premier League after City paid his £62.6million ($83m) release clause to take him from Atletico in July 2019.

Rodri quickly settled into becoming City’s most important player, carrying the ideas and attitude of their manager Pep Guardiola onto the pitch. Team-mates such as strikers Sergio Aguero and Erling Haaland may have made more headlines, but the holding midfielder playing further back on the field quietly maintained the team structure so that others could shine. His metronomic passes kept the opponent boxed back in, while his reading of the game helped to close down rival teams’ attacks.

While Rodri does most of his work near the centre of the pitch, he picks his moments to strike in attacking areas, such as arriving in the penalty area to steer in the only goal of City’s 1-0 Champions League final win over Inter of Italy in 2023.

The following summer, Rodri was again crucial as Spain won the 2024 Euros, scoring a rare international goal when the team was struggling in an early group game against Georgia.

“The biggest virtue a leader must have is to remain calm when there’s a heavy storm,” Rodri said during that tournament. “Trying to guide the team and show them the light when your team-mates struggle to find the right option. This is a good leader.”

Rodri limped off during the victory over England in that tournament’s final with an injury, and further fitness problems hampered him through the past two seasons in Manchester. Whether by coincidence or not, City did not win the Premier League in either of those years, after doing so in each of the four previous campaigns with the Spaniard central to their team.

Having barely played for Spain since Euro 2024 due to injury, including an ACL tear that kept him out of action for eight months and limited him for far longer, Rodri returned to form and effectiveness at this summer’s World Cup, again showing an uncanny ability to make maximum impact when most needed.

Moving back to Spanish club football at some point was always on the cards. Rodri knows what it is to come through tough times and return to the very top.

“For me, it’s been a very tough time,” Rodri said during Spain’s World Cup-winning celebrations.

“I said to the lads before the game, ‘We need to face them, look into their eyes’. We were brave, and I was brave in that moment when I was down. I want to thank all the people that helped me. But I want to thank myself, to be honest, in those moments.”