Articles

Celtic’s International Break Was A Triumph As Our Players Wowed The World.

|
Image for Celtic’s International Break Was A Triumph As Our Players Wowed The World.

International football usually leaves me cold. When it’s not doing that it is scaring the living daylights out of me in case it ends with one of our players (or more) out injured.

Every now and again, though, it makes me proud and this is one of those times.

Our international stars were a credit to the club this month. They excelled.

They made the world sit up and take notice.

From Cameron Carter Vickers making his first starts for the US to those others who got their first goals.

Start with Tony Ralston.

He just continues to grow and grow and grow as a footballer, and he has proved that he’s Scotland’s number one right back. Clarke may persevere with the Everton reserve on occasion, but he’ll look increasingly ridiculous if he does.

Ralston wasn’t just outstanding for the national team but he got his first goal too.

He was not the only one. Liel Abada scored for Israel and prompted his previous manager to slap a massive valuation on his head.

Matt O’Riley scored for Denmark, and that was a beauty of goal, although not as good, in my view, as the one Giorgios Giakoumakis scored for Greece.

We also had Daizen Maeda scoring for Japan.

None of those performances was as notable or headline grabbing as the outstanding display from Juranovic, who played at left back for Croatia and ended with their national coach slamming Ibrox’s Barisic for being injury prone and as good as confirming that our boy will be preferred in that role from now on. That was excellent to read.

You’ll notice the almost total lack of Ibrox feel-good, except for some performances for Nigeria and one for the north of Ireland.

In Scotland terms, the international break started with Ryan Jack pulling out of the team – when does he not? – and ended with Souttar crying off with an injury. Their club has never been a reliable contributor to the national side; call-offs from Ibrox are so common that you used to be able to set your watch to them.

Our players all ended the spell without injuries.

They now have the freedom of a few weeks’ rest before returning to training at the end of the month.

Those whose season was extended by this farcical schedule should get an extra week … and then it’s back to business. They will be ready, therefore, when we hurtle back into combat in six weeks or so.

Overall though, I’m pretty proud of our players and their excellent contributions to their national teams. It is fair to say that Celtic players wowed the world this past few weeks, contributing to their international sides on three continents.

For once it was just great to see it.

Our club is due to play a high profile friendly for The Holy Goalie soon … how well do you know our Polish players? Take the quiz and find out. It’s a nice way to relieve the boredom of the Silly Season.

1 of 25

How many Polish footballers have played for Celtic?

Share this article

0 comments

Comments are closed.