Callum McGregor Put Celtic First, But After Years Of National Service He Deserves The Country’s Thanks.

So, probably the least surprising news of the week broke yesterday morning. We found out that Callum McGregor has officially hung up his boots in terms of international football. I wanted to give it a day and to let the dust settle, before diving in myself.

Now, a lot of folks seem taken aback by this, but I’m not. I said it on the group podcast not long ago that this was bound to come up soon. I’ve written about it a couple of times, and it was obvious that he was heading towards having the conversation.

So well done to Callum McGregor for making the call. This is definitely going to benefit him, and more importantly, it’s a massive win for the club.

He’s done a Scott Brown, hasn’t he?

In the peak years of his career, putting Celtic front and centre.

He’s chosen the club over country—a sacrifice, mind you, that none of us would’ve demanded of him. Not ever. But it’s one he’s made, willingly. It shows his complete commitment to Celtic, and that deserves a round of applause.

Now, in terms of what the national team’s losing, it’s going to sting. But let’s be honest, there’s always been a bunch of sneering halfwits downplaying Callum McGregor’s contributions to Scotland anyway, and we’ve written about them enough times.

Well, now they’ll have to face a reality without him in the squad. The team will be poorer for it, but they’ll have to deal with it.

It’s a sad thing that Callum’s international career has ended coming off a dismal Euro finals where the coach’s poor tactics left us with little to cheer about and hamstrung the team. I doubt this is how Callum would’ve chosen to sign off as a Scotland player if he saw any other option. To stay past now would have all but committed him to another long qualifying campaign, and quite possibly another finals, and I don’t think he wants that.

If you’re looking to point fingers, aim them squarely at UEFA.

The demands on players these days are just insane. McGregor played a full season, including internationals, Champions League, and everything else—a total of nearly 50 matches, and then went right into those Finals. I’ve said it before—twice in the last six years, Callum has played a 50-game season. You can’t keep doing that to yourself without it taking a toll and it’s a scandal that UEFA expects players – any player – to do that.

But they just keep on increasing the number of games anyway.

So players are being pushed harder than ever, and with UEFA expanding the Champions League, the pressure on their bodies is only increasing. There’s less time off, less time to recover.

For Callum, who played so many games for Celtic last season, then threw in Scotland qualifiers, and then the Euros—it was unsustainable.

Something had to give, and it was always going to be Scotland because he’s not walking away from his club career, and McGregor isn’t going to be benched at Celtic.

Scottish football owes Callum a huge debt of gratitude for the career he’s had and the sacrifices he’s made for the national team.

To expect him to keep going at that pace would’ve been ridiculous.

This decision is the best thing for him, and for Celtic.

He deserves congratulations for making it, even if his time on the national stage didn’t end the way he might have wanted. Nevertheless, I know he considered it a great honour and privilege every time he pulled on the Scotland shirt.

And in that shirt, Callum never gave less than 100%. And that’s the crux of it. You want that guy to have a life after football, and he couldn’t keep playing the equivalent of a game every six days. Nor should he have been expected to.

Callum McGregor, your country owes you a debt, and we thank you for your service. Now you can focus on leading this club of ours to even more silverware.