Scott Brown, the Celtic captain, has confirmed that he will return to the international squad for Scotland’s FIFA World Cup qualifier against Slovenia at Hampden.
The midfielder announced his retirement from international football in order to focus exclusively on his commitments to Celtic in August last year as Scotland embarked on their World Cup qualifying campaign.
He reversed that decision, believed to be upon Gordon Strachan’s request, when England hosted Scotland at Wembley in October of last year on the understanding that his return was taken in isolation.
“We’ll see if I get the call but I am available,” said Brown. “Gordon and myself speak regularly and he knows I’m available but it’s up to him to pick me. That will be for the next game and then we’ll take it from there.”
It is unlikely, however, that Brown will be available to Strachan for the visit of England to Hampden on June 10th. Celtic return to pre-season training less than a fortnight after the game in order to prepare for UEFA Champions League qualifying matches which essentially underpin the tone of the Parkhead side’s season.
It is understood the player as well as his club manager, Brendan Rodgers, believe he requires sufficient rest between back-to-back campaigns in which Celtic will play around 60 games each time.
“The England game is the big problem for me,” said Brown. “I’ve spoken before about the importance of the game and what it means but at the moment all I’m thinking about is getting three points for Scotland against Slovenia and then go from there.
“I don’t think they have looked at Celtic’s schedule! It’s okay for the guys in England, they can come back then they are away again for another four weeks.
“They obviously haven’t considered Scottish players though. We could have six players in the Scotland squad who would be back within a fortnight for the qualifiers.
“The thing I’ve got going for me is Gordon. Everyone knows who close we are. The game by game thing is huge for me. It’s not like I’m saying I’ll play this one game and then go back in to retirement.
“I don’t want to be the guy who picks and chooses what games I play. But I’ve made myself available for this one and we’ll see what happens.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel