CALLUM OSMAND: CELTIC’S NEW RECRUIT SHOWS A REFRESHING CONFIDENCE OFTEN MISSING IN SCOTTISH YOUNGSTERS
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- Jul 1
- 2 min read
Many, many years ago (ok it was around 2002) I wrote an opinion piece for the Glasgow Evening Times’ sports section. It was titled: “Learning to Love Ourselves Like the English”.
The piece was written against the backdrop of England preparing to go to another World Cup, with the expectation that they would win it.
Of course they didn’t, and Ronaldinho’s moment of genius (yes, he absolutely tried it) ensured the Auld Enemy were once more sent homeward to think again.
However, Scotland already knew about 9 months earlier that we weren’t going to Japan and Korea that summer, and our failure was met with a collective shrug of the shoulders and everyone essentially saying: “What do you expect? We’re sh*te!”
More than 20 years later that same inferiority complex still holds much of Scottish football and indeed wider society back. “Too wee, too poor, too stupid” has almost become a national mantra.
Callum Osmand, Celtic’s Latest Signing Shows the Confidence we Need to See More in Our Young Players
So, it was very refreshing to hear the Callum Osmand Celtic TV interview this week. Our new striker spoke with the kind of confidence we seem to have almost forgotten about in Scottish football.
The young Welshman certainly isn’t English, but having come through Fulham’s academy system, his Celtic TV debut suggests he seems to have picked up that same swagger, that same sense of self-assured confidence that so many young English players carry forth into their careers.
Essentially, it’s a difference in attitude. It is the idea of “preparing to win”, as opposed to “doing our best and hoping we don’t lose”.
Now, England often take this idea to a ridiculous extreme, especially when the World Cup or the Euros come around. However, there is something to be said for a healthy, small dose of arrogance.
Arrogance is probably the wrong word, because Osmand certainly didn’t come across as arrogant at all in his interview.
However, he exudes plenty of confidence and a self-belief that belies his young age. If nothing else, he seems unlikely to be phased by playing for a club as massive as Celtic. And as we all know, that mental fortitude, or the lack thereof, has been the undoing of many a highly promising young player at Celtic Park.
If indeed “self-confidence is the key to success” as the late Wimbledon Tennis Champion Arthur Ashe once said, then Callum Osmand is on the right track.
We won’t know until we see him play of course, but so far, I like what I’m hearing. I am quietly optimistic that he just might surprise a few people who have already written him off as a “project player”.
Time will tell.
