INTERNATIONAL BREAKS, AND WHY THEY HURT CELTIC
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- Oct 6
- 3 min read
I’m not going to lie, I used to be one of those people who enthusiastically watched every Scotland match, even went to the odd qualifying tie here and there and wore my Scotland shirt with pride.
These days, I just can’t be bothered and neither can many other Celtic fans, it seems.
After watching yesterday’s nail-biting 3-2 win over Motherwell, I said to my dad: “So, who are we playing next week?”
“Erm, it’s the international break next week son,” was his sullen reply.
A mutually exasperated, collective sign then left both sets of our lungs simultaneously.
“Great, two weeks without Celtic,” I mumbled sarcastically to myself.
International Breaks Used to be Exciting, Now They Just Seem Like a Nuisance
The upcoming international break should be a time of excitement. If you’re a Scotland fan, then, for once, we actually have a half-decent shot at qualifying for a World Cup.
Despite this, all I can think about is the worry that Celtic players might get injured, and that the sense of togetherness and consistency that we clearly need to work on in training, will only be further fragmented by having our players sent all over the World for the next couple of weeks.
Let’s face it, Kasper Schmeichel just hasn’t been the same player since he got that shoulder injury playing for Denmark last season. At numerous times in the past, players like Reo Hatate have also seemed jaded, even tired come the next domestic game following international duty.
The fact that I’ve stopped watching Scotland games, because the turgid style of play and the utterly uninspiring, if admittedly, quite effective tactics we deploy are genuinely depressing to watch, is a side issue. However, I also know I’m not alone in this regard.
There are plenty of Celtic fans who, for reasons social, political and historic, choose not to follow Scotland, opting instead for their ancestral homeland of Ireland.
And that’s fine. I’m not one of them, but I totally get why some have that mindset, especially given the historically poor treatment of Celtic players by a certain subsection of the Scotland support.
Could we not just condense this entire World Cup/Euro Qualifying campaign into one long run of matches maybe played over a month or something like that?
We know that clubs like Celtic would love to see the winter break brought back. I think a lot of fans too might prefer watching Scotland, Ireland or whoever your country of choice is from the comfort of your warm living room on the TV rather than sitting in a freezing cold Celtic Park as we grind out a series of narrow wins over a series of consistently boring 11-man defensive blocks across December and January.
To me, it’s a no brainer. Play all the necessary qualifiers over a 4 or 5 week period during winter. Players who are injured would have time to recover; fans don’t need to worry about cold weather or Christmas/New Year travel congestion.
And most importantly, I could be looking forward to watching Celtic next weekend rather than spending the next fortnight sulking because there’s no football on the telly!
