SHOULD Barrie McKay make his Scotland debut in the forthcoming friendly matches against Italy or France, and there is a fair chance he will, the Rangers winger will benefit enormously from the experience.
Being on the same field of play as, to name just a few, Paul Pogba of Juventus, Bacary Sagna of Manchester City or Thiago Motta of Paris Saint-Germain, will give McKay an insight into the standards he must attain in order to excel in both European and international football.
Gordon Strachan, the national coach who has recognised the 21-year-old’s outstanding contribution to the Ibrox club’s successful season by calling him up for the double header, had a similar brush with greatness during his own playing days.
He featured for his country in a meeting with a France side built around the fabled “Magic Square” midfield of Luis Fernandez, Alain Giresse, Michel Platini and Jean Tigana in the Stade Veledrome in Marseille just before their opponents hosted Euro 1984.
The home team ran out comfortable 2-0 winners and it was little surprise to Strachan when Le Carre Magique promptly ensured Les Bleus won their first major tournament in those memorable finals. Rather than inspire the midfielder, though, it demoralised him.
“I didn’t need that learning experience,” he recalled this week. “I was 27 at the time and I’d played in a European final and had represented Scotland in a World Cup. I didn’t need the experience of Michel Platini breezing past me left, right and centre. That wasn’t great.
“Once we had won the ball we didn’t have a clue what to do with it. To be fair, that was a tired, tired Scotland team. We had played so many games that season – about 20 more than the lads in the current squad have done. So we were knackered and they were a great side – Platini, Giresse, Tigana and Fernandez. They were wonderful.
Strachan, then, is conscious of the detrimental impact which the meetings with Italy in the Ta’ Qali Stadium in Malta on Sunday, May 29, and France in the Stade Saint Symphorien in Metz on Saturday, June 4, could potentially have on his charges ahead of their Russia 2018 qualifying campaign.
Both countries will be finalising their preparations for the looming Euro 2016 finals and will be taking the matches seriously. As a half-glass-full kind of person, however, the Scotland manager believes the positives to arise from encounters with such outstanding international sides will far outweigh the negatives.
“We’re hoping to take something from these matches,” he said. “With these next two games, we’ll get a chance to look at young Barrie McKay coming in and this is as good as it gets for him.
“If our lads can go out there, play well and feel good about themselves then that will be a bonus because they’ll then think that they’ve got nothing to be scared of when they go into the World Cup qualifiers.
“France will be one of the favourites to win Euro 2016. They have some really good players again. You look at Dimitri Payet, who wasn’t sure of getting a game up until recently, and he is fantastic. Then there is Paul Pogba in midfield. These are world class players. So it will be a test for us.”
Scotland failed to perform at their best in the friendly games against the Czech Republic in Prague and Denmark in Glasgow back in March despite winning both outings by identical 1-0 scorelines. Strachan was encouraged by the displays of his goalkeepers Allan McGregor and Craig Gordon.
David Marshall was the first choice keeper in a Euro 2016 qualifying campaign which promised much only to end in failure and performed consistently well. But his manager has revealed he may alternate which player fills that position in the Group F games against England, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania and Malta.
“Against Denmark and the Czech Republic, the performances of the goalkeepers were bonuses I didn’t really want because you don’t want to see them working as hard as that,” he said. “So I had to look at that and now I know why.
“When you have goalies as good as ours, the problem is theirs, not mine. For me, it doesn’t matter. Sometimes, when we play against certain teams, one of them might have an asset that singles them out for that particular game. You might think: ’It’s just a goalie’ but there are different things to consider.
“It matters to them, who does and doesn’t play, but for me the three we have got are just different class. I might just tweak it at times. But it wouldn’t be just for the sake of giving them a game. I would tweak it for certain games when we might need a goalie who’s a bit different, more specialised in one thing.”
Before the Scotland squad gathers for their final two games of the 2015/16 season, Strachan will be an interested and, or so he maintains, impartial observer at the William Hill Scottish Cup final between Hibs and Rangers.
“I’ll be there,” he said. “I’m neutral in these things - but I am from Leith! I look forward to the atmosphere, the colour, the whole thing. I think it will be great and that’s the most important thing. The two clubs will be bringing colour and atmosphere that you can sell around the world. People will be watching and saying: ‘Wow!’ The teams are so well matched.”
Having been beaten by Falkirk in the semi-final of the Premiership play-off on Friday night, Alan Stubbs’s players will have to lift themselves, both physically and mentally, one last time if Hibs are to win the Scottish Cup for the first time since 1902. Strachan is confident they can do so.
“That would be a good story,” he said. “Not as good as Leicester City, right enough. But it would be good. I don’t know if they are leggy. They looked alright against Falkirk. They did very well physically, they looked in great shape. So I don’t think that’s a problem.
“I remember playing in one Scottish Cup Final in 1983 with Aberdeen when we were absolutely shattered. Big Alex McLeish still reminds me every time with ‘Have you still got that medal I won for you?’ That was Fergie after the game, saying ‘McLeish and Miller won the cup’ and giving the rest of us stick!”
There is no chance of Strachan or anybody else giving Hibs a hard time should they prevail against Rangers.
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