FOR even the most professional of professional footballers it is the equivalent of taking the in-laws around garden centres on a particularly Sunday afternoon off.

Playing in end-of-season friendlies when there is no tournament to prepare for is a task that for some cannot be avoided.

Gordon Strachan used to hate these games as a player. All he wanted to do was go on holiday and instead was dragged halfway across the world to risk injury in an utterly meaningless match. Talk about a poacher turning gamekeeper.

The Scotland manager is at least asking his tired players to take on glamorous opposition in Italy and France – remember Qatar a year ago? – and it’s only a short plane journey for the squad. However, Strachan knows full well that such games are rarely welcome by any player.

“That’s why we had to make the games against top sides, to entice some of them,” admitted Strachan. “I played these games at the end of the season myself. I remember going with Scotland to play three games in Canada. That was torture, literally torture.

“We had to play on the old Astroturf in Vancouver, then flew to Edmonton and then Toronto. There was 16 of us, that’s all. There were more Scottish officials than there were players – so that wasn’t great.

“No sports scientists can tell me about it. I have been there and done it. I know how it feels. If you had said to me we were playing France and Italy, and not far away, I would have said that wasn’t bad.

“There were a lot of things in the air and we knew it would be difficult. Do we have no games and go from March to our first game without anything? I didn’t think that would be right and so the best way to do it is take a gamble.

“I might get a rough time because it isn’t my full squad but we took two squads the last time and that worked out very positively.”

From the current Scotland manager to a former one, Craig Brown, who during his time in charge of the national team found himself begging players to extend their season for a couple of days just so he could cobble a squad together. Good results rarely come out of such a scenario.

"These games are difficult to get players to come for,” said Brown. "I hope Gordon's luckier than I was. We'd a game against Holland in Utrecht (the 3-1 loss in May 1994). They were in a training camp and it was pretty lucrative for the SFA.

“I was asked to get a team together and so I rang round the managers and eventually I got a squad together and it included – with no disrespect – Stevie Clarke at left-back. I loved Stevie, a nice guy and a good player, but we were well provided for in the position.

“We had Brian Irvine at centre-half. The team wasn't our strongest. Duncan Shearer was up the front. They had every star playing: Frank Rijkaard, Marc Overmars, Ruud Gullit up-front. What a team.

“It was 1-0 at half-time, one going on 10. Every time they went up the park I was watching through my fingers. They'd taken Gullit off at half-time and I thought it was to save us from a bigger doing.

"He had in fact fallen out with Dick Advocaat, the Dutch manager at the time, and Gullit never played for him again. I told big Brian he had finished Gullit's international career!"