WHEN Gordon Strachan and Martin O'Neill were working as ITV pundits at the World Cup they often ended up in bed together.
Being away from home for several weeks in Brazil can have that effect on people. Strachan himself coughed up this information quite freely as he looked ahead to Friday's Scotland-Republic of Ireland Euro 2016 qualifier. The pair of them had cosied up like Morecambe & Wise, he said. It felt impolite to press him on whether they were under the covers, let alone which of them had the short, fat, hairy legs and who was doing the double slap on both cheeks. Suffice to say every Scotland supporter has one message for Strachan ahead of this crucial fixture: bring me sunshine.
"I wouldn't call him a close friend but once we meet we get on great together," said Strachan of his unlikely bedfellow. "It's not so much football we talk about, it's films, music and TV programmes. We spent half an hour in the back of mini vans going about Rio de Janeiro [after broadcasts]. We would drop the young ones off at nightclubs [the younger pundits, that is, not their children] and we went home and listened to music on YouTube.
"We did stupid things like having our meal on the bed, me and him watching football. It was like Morecambe & Wise. He starts a conversation then goes somewhere else and you think 'where's he going now?'. He's a good storyteller, good company."
A certain chumminess has been suspected around this fixture. The choice of Parkhead as the venue was criticised by some for being a little too hospitable and familiar to the visitors given that O'Neill and his assistant, Roy Keane, are former Celtic men. Affection for Ireland in general is hardly hidden around Celtic or its stadium. The counter argument is pretty straightforward: Parkhead is the biggest football ground in the country and therefore the loudest and potentially most hostile and inhospitable.
And there will be nearly 57,000 Scotland fans in the stadium on Friday, not a Celtic support with any sort of divided loyalties. Anyone inclined to interpret the gentle fun of Strachan and O'Neill sharing a bed as an indication of diminished competitiveness between them would be guilty of a profound misunderstanding of their personalities.
They have moved in roughly the same football circles for most of their adult lives and "one of the best decisions I made in life", said Strachan, was to take the Celtic job after O'Neill left in 2005. Among the players they have both managed is Robbie Keane, the iconic striker who boasts 65 international goals in 137 appearances.
He is 34 now and with LA Galaxy. Strachan has known him since 19. He paid £6 million to sign him for Coventry City in 1999 and within nine months Keane was off to Serie A for £13m. "It was Inter Milan and Ronaldo or Coventry and Darren Huckerby. So he went."
And now, 15 years later? "He's not changed, honestly. He has more intelligence, but in his actual game he's still thinking quickly. Our players cannot at any time fall asleep round about him. He can lull you into feeling everything is all right here and then suddenly, whoosh, he's away. We've had people with great application but not as technically gifted as him. Ikechi Anya is full of life but he hasn't done what Robbie has in his career and Robbie has had to deal with being a top player since he was 19. That's hard to keep going, that enthusiasm and people looking at you. He's been a leader for 16 years and once you can do that then you call yourself a player. I tried to get him to Celtic when he was at Liverpool or somewhere, but we couldn't manage it."
Keane, of course, had a brief spell on loan at Celtic under Strachan's successor, Tony Mowbray.
Does Strachan feel Steven Fletcher's play is as clever as Keane's? Only one goal in 17 international appearances is a poor return but Fletcher has contributed hugely for Strachan in recent games, with assists as Anya and Shaun Maloney scored against Germany and Poland respectively. "He is not far away," comes the answer. "He definitely has the intelligence, all he needs to do is add the goals that Robbie put together and then you have a terrific, terrific player. If you'd seen him at training last time, you'd be thinking 'what a good player you are'. A goal would be great but if he keeps making assists that means we are scoring."
When the Republic were last in Scotland for a competitive game Strachan was playing. "That was the night I decided to get myself on the weights," he says. "Me and Roy [Aitken] got outnumbered magnificently in the middle of the pitch by some right good players."
And did using weights help his game? "Well, I played until I was 40."
The Irish won 1-0 at Hampden on February 18, 1987, during a campaign in which they got to the European Championship finals and Scotland didn't. On Friday, Strachan and O'Neill's relationship will be tested in a way Morecambe & Wise's never was.
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