After over five hundred appearances for Aberdeen and fifteen years plying his trade in the Scottish Premiership Andrew Considine received his first call-up to the Scotland senior national team.
Steve Clarke also promoted Ross McCrorie to the side after the midfielder’s impressive early season display, which includes scoring for his country against Czech Republic on Friday for the U21s.
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The one club player
A rare breed of footballer these days, Considine has only ever been at Aberdeen FC, playing eighteen Scottish Premiership campaigns and picking up a League Cup winner’s medal in 2013/14.
McCrorie comes into Clarke’s squad having traversed a different path.
McCrorie is at the ‘right’ end of his career at only 22, and recently joined the Dons from Rangers on a loan deal which has seen the midfielder instantly become an integral part of Derek McInnes’ starting-eleven.
Both call-ups were made after a raft of drop-outs in Steve Clarke’s side including former Dons defender Scott McKenna through injury and Stuart Armstrong, Kieron Tierney and Ryan Christie through dreaded coronavirus restrictions.
Scotland go into their Nations League campaign on the back of a hard fought victory over Israel to secure a place in the play-off finals and the chance of claiming a final berth in the European Championships next summer.
Scotland’s 100% win record
It was the first penalty shoot-out Scotland had faced on the international stage against Israel on Thursday evening, which they came through with aplomb, burying all five penalties while David Marshall made an excellent save to deny Israel striker Eran Zahavi.
Clarke’s record isn’t as perfect in penalty shoot-outs as his nations’, having been part of Avram Grant’s backroom staff (the former Chelsea boss now head of Israeli football) in that fateful shoot-out on a rainy night in Moscow in 2008 when Man Utd lifted the Champions League trophy.
Clarke reminisced about that shoot-out after Scotland’s victory saying: “To be fair football owed me after the last one I was involved in was when John Terry slipped and missed what would have been the winning penalty.”
Clarke admitted whilst the match wasn’t pretty, his side showed desire and a winner’s mentality to hold their nerve.
Clarke said after the game: “It might not have been a pretty performance but it was a performance with character and heart.”
There will be no penalty shoot-out against Slovakia on Sunday, or the Czech Republic on Tuesday as the Nations League is (clue in the title) a league format with promotion and relegation.
Scotland v Slovakia, Sunday 11th Oct, Nations League Group B2, Hampden Park, KO 19:45
Harry Jamshid Reporter Sports Pages 