The big news this afternoon is that former Celtic goalkeeper David Marshall has decided to call time on his international footballing career. Marshall will now put all of his energy into his club football, having recently signed on at Hibernian – with manager Lee Johnson snapping him up on freedom of contract.
The big keeper managed to amass 47 international caps for his country, making his debut in 2004 against Hungary at Hampden Park. He would go on to make another 46 appearances between 2004 – 2021, culminating in a number of high profile matches along the way – including matches against Israel and Serbia when he saved crucial penalties in those matches to send us to Euro 2020 last summer.
His last cap would be the game that ultimately ended Scotland’s hopes of progressing beyond the group stage of that tournament, with Callum McGregor’s equalising goal not enough to stop fellow teammate Josip Juranovic and co. breaking Scottish hearts as they put another two past Marshall to ensure they reached the knockout rounds that year.
Marshall began his career at Celtic Park, breaking onto the scene against Barcelona in the UEFA Cup in 2004. The budding ‘keeper would be introduced under a cloud of controversy as number one, Rab Douglas was incorrectly sent off after a stramash in the tunnel at half-time that night following an incident between Thiago Motta and Bobo Balde.
As the story goes Marshall was excellent and managed to help secure a 1-0 victory and a clean sheet that night, courtesy of an Alan Thompson scissor-kick. However, it was the return fixture that truly sent Marshall into the Celtic stratosphere as time and again he thwarted Ronaldinho and his friends from pulling one back for over 90 minutes. To this day it remains the best goalkeeping performance most have seen in a Celtic jersey.
It wasn’t the long-term fairytale at Parkhead it had started out to be. After such an auspicious start to life in the green and white, Marshall was shipped out post-O’Neill and replaced by Gordon Strachan. The only silver lining for Hoops fans was his replacement, Artur Boruc. Dubbed the “Holy Goalie”, Boruc helped the fans get over Marshall quicker than expected as he became a folklore legend at Paradise.
It seems as though Steve Clarke is dead set on Craig Gordon being his number one for Scotland. With game time limited and the last few years of his career just around the corner, perhaps David is thinking about winding down a bit and having more time with the family during international breaks now.
Whatever the reason, we wish him all the best next season at Hibs and thank him for his heroics in a Scotland top, which ended 20 odd years of pain that night in Belgrade.
Thanks, David.
Here’s Sky Sports reporting on the recent announcement:
Incidentally that Celtic team photo at the top of the page, can you name the team, some are easier than others. No cheating by looking it up on Celtic Wiki. Here’s the photo again…
Paul Gillespie
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