International retirement has always been an odd one to work out. For as long as a player is playing well for his club then there will always be calls for them to turn out for their country again.
It’s obvious that sometimes a player might need a break for international duty every now and then. The schedule can be grueling so being taken away from your family a few times a year on top of the club schedule will start to take it’s toll.
The problem is, you can only imagine the backlash that would come from a player saying they want to miss out on a few squads, fans will claim they don’t care and it could turn toxic.
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Scott Brown has already performed one u-turn on retiring from Scotland, so the prospect of qualifying for EURO 2020 has raised some speculation that he might come back yet again. The Daily Record has reported on some of Neil Lennon’s opinions on the matter.
It’s clear that he will back his man and knows he’s good enough to make a difference, but he does question if it might cause some issues among the current players.
Lenny said: “The midfield’s functioned very well for Scotland in their last few games and you have Scott McTominay to come back in as well. He’s certainly playing very well at the moment and there’s no question he could still make a contribution to the Scottish team.”
He went on to add: “I totally get the attraction for Scott of having an appearance at a major finals on his cv but how would his comeback affect the rest of the group, the people who’ve been performing?”
At this point it’s really just paper talk, Broony hasn’t made any definite commitment and Steve Clark hasn’t said anything decisive either.
In reality, it would require Scotland to win a couple of games when it matters most, so it probably won’t matter. Let’s wait for them to qualify before we start to worry about this too much.
