Deciding to join Celtic may turn out to be one of the best decisions that Matt O’Riley takes in his playing career. This week he got a call-up to the Denmark Under 21 squad and he played his part in comfortable Celtic wins against Dundee United in the Scottish Cup and Ross County in the Scottish Premiership which both edge Celtic closer to the two major ambitions as the players look to complete a treble in Ange Postecoglou’s first season in charge.
Riley reflected on both his international call-up and the mounting excitement as Celtic close in on these targets and revealed that his granny is now a confirmed member of the Celtic family cheering on every game back home in Copenhagen. And she’s now heading over to Scotland to catch some of the upcoming action at the games – if she can get herself a ticket!
“My cousins and Grandma particularly are huge football fans,” Matt O’Riley said to the media, as reported by Glasgow Times. “My Grandma is going to come home with me on the flight back and stay in my apartment here in Glasgow for a little while. She wants to come and see me play for Celtic and see the stadium and the city which is great.
“She has been watching every Celtic game since I signed, sitting in her little apartment just outside Copenhagen making sure that she gets online to see the matches.
“I have cousins who are further North so they are all scattered around a bit but they are all following me and following Celtic now. They are planning on coming to watch me for our game and then my Grandma will be with me on the way back.
“I wouldn’t put it past her to try to sneak into Ibrox for that game against (the)Rangers either! She is definitely wanting a ticket for Hampden too….she’s a superfan!
On his international call-up for the Danish Under 21s last week the Celtic midfielder had this today: “I am in a FaceBook messenger and WhatsApp group with the Danish side of my family and they were obviously buzzing with it. They haven’t watched someone in the family play for Denmark so they think it is so cool. I am excited for the football but also to get over and see them all because I haven’t actually seen that side of my family for a long time because of the Covid situation.”
While Matt’s Under 21 Denmark call-up is big news in his family, the big news this week was the call-up for Brentford’s Christian Eriksen, the first time the Danish talisman has been named in a squad since that awful afternoon at the start of the Euros when he came so close to losing his life.
“The headlines this week over in Denmark have been about the return of Christian Eriksen into the national team again and it is a huge thing for the country,” O’Riley stared. “They are all so excited that he is back in the team. It is such a big boost for the country. I would definitely like to aim to play alongside him one day; that would be cool.
“I watched all of the Euros and I watched that game. It was awful to see and really scary just to watch it from a distance. Even if you aren’t a Danish fan I think everyone sympathised with what happened and it is fantastic now to see him back playing. I knew he had played 90 minutes the other week so he is obviously feeling fit again which is just amazing to see.
“It shows how good the treatment he got was and how advanced medical science is that he has been able to come back from something so serious and feel confident of getting back to the level before. It is so cool to see.”
Morten Wieghorst played a crucial role in getting O’Riley his well deserved international recognition and the former Celtic midfielder will not be one of those who looks down his nose at players playing their football in Scotland.
“I wasn’t sure that I would get called up but I knew that I had a chance so I was really pleased with it,” he said. “I’d just tried to keep my performance levels up for Celtic and focus on playing well so it is nice to get the chance.
“I am pretty fluent in Danish. I can certainly understand everything but occasionally I find it difficult to think of what exactly I want to say so I might need a little bit of practice when I first get over there but I am sure I’ll be ok.
“I know a few of the guys and I am actually very good mates with one of the guys we played against at Bodo/Glint – Japhet Sery. That will help but I am quite confident of being able to settle into the team quickly, just as I did here.
“When I had the meeting with the staff they told me that 18 from the 24 players in the senior squad had all come through the 21s and it is something they feel strongly about, that there is a progressive path for the players. It is something that I can hopefully do. If this is step one for me then step two is obviously really pushing for the senior team,” Matt said.
